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Advice please

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Just to add that if you’re newly diagnosed @Gwynn then your need to now decrease insulin could be due to the ‘honeymoon period’ where the injected insulin has given your failing beta cells a rest and they’ve recovered a tiny bit and are making a little insulin themselves.

You mention 7 meals that are “carefully planned” - do you mean planned by a dietician for you? Do you mean 3 meals plus snacks? Generally twice daily insulin needs 3 regular meals and sometimes snacks in between and last thing at night.
 
Hello @Gwynn I know its early day`s and I agree with @Inka ask if you can
go on a Basal/Bolus regime its a lot more flexible, your figures are very
reasonable and it doesn`t follow you will get the same readings from the same
meals. I would ask you to reconsider the amount of carbs you have assessed
in your milk I`m sure you don`t sit in the bath to eat your cornflakes, depending
on what milk you use.

I use semi skimmed and have 200ml every morning in a glass which is 9.6g of
carbs so if you are using 209g of carbs of milk I hope you have a big enough
breakfast bowl. Its easy enough to work out look at the Nutrition Info label on
the product and it will tell you the amount of carbs per 100ml using a measuring
jug add the amount of milk you require then using the amount of carbs per 100ml
just equate it to to the amount of milk you need. I can give the proper equation
but I think your head has enough to deal with.

Remember small steps at a time stick with the forum and your Diabetes team
soon you`ll be wondering what all the fuss was about.

One last point sorry if you already know in the UK carbs and sugars are basically
classed as glucose so if the label say`s 5g of carbs of which sugars are 5g dismiss
the sugars part its still only 5g in total, hope this helps.
 
KARNAK said:
Hello @Gwynn I know its early day`s and I agree with @Inka ask if you can
go on a Basal/Bolus regime its a lot more flexible, your figures are very
reasonable and it doesn`t follow you will get the same readings from the same
meals. I would ask you to reconsider the amount of carbs you have assessed
in your milk I`m sure you don`t sit in the bath to eat your cornflakes, depending
on what milk you use.

I use semi skimmed and have 200ml every morning in a glass which is 9.6g of
carbs so if you are using 209g of carbs of milk I hope you have a big enough
breakfast bowl. Its easy enough to work out look at the Nutrition Info label on
the product and it will tell you the amount of carbs per 100ml using a measuring
jug add the amount of milk you require then using the amount of carbs per 100ml
just equate it to to the amount of milk you need. I can give the proper equation
but I think your head has enough to deal with.

Remember small steps at a time stick with the forum and your Diabetes team
soon you`ll be wondering what all the fuss was about.

One last point sorry if you already know in the UK carbs and sugars are basically
classed as glucose so if the label say`s 5g of carbs of which sugars are 5g dismiss
the sugars part its still only 5g in total, hope this helps.
Click to expand...
I am thinking these are total weights, not carb weights! 🙂
 
Oh @silentsquirrel you are correct and I stand corrected 209gs would be 200 ml.

Sorry @Gwynn me and my silly reasoning didn`t cross my mind it would be weight,
liquid is usually measured in quantity rather than weight e.g. metric or imperial.
I hope you can forgive my now obvious mistake whose a Richard the Head. 😳
 
It’s unusual for someone newly diagnosed with T1 these days to be given metformin and a mixed insulin @Gwynn - it’s not what NICE suggests in the guidelines any more.

Like @Inka says, mixed insulins are much less flexible than basal:bolus. I think you’d find it much easier long-term to move to more injections with separate basal and bolus doses. That way you can learn to adjust your meal doses based on what you are going to eat 🙂
 
Well On advice from the diabetic nurse, I am now on 12 units in the morning and 2 units in the evening. I started at 18/12.

I may, after speaking to them reduce to 10/0 today. Who knows.

My blood glucose levels just won't budge from around 4.5 no matter what I seem to do. Now thats a lot better than when I went into hospital with a level of 54. Not 5.4 but 54. I felt very poorly too.

I feel better now than I ever have done in my life (apart from all the stress).

Is it possible that I may not have diabetes at all? Perhaps a silly thought.

My diet is very very strictly controlled and I use an App that I wrote to ensure I eat sufficiently and correctly. Is the strict diet helping or masking things? I don't know yet. I have 7 small meals a day, two of them being 'main' meals (if you can call them that)

Thanks for all your help at the beginning. I was in a real panic with little information or support and blood glucose levels all over the place. Mind you my diet wadn't well controlled then

If you are interested I will let you know how I get on
 
Gwynn said:
Well On advice from the diabetic nurse, I am now on 12 units in the morning and 2 units in the evening. I started at 18/12.

I may, after speaking to them reduce to 10/0 today. Who knows.

My blood glucose levels just won't budge from around 4.5 no matter what I seem to do. Now thats a lot better than when I went into hospital with a level of 54. Not 5.4 but 54. I felt very poorly too.

I feel better now than I ever have done in my life (apart from all the stress).

Is it possible that I may not have diabetes at all? Perhaps a silly thought.

