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FOOD SPIKES
- Thread starter skip.G6
- Start date
Robin
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A couple of questions so we can get a fuller picture.
1.After 4-5 hours, when the novo is spent, have you come back down to your pre meal level?
2.What sort of meal are you having? is, is it mainly fast acting carbs, or a mix of carb, fat and protein?
3. What do you call a spike, ie how high does your Bg go, and how soon after eating?
The answer to 1. is, not enough novo, the answer to 2, is the insulin has a fixed gradual build up, and a lot of fast acting carb can just get into the system quicker than it can cope with, even if you take it 30 mins up front. The answer to 3 depends on how high your spike is, and whether you have too high an expectation of what insulin can do.
rebrascora
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First some questions if you don't mind?
1. How high are you spiking?
2. Is it all meals or particularly just one meal like breakfast?
3. Do you return roughly to your premeal reading by your next meal.
NovoRapid works over 4-5 hours, so by 2 hours post meal, it still has about a third of it's activity left to bring your levels down a bit further, so you need to see if you are back down into range by the next meal in order to decide if your insulin dose was correct but perhaps the timing needs adjusting.
Just as an example, my breakfast of yoghurt with seeds and berries used to spike e up to 15mmols every morning and then I would be back down to about 5mmols by lunchtime, if I gave it 30 mins prebolus time. From this I could conclude that the dose was correct as it brought me back down into range but the timing needed some work. I increased it by about 5 mins every day or two and found that at breakfast time I needed over an hour prebolus time with NovoRapid, which was a bit of a pain in the backside and sometimes I got distracted and forgot that I had injected my bolus and not had breakfast and headed off out of the house only to be hit by a massive hypo. I changed to a quicker insulin Fiasp as a result, but I still need 30-45 mins prebolus time at breakfast and for me it is quite important to inject it before I get out of bed because, as soon as I swing my legs down onto the floor and stand up, my liver starts to pump out increased flow of glucose (Foot on the Floor Syndrome) to give me energy for the day ahead and it can raise me as much as 6mmols in 45mins, and my insulin is not even built up to full activity in that time, so I really need to get it injected before that surge of glucose happens to give it as much of a head start as I can. At other times of the day I need much less prebolus time but in the morning I need a lot longer than you might expect. Many other people would hypo if they waited so long, so it is important to increase that timing slowly by a few mins each day until you find the best timing for your body and the insulin you use and the breakfast you eat.
1. How high are you spiking?
2. Is it all meals or particularly just one meal like breakfast?
3. Do you return roughly to your premeal reading by your next meal.
NovoRapid works over 4-5 hours, so by 2 hours post meal, it still has about a third of it's activity left to bring your levels down a bit further, so you need to see if you are back down into range by the next meal in order to decide if your insulin dose was correct but perhaps the timing needs adjusting.
Just as an example, my breakfast of yoghurt with seeds and berries used to spike e up to 15mmols every morning and then I would be back down to about 5mmols by lunchtime, if I gave it 30 mins prebolus time. From this I could conclude that the dose was correct as it brought me back down into range but the timing needed some work. I increased it by about 5 mins every day or two and found that at breakfast time I needed over an hour prebolus time with NovoRapid, which was a bit of a pain in the backside and sometimes I got distracted and forgot that I had injected my bolus and not had breakfast and headed off out of the house only to be hit by a massive hypo. I changed to a quicker insulin Fiasp as a result, but I still need 30-45 mins prebolus time at breakfast and for me it is quite important to inject it before I get out of bed because, as soon as I swing my legs down onto the floor and stand up, my liver starts to pump out increased flow of glucose (Foot on the Floor Syndrome) to give me energy for the day ahead and it can raise me as much as 6mmols in 45mins, and my insulin is not even built up to full activity in that time, so I really need to get it injected before that surge of glucose happens to give it as much of a head start as I can. At other times of the day I need much less prebolus time but in the morning I need a lot longer than you might expect. Many other people would hypo if they waited so long, so it is important to increase that timing slowly by a few mins each day until you find the best timing for your body and the insulin you use and the breakfast you eat.
rebrascora
Well-Known Member
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Hi @skip.G6 welcome to the forum.
You already have a couple of responses that cover most of what I would suggest.
However, I also wondered how long you have had diabetes. If you are recently diagnosed, you may have been advised a conservative insulin dose as it can cause problems (albeit, usually temporarily) if you bring your BG down too fast from what your body has assumed to be normal before your diagnosis.
The other thing to consider is whether this happens with all meals or only at certain times of the day. For example, we are more insulin resistant in the morning. Or, depending upon the basal insulin you take, it may be running out so the spike maybe from that rather than the food.
You already have a couple of responses that cover most of what I would suggest.
However, I also wondered how long you have had diabetes. If you are recently diagnosed, you may have been advised a conservative insulin dose as it can cause problems (albeit, usually temporarily) if you bring your BG down too fast from what your body has assumed to be normal before your diagnosis.
The other thing to consider is whether this happens with all meals or only at certain times of the day. For example, we are more insulin resistant in the morning. Or, depending upon the basal insulin you take, it may be running out so the spike maybe from that rather than the food.
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
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- He/Him