I am rather surprised by a couple of my BS reading. On Monday for my evening meal I ate 1 slice of wholemeal bread(toasted) and half a tin of baked beans and small pork sausages (200g). 150g of Greek style yoghurt with frozen fruit, according to Nutracheck 51.6 carbs. Pre dinner reading 5.7 two hrs later 10.1! Saturday a M&S boxed Chinese meal to share and salted caramel ice-cream according to Nutracheck a whopping 151.5 carbs pre dinner 5.4 two hours later 7.9. I cannot understand how the one piece of toast and beans gave me a higher blood sugar reading then a meal that was three times the amount of carbs?? The Chinese meal was a birthday treat!
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Blood sugar readings.
- Thread starter Sulfate
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Leadinglights
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Possibly the carbs in the Chinese meal were metabolised much quicker so by 2 hours it was much lower returning more closely to your pre dinner reading but would have been higher at say 1 hour than your carbs from the toast and beans etc which were slower to digest so were higher at 2 hours.
rebrascora
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I think it might actually be the other way around that the large Chinese meal plus ice cream afterwards had a lot of glucose left to release after the 2 hour point. It would be interesting to know what the Op's BG readings were the following morning.
As regards beans on toast, some of us find that our bodies are able to extract almost double the carbs from beans (and lentils) than they actually contain, so it may come down to your digestive system being overly efficient with the smaller beans on toast meal but slow at digesting the larger meal, so the spike came later..... or your body was able to cope with the slower release from the larger meal. Typically I am still injecting insulin 3-4 hours later after a Chinese banquet and that is without having ice cream after it and being quite moderate with the carbs, so I suspect that testing after 2 hours on that occasion may not have been indicative of how well your body actually coped. That said a very occasional celebratory meal should be OK for most people but I just wouldn't read anything too optimistic into the result and let yourself be kidded into believing that you can get away with it regularly. 🙄
harbottle
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I have had similar observations - high carb meal, sometimes sees a peak into the 8s/high 7s within 2 hours but back down to 4-7 within 2 hours. Most recently I had a high carb meal with a lot of fats and protein with it (70+g of carbs) and I noticed a slow rise up to the 8s followed by a quick fall between 2-3 hours back to something like 5.7. Looking at the graph of readings, the rise was very slow and steady, with the drop being quite rapid. (I've seen a drop from 8 to 5 in 15 minutes after eating two large samosas!).
It'd be interesting to see what the reading was 2 and a half hours later, and the maybe 3. It may well have remained up in the 7s for some time before falling - this is pretty normal, as well, to be honest.
It'd be interesting to see what the reading was 2 and a half hours later, and the maybe 3. It may well have remained up in the 7s for some time before falling - this is pretty normal, as well, to be honest.
Thanks for your helpful reply. I don't think beans are very good for me as on another occasion I had a high reading, or possibly the wholemeal bread?
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Bread can be pretty spiky for lots of people with diabetes (but as with all things it’s a very individual thing).
Chinese takeaways, and big means generally seem to drag their heels for me. So I’ve seen similarly intriguing results from small bread-based meals vs large takeaways at the 2hr mark (even with the benefit of mealtime insulin) - but my sensors tell me that later in the evening / ovenight those carbs just keep on chugging away, so I have to ensure I have ‘insulin on board’ to try to tame the late night and overnight rises
Chinese takeaways, and big means generally seem to drag their heels for me. So I’ve seen similarly intriguing results from small bread-based meals vs large takeaways at the 2hr mark (even with the benefit of mealtime insulin) - but my sensors tell me that later in the evening / ovenight those carbs just keep on chugging away, so I have to ensure I have ‘insulin on board’ to try to tame the late night and overnight rises
The_Bowlii
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Hi all. Diagnosed Type 1 a month ago and fitted with a Libre2 last week. Possibly a result of too much data instead of 4 finger pricks a day but I’m seeing some strange readings, e.g. having 80g carbs and 8 units of Fiasp for breakfast, injected 5 mins before eating. I then drop BG levels to below 4 and having to drink orange juice to raise levels.
Do people inject before, at or after having eaten? Should I eat first and then inject say 10 mins into a meal?
Any suggestions or experiences welcome!
Do people inject before, at or after having eaten? Should I eat first and then inject say 10 mins into a meal?
Any suggestions or experiences welcome!
Bruce Stephens
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Varies. I think most people, most of the time, inject before eating. But some inject during or even after, and I think most of us would consider doing that sometimes (if the arrow's heading down from 5 when I'd normally be injecting, I'll probably wait a bit).
So do whatever works for you. If that means injecting after you eat (or part way through eating) then try that.
The_Bowlii
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Thanks @Bruce Stephens. It really is trial and error, isn’t it? Just logging the questions for the dietician for next week.
Inka
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@The_Bowlii With Fiasp, you might be able to inject after your meal as it works quickly. If you’re dropping low before your food has got going, your mealtime injection is too early and/or your meal ratio is wrong and you need less insulin.
rebrascora
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Fiasp can be a bit quirky and if your levels are at the lower end of the scale in the 4-5 range, it can kick in a lot quicker, whereas if your preeal levels are 8 or above, it takes forever to kick in for me.... Can be a couple of hours if my levels are above 10 and I simply don't eat until they come down otherwise I will be high all day.
