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fatigue

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Hi, what sort of levels are you running at? My daughter definitely goes through periods of fatigue if she’s running above target for a while.
I think it’s always worth seeing the GP though if you have symptoms that affect your life. It may be that your vitamin d levels are low (very common at this time of year) or there’s some other obvious cause. Often when you have a chronic condition it’s easy to pass off all symptoms as related to that but getting seen and having it checked out will help you work out if it is diabetes related or not. (This is coming from me who ignores all symptoms and puts it down to my fibro and so ended up needing a blood transfusion as I was so anaemic before I went to get checked out so do as I say, not as I do 😉)
 
robert Phillips said:
can anybody tell me if exhaustion is a significant part of their type one diabetes condition please?
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No. During (and after) a hypo I can be tired, and back when (it turned out) I was going hypo most nights I felt pretty tired during the day. But normally I don't feel tired.
 
Too high blood glucose can make you very tired and sleepy, anything 10 mmol and above.
 
How long have you been diagnosed for?
Also what levels are you running at?
There's loads of conditions that can make you fatigued including being anaemic.
 
robert Phillips said:
thanks Sue. I was diagnosed in 1997. Probable hba1c @ 7%
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Hello again 🙂
might be a good option to pop along to your GP and ask for bloods to be done to check things like thyroid, anaemia etc, even an underlying infection could cause you to feel under the weather.
 
Hi, @robert Phillips - Im sorry you are feeling poorly. Im afraid i am not educated in T1, but have read threads on here in the past where people have had hypos and have described it as a total wipe out. One person said they had to literally sleep all day and still don't feel refreshed afterwards.

Do you take a little snack before bed, keeping good tabs on what you eat, is something in particular setting it off. Have you upped exercise, are you well otherwise?....so many factors to consider. It maybe wise talk to your Dr or DN maybe your meds need adjusting. So many factors influence things but i would think if its been going on a while it would be precautionary to flag it up with someone clinical because it may be an unrelated episode as already mentioned by others here.

I wish you all the best in levelling it out. please keep us posted.
 
Do you ever test your BG smack in the middle of the night, just in case your Basal insulin is sending you hypo in the early hours and despite having a reasonable BG when you get up in the morning it's the after effects that are wiping you out?

First thing I'd do is get my Thyroid checked though - simple blood test to measure Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (abbr to TSH) - it very frequently affects T1s cos it's another auto immune condition. Whereas a result of 3=ish is considered normal if you ain't T1 - it turns out that most T1s do better at a lower level somewhere between 1 & 2, ish.
 
Both high and low BG make me very tired. And the mental acrobatics of keeping on top is diabetes management can be exhausting too!
 
robert Phillips said:
gotcha. but you get so tired as to need sleep?
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Low BG has certainly made me nod off. High BG tends to be more grouchy weariness for me. But very high BG has a strong reputation for extreme fatigue and tiredness.
 
Hi Robert, I'm 66 and have had T1 diabetes for over 53 years. I get very tired in the mornings. I have been put on levothyroxine for an underactive thyroid and have also been tested for vitamin deficiency and anaemia. Apart from the thyroid, nothing else was amiss and my GP is at a loss to understand the tiredness. I find it very hard to get up in the mornings and if I do get up before 9, I could easily nap in the afternoons. This doesn't help you get to the bottom of your problem, but I thought it might help to know you're not alone.
 
Hi Robert and welcome.
How frequently are you testing your BG? Your HbA1c will just give you an average of your last 3 months of readings but if you run high for instance after breakfast every day, that will make you feel really fatigued through the day and if you are running too low overnight, that can also make you shattered, but the combination of both will leave your HbA1c looking pretty good but you feeling knackered. Testing regularly when you feel fatigued will give you a better idea of what is going on.

I find the timing of my bolus insulin in the morning is critical to keep my BG from going into double figures for a few hours and then crashing down again, making me feel like I am wading through treacle whilst it is high and then want to sleep in the afternoon because the sudden drop has taken it out of me. I have to inject my insulin between an hour and 70 mins before breakfast to prevent that happening. This would cause some people to hypo before they eat breakfast, so it is a very individual thing and needs a bit of experimenting to find the best timing for you.
It sounds like some basal testing might also be helpful to see how your background insulin is working.
 
@rebrascora I think you will find that Robert is on a pump (that's according to previous posts)
 
Thank you so much for that.

I seem to be a bit of a veteran , I was diagnosed T1 in 1997. I use NovoRapid Insulin through an Accu-Chek Insight pump. I use Abbot Freestyle Libre bg testing system so I can keep an eye on where the bg is, where it's going and where its come from. I am carb & GI aware. Yet still a lot of what you say sounds familiar. Thanks again.
 
Apologies if it looked like I was trying to "teach granny to suck eggs". Didn't realise you were so experienced with managing it.
 
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