Covid

Status
Not open for further replies.
Martin62

Martin62

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
After managing to dodge it for 2 and half years it has finally caught up with me, woke up this morning feeling rough, did a test and I have covid. Blood sugars running a bit higher probably due to my temperature, taking Lemsip max strength to bring it down and ease my aches and shivers, hopefully it won't get too bad
 
There's a lot of it around at the moment, i'm on day 10 and know lots of others with it now too. Remember to drink plenty, hot drinks can help and caffeine taken with painkillers can make them more effective.
 
Hope you feel better soon. I had it at Christmas 2020. Bad cold for a week and then the flu - that was before any vaccines though. Enjoy snuggling up in bed.
 
Hope you feel better soon.
 
I have the luxury of stopping in bed and staying indoors these days. I have had Covid twice recently and it was just a few days feeling slightly unwell, even though I am 70 years old. My secret weapon this time is a thick knitted shawl which is so cosy now we have to have the central heating turn off a couple of hours early.
Hopefully you'll soon be feeling better.
Try to avoid getting even slightly chilled. Having the shawl this third time seems to have made a difference in how ill I felt.
 
Martin62 said:
Crazy blood sugars today, can't seem to bring them down even with correction doses,can't wait to be rid of this covid and get them back in range
Click to expand...
Perhaps consider increasing your basal whilst unwell.
 
Sorry to hear you’ve been feeling grim @Martin62

Hope you feel much better soon.
 
Martin62 said:
After managing to dodge it for 2 and half years it has finally caught up with me, woke up this morning feeling rough, did a test and I have covid. Blood sugars running a bit higher probably due to my temperature, taking Lemsip max strength to bring it down and ease my aches and shivers, hopefully it won't get too bad
Click to expand...
I'm the same have avoided it for 2 years. I'm on day 10 and still testing positive. Have been pretty rough with it. I haven't had any contact with a medical person not sure if you are supposed to. Hope you feel better soon sending hugsxx
 
Martin62 said:
I'll give it a try, how much should I increase it by ?
Click to expand...
Depends. If you have a flexible basal, such as Levermir, increase by 20% , observe and increase another 20% if appropriate.

If your basal is relatively inflexible, eg Tresiba, this can take 3 days to come into effect and you probably don't see a full outcome until after 5 days. So in the interim you must increase your bolus dosing; observe and increase again as necessary. Since your bolus response is pretty prompt (4-5 hrs) you can possibly make your next increase inside 24hrs, if needed. Since you will be doing that for up to 5 days it's probably better to leave your basal alone - unless your crystal ball tells you that Covid is going to be with you for a long time. If you do increase your inflexible basal, increase your bolus as compensation for the first 3 days. Be alert to the possibility of an increased risk of hypos.

Managing inflexible basals are akin to being the Captain of a super-tanker: you can change course, but it's far from instant. They have sophisticated computer programmes that predict forthcoming weather, know what hazards are on their charts and what tidal drift might arise, etc. They auto adjust course days in advance. If you take a sailing boat from Gibraltar to Morocco and thus cross the Gibraltar Straits (the world's busiest shipping lanes) then don't expect steam to give way to sail! They can't stop in a timely way and the 2 lanes (in and out the Med) are too narrow to move to one side.
 
Proud to be erratic said:
Depends. If you have a flexible basal, such as Levermir, increase by 20% , observe and increase another 20% if appropriate.

If your basal is relatively inflexible, eg Tresiba, this can take 3 days to come into effect and you probably don't see a full outcome until after 5 days. So in the interim you must increase your bolus dosing; observe and increase again as necessary. Since your bolus response is pretty prompt (4-5 hrs) you can possibly make your next increase inside 24hrs, if needed. Since you will be doing that for up to 5 days it's probably better to leave your basal alone - unless your crystal ball tells you that Covid is going to be with you for a long time. If you do increase your inflexible basal, increase your bolus as compensation for the first 3 days. Be alert to the possibility of an increased risk of hypos.

Managing inflexible basals are akin to being the Captain of a super-tanker: you can change course, but it's far from instant. They have sophisticated computer programmes that predict forthcoming weather, know what hazards are on their charts and what tidal drift might arise, etc. They auto adjust course days in advance. If you take a sailing boat from Gibraltar to Morocco and thus cross the Gibraltar Straits (the world's busiest shipping lanes) then don't expect steam to give way to sail! They can't stop in a timely way and the 2 lanes (in and out the Med) are too narrow to move to one side.
Click to expand...
That's good advice as I am using tresiba.
I am currently using a 1 :10 ratio for my bolus dosing , so do I go down say 1:9 or possibly lower ??
 
Martin62 said:
That's good advice as I am using tresiba.
I am currently using a 1 :10 ratio for my bolus dosing , so do I go down say 1:9 or possibly lower ??
Click to expand...
I total up my full bosul needs, ie for food, corrections + any other variables using my normal ratios. Then I apply an overall factor in anticipation of my activity I hope to achieve, perhaps reduce that total dose to 40%, more normally 50 or 60%, rarely dose at 100% (I'm rarely inactive); this activity factor is subjective of course but I'm finding I am getting quite good with the 'guess'.

Whatever my final no of units after the activity factor, say 7.5, I would now increase by 20%, which would make 9 units in this case. I'll round up or down a part number, say 9.2 for my half unit pens, depending on how much time I can give to monitoring; if sitting around I'll strengthen up and if gardening or walking to the post box, I'll probably weaken slightly. This is partly because the activeness makes it a little more difficult to keep checking and partly because any activity improves my insulin sensitivity (or if you prefer reduces my insulin resistance - one is the reverse of the other) and I'm slightly more likely to go hypo.
 
Proud to be erratic said:
I total up my full bosul needs, ie for food, corrections + any other variables using my normal ratios. Then I apply an overall factor in anticipation of my activity I hope to achieve, perhaps reduce that total dose to 40%, more normally 50 or 60%, rarely dose at 100% (I'm rarely inactive); this activity factor is subjective of course but I'm finding I am getting quite good with the 'guess'.

Whatever my final no of units after the activity factor, say 7.5, I would now increase by 20%, which would make 9 units in this case. I'll round up or down a part number, say 9.2 for my half unit pens, depending on how much time I can give to monitoring; if sitting around I'll strengthen up and if gardening or walking to the post box, I'll probably weaken slightly. This is partly because the activeness makes it a little more difficult to keep checking and partly because any activity improves my insulin sensitivity (or if you prefer reduces my insulin resistance - one is the reverse of the other) and I'm slightly more likely to go hypo.
Click to expand...
Wow that's a lot to get my head around. I just use the bolus calculator in the mysugr app as I'm not great with figures.
 
Martin62 said:
Wow that's a lot to get my head around. I just use the bolus calculator in the mysugr app as I'm not great with figures.
Click to expand...
OK, just take whatever number MySugar gives you and multiply by 1.2. Then round up or down accordingly.

For my interest only, does your meter transmit wirelessly to MySugar or do you have to manually enter the meter reading? What meter do you use?
 
Proud to be erratic said:
OK, just take whatever number MySugar gives you and multiply by 1.2. Then round up or down accordingly.

For my interest only, does your meter transmit wirelessly to MySugar or do you have to manually enter the meter reading? What meter do you use?
Click to expand...
Thank you , that's much simpler for me to understand, no my meter does not transmit wirelessly , I am using a glucorx nexus.
 
Personally as a Type 1, I've always been told to only ever increase either by 10%. If not enough you can easily add another 10% whereas if 20% is too high, you can't take it out again.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top