Which basal insulin are you taking and when do you inject that. I am wondering if you are at peak activity of your basal insulin and that is contributing to you dropping during breakfast or perhaps your own insulin production is benefitting from the respite afforded by injecting insulin and is reviving a bit and you perhaps need to adjust your meal ratios. Do you end up high before lunch, if not then your 8 units was too much for the breakfast without orange juice.
It is also important to note that Libre will show you are low for up to half an hour after your levels have changed direction if they change direction sharply. So it might be worth checking via a finger prick when Libre shows you low during breakfast if you don't feel hypo. Obviously, if you feel hypo, don't delay drinking the orange juice.
pistolpete
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I found breakfast a great time to test ratios, I used 40g of All-Bran with almond milk and 2 cups of Kenco flat white coffee from the tassimo machine a total of 35g of carbs. I kept to that breakfast for a month and trial and error got my ratios dialed in to give me my insulin to carb ratios. Obviously different foods affect you in different ways, If you look at my Libre data from this morning you can see the drop caused by the insulin then it flattens out, thats nearly spot on. A coffee around 11 and a small spike, at lunch time I halved my insulin as I was gardening after lunch so didnt want to go low, I got rained off so you can see the levels start to rise. I wont add a correction dose as Im going out for a walk after the rain.
The_Bowlii
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Thanks for the reply. I’m taking 6 units of Toujeo basal at the same time as I take the Fiasp. I’ve kept the same breakfast for a month and it’s been very stable until this week when I started to get back to exercise (squash and cycling). I’m sure that’s had an effect.
Separately, I’m starting to see lunchtime and evening meals being fine for a couple of hours and then the BG levels rise hours 3 and 4. Last night, even though I hadn’t eaten for 4 hours, my BG rose at bedtime and I was 10-12 all night, only coming down at breakfast where it went too low!
Many people have mentioned the honeymoon period and perhaps it is my pancreas having a last hurrah…
Lucyr
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It varies depending on what the meal is
Bruce Stephens
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I'm afraid it is. There are general principles, but things vary so it doesn't make that much sense to stick to "always inject 17 minutes before starting lunch".
Rather, you want to try and keep within range as much as is practical and often that'll involve injecting a bit before eating (pre-bolusing) but as you've experienced sometimes that'll send you low. And for some people it seems that that's much more commonly the case, so (usually) injecting later than that feels like a safer thing to do.
rebrascora
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I am sure the introduction of exercise will be having a significant impact and quite possibly why your overnight levels are dropping. Exercise certainly does that to me and I have to reduce my evening basal dose to prevent nocturnal hypos after I have done plenty of exercise or been particularly active all day. Unfortunately Toujeo doesn't allow that sort of adjustment so you may need to ensure your levels are higher at night although it seems your body may be doing this anyway at the moment if you are rising into double figures in the evening, so probably best not to be tempted to stick a correction in at bedtime if levels are high at this stage.... assuming you have been told about corrections? .
And yes, it may well be that your own beta cells are reviving a bit during this honeymoon period, so that could well be a factor as I mentioned. You really just have to manage it as well as you can until your body gets into a routine and you can see clear patterns. It may be that a change of basal insulin might be helpful with a split dose Levemir enabling you to adjust your day and night time doses independently to allow for exercise etc or optimizing your Toujeo dose to give you a near horizontal line overnight and then adjust your ratios for during the day to balance it out.
I love Levemir for it's shorter action and the flexibility it gives you to adjust to what your body needs between day and night but some people love Tresiba and Toujeo which are the very long acting basal insulins for the lack of adjustment needed. I think it is good to wait until things settle a bit and you get your feet under the table and more confident/experienced before switching insulins because it can really disrupt your whole diabetes management and in the early days that can be unsettling.
So in response to your original question, yes certainly experiment with injecting your breakfast bolus after you start eating or just after you finish for a few days and see how that works out. Out of curiosity, does your Libre graph actually show you going into the red during breakfast or has it corrected itself and that dip into the red has mysteriously vanished from your graph as often happens.
pistolpete
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The reason for the red mysteriously vanishing is Libre takes a reading every minute but only plots your average on the graph every 15 minutes. The Libre graph has 96 plots on the graph over a 24hr period, Dexcom plots every 5 minute reading on the graph so has 288 plots over 24hrs.
rebrascora
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It is also because Libre extrapolates and if you have a steep downward trend and then a sudden change of direction, the algorithm over eggs the descent into the red when in fact levels didn't actually get that low before they changed direction and then when levels have clearly risen after the descent, the algorithm readjusts. This is why hypo recovery needs to be double checked with finger pricks, because typically, Libre will show your levels continuing to drop after eating/drinking a hypo treatment because of the extrapolation when finger prick shows you are recovering and then the algorithm twigs things have changed usually 30 mins later and the graph is redrawn.
The_Bowlii
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Last night it was wholemeal pasta bake, yogurt, cheese and crackers. Are there specific foods that take longer to process in your experience?
The_Bowlii
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Thanks Barbara. Just done that now after a low level alarm on the app but finger prick all fine. It’s a minefield!! 🙂
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