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Half grapefruit

S

saraW

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hi
I was diagnosed type 1 in November
I'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep on top of my levels.
They go up and down like a yo-yo and I feel I have less of a. Understanding now than I had in January for example.
After supper last night I dipped to 4.8 and the alarm went off. I checked the ratio of insulin I'd taken for the food I'd eaten (carbonara) and reckoned I might be ok to eat 10g more to help bring my levels up a bit. I had half a grapefruit (5g carbs according to my app) my levels went up to 7 and was 6.9 when I took my long acting insulin and went to bed.
When I woke this morning I had a very dry mouth - worst for ages and my level was 17.4
It is currently 14.3
I rarely eat pasta these days but I did last night. If I jab for it why did I spike when I went to bed and had high glucose level all night and still now?
Did the half grapefruit cause the spike or a delay from the pasta? Or both?
 
Welcome to the forum. I cannot advise on type 1 as I am type 2 but there are lots of helpful people. I feel a little jealous. I used to enjoy pasta pre type 2 and I used to love grapefruit but take a blood pressure pill where it is contra indicated.
Did you eat it with sugar?
I'm sure those answering will be asking the type of insulin you are using and bolus/basal ratio used.
You will get great answers. You are still new to type 1.
 
welcome to the forum im typr 2 on insulin so dont know the answer just wanted to say hello Im sur somene will be along soon to answer you
take care
gail
 
Welcome @saraW
I have no medical training but my money would be on the pasta with the creamy carbonara sauce.
In my experience, high fat, high carb meals like pasta, curry and pizza are more challenging to bolus for because the fat in the sauce (or pizza toppings) will slow down the absorption of carbs. Therefore, the peak activity of the insulin will occur before most of the carbs are digested resulting in a low BG which you then treat (as you did with the grapefruit) which will "use up" the insulin you have taken for the pasta.
This does not mean you need to avoid these foods. The best way to manage them is with a "split bolus" - taking some of your bolus up front as usual and the remainder an hour or two later. It takes some trial and error to work out what works for you.

The added frustration is the nutritional content on the packaging often describes the carbs in cooked pasta rather than raw pasta. I don't know about you, but I weigh my pasta before cooking, not afterwards. It is easy to misread this and get the carb content wrong.
 
I find even half a grapefruit will spike my glucose, when taken at breakfast. So now I have to give it a miss.
But, as said before, everyone reacts differently.
 
Welcome to my world - such meals spike me over several hours after I start eating them, approx 4 - 5 ish hours in total hence I have to jab 40 ish percent to start with and drip feed the rest in over the next 3ish hours. You just need to keep a close note of exactly what your BG does over those hours and experiment with dosing timings and amounts until you find the sweet spot for you. These things take time, but at least with CGM you can lookat the tracing in the cold light of the following day, when your brain is working properly again. Doesn't need to be for the full 5 hours for me and I don't have to have a higher insulin to carb ratio - BUT everyone is different!
 
Sorry to hear your lovely pasta meal gave you the runaround @saraW :(

Diabetes can be an absolute swine for teaching you The Rules, and then completely ignoring them and being all, “oh, no… not in these circumstances obviously!”

Don’t let it knock your confidence, or put you off trying pasta again. More opportunities for experimentation!

Learning to live with T1 is such a steep learning curve to begin with. The basics seem so understandable, but before long you start having to compile a list of exceptions to the rules, and workaround for various things, whether that’s a particular meal, or what to do if you’ve had (or will be having) alcohol, are getting A Bit Of A Cold, or are planning any kind of activity/exercise.

Reminds me of this meme graph which some mistakenly attribute to Dunning-Kruger (as I understand it their graph was very different)

1749200074958.jpeg
I have adjusted it for diabetes :D
 
Hi @saraW and welcome to the Forum 🙂. Managing Type 1 can be so frustrating at times and hopefully it will get a bit easier for you. Do you have glucose sensor (CGM), I have been using one now for 2/3 years and find it so useful?
 
Bruce Stephens said:
I used to quite enjoy grapefruit but stopped when I started on statins. (Though I think the issue may only be some statins so maybe I'd be OK?)
Click to expand...

Funnily enough when I read the title it was the advice not to eat Grapefruit when takking them that I thought it might be about!
 
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