My diet is very very strictly controlled and I use an App that I wrote to ensure I eat sufficiently and correctly. Is the strict diet helping or masking things? I don't know yet. I have 7 small meals a day, two of them being 'main' meals (if you can call them that)

Thanks for all your help at the beginning. I was in a real panic with little information or support and blood glucose levels all over the place. Mind you my diet wadn't well controlled then

If you are interested I will let you know how I get on
Click to expand...
Was the 54 a lab result as meters don't go that high!
 
Gwynn said:
Well On advice from the diabetic nurse, I am now on 12 units in the morning and 2 units in the evening. I started at 18/12.

I may, after speaking to them reduce to 10/0 today. Who knows.

My blood glucose levels just won't budge from around 4.5 no matter what I seem to do. Now thats a lot better than when I went into hospital with a level of 54. Not 5.4 but 54. I felt very poorly too.

I feel better now than I ever have done in my life (apart from all the stress).

Is it possible that I may not have diabetes at all? Perhaps a silly thought.

My diet is very very strictly controlled and I use an App that I wrote to ensure I eat sufficiently and correctly. Is the strict diet helping or masking things? I don't know yet. I have 7 small meals a day, two of them being 'main' meals (if you can call them that)

Thanks for all your help at the beginning. I was in a real panic with little information or support and blood glucose levels all over the place. Mind you my diet wadn't well controlled then

If you are interested I will let you know how I get on
Click to expand...

Don’t let the honeymoon fool you @Gwynn Shortly after diagnosis I was on 1 unit of basal per day (yes, that is ‘one’). I still had and have Type 1 even though my basal remains on the low side.

Have you had a chance to talk to the nurse about a basal/bolus regime as mentioned by me and others earlier in this thread? Mixed insulin means you can’t reduce one portion of the mix without affecting the other portion - which is very inflexible. Even if you wish to remain on two injections a day, it would be better to have two separate insulins (fast and slow) that you mix to your own proportions so you can adjust each element separately.

I can’t comment on your diet without seeing it, but Type 1 is not a condition caused by bad diet. It’s an auto-immune condition. Obviously we all need a healthy diet diabetic or not, but Type 1s achieve control by appropriate use of insulin.

Of course we’d love to hear how you’re getting on! Please do keep replying here and tell us more
 
It was a lab result and the doctor today said that it was actially 130! No 54 (where I got that from I do not know)

Ok so the diabetes may be real. A short lived dream shattered. Yes it was caused by my long term use of hydrocortisone for another condition. No one warned me that it might happen so it was a complete surprise.

I have been advised that reducing to zero tonight and monitoring the result is fine and perfectly safe.
 
Yes it was caused by my long term use of hydrocortisone for another condition. No one warned me that it might happen so it was a complete surprise.

That must have been a shock @Gwynn Does it count as steroid-induced diabetes then? I don’t know much about that. My comment about it being auto-immune was related to Type 1. Have they told you any more about your diagnosis? Is there any hope it might improve?
 
Sadly yes it was caused by the hydrocortisone I am told.

Things do seem to be improving. I am down to 0U in the evening and 10U in the morning. The decrease in the morning will continue until my blood glucose readings start to rise. They stubbornly stay fixed between 4 and 5 at the moment.

Tomorrow morning will be interesting as that will be my first reading on 0U from the evening before.

I am not sure how far the reductions will go yet. I am taking things slowly and carefully with advice.

The original diagnosis was pretty much a garbled mess. The consultant said it was type 1 diabetes followed by it might be type 2 followed by it might not be diabetes long term. By the end of the very short consultaion I was completely confused, not actually knowing what I do have.

The one brilliant outcome of it all is that I feel well and hope that will continue.
 
Gwynn said:
The original diagnosis was pretty much a garbled mess. The consultant said it was type 1 diabetes followed by it might be type 2 followed by it might not be diabetes long term. By the end of the very short consultaion I was completely confused, not actually knowing what I do have.
Click to expand...

Glad you are being kept a close eye on @Gwynn - and good to know that you are in regular contact with your clinic.

Hope the new doses work out, and you get a little clarity over your diagnosis soon
 
Yesterday I reduced my evening insulin to zero and removed the associated metformin tablet. I kept my late meal to 10pm.

The result is that this morning my blood glucose level at 6am is 5.1.

It is just one result and I will have to see how things progress over the next few days, but it is a good result. It is the first time it has been over 5 in weeks.

What I was getting worried about was that every morning the result was lower than the previous morning the decline never stopped. It was getting ever closer to 4 each day.

Phew. Lets hope this is a turn around that settles.
 
Interesting reading your experiences so far. One thing to note about metformin is that it doesn’t work instantly, so stopping it may have a gradual effect on increasing your blood sugar. Something to be aware of as you see how things go.
 
Good to hear @Gwynn

Hope you get a little stability for a while.
 
I will note the comment re metrormin!

Thanks
 
So now I am on 8 units in the morning. Zero units in the evening. Zero metformin in the evening.

This mornings reading was 4.7 a little lower because I had reduced what I ate slightly in the evening. I will correct that this evening.

It seems almost under control. This evenings reading and tomorrow mornings reading will be interesting.
 
Good to hear. Long may it continue! 🙂
 
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