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Head. Wall. Bang

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Amberzak

Amberzak

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
So, I changed my quick acting insulin. One unit for every 10 grams (was on one to 7 in morning and one to 9 rest of time) and 1 unit to bring down 3 reading levels (was on one to one). Haven't had a hypo today. But I've been running high all day. Lowest it got to was 10.2 just before lunch. Otherwise ive been running between 12 and 15.

I'm desperately trying to resist the urge to inject a load of insulin onto me to correct. That's how I've been having my average three hypos a day.

Any suggestions? Diabetic nurse said to keep it how it is for a few days to settle. I am feeling very nervous about it though. People always say it's the prolonged high sugars that cause the damage.
 
I would only change one thing at a time, e.g. either the carb ratio or the correction, and see how that goes. If that isn't enough then try the other one as well. But you have to do it gradually otherwise it is very easy to swing from one extreme to the other, and also you won't really know which change was the most effective.
 
Yes, its prolonged highs that cause the damage, but not prolonged for a few days, more like prolonged for a few months/years.
 
Amberzak, have you tested your basal yet?

Would be good to know that was keeping you relatively steady over the full 24 hours (test and tweak one small section at a time by fasting) before getting bogged down in the minutiae of bolus/correction tweaking
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
Amberzak, have you tested your basal yet?

Would be good to know that was keeping you relatively steady over the full 24 hours (test and tweak one small section at a time by fasting) before getting bogged down in the minutiae of bolus/correction tweaking
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Mike, Amberzak is on MDI so can't tweak small sections of her basal. Do agree though she has to test her basal before she does anything else.
 
basal isn't quite right but the consultsnt wanted me to reduce my quick acting as a matter of urgency. Apparently I obercompensate and inject way too much.

My nighttime basal is correct. But he said I need to sort the hypos out immediately because they are dangerous.

My issue is that I'm so scared of high sugars. When my brother died I didn't look after myself properly. I forgot to inject, ate without calculating carbs. The result was that I ended up in hospital with severe diabetic ketone acidosis. I nearly died. And now I'm petrified of that happening again. So whenever I see my sugars are high I give myself insulin. I've managed to stop myself double dosing (where I would test again an hour later and give myself more insulin because I was still high) but he says I'm too aggressive at dealing with the highs and take way too much insulin.

And, as the nurse today on the phone said, I can't even begin to figure out what my basal should be if I'm constantly correcting and dealing with hypos. Three hypos a day I average. And we're not talking 4s. I do a test quite often and its in the 1s or 2s. It's scary.
 
I understand being scared of being high, I really really dislike double figures after my experience last year, but if you can resist the urge to correct it you will be safer in the short term and in the longer term you'll get stability. A couple of weeks with higher blood sugar is unpleasant but the body is much more resilient than you think, and forgive me for being so blunt but a hypo brings much more immediate danger. Keep in mind the end goal of getting a pump which will give you much more sophisticated control, and if you don't prove you can control the urge to over correct will they really be happy to give you a pump? I really do understand the discomfort I get my knickers in a knot about a 9 but I spent two weeks in the mid teens and higher to work out the right basal, hated every second of it but it worked so hang in there 🙂
 
KookyCat said:
I understand being scared of being high, I really really dislike double figures after my experience last year, but if you can resist the urge to correct it you will be safer in the short term and in the longer term you'll get stability. A couple of weeks with higher blood sugar is unpleasant but the body is much more resilient than you think, and forgive me for being so blunt but a hypo brings much more immediate danger. Keep in mind the end goal of getting a pump which will give you much more sophisticated control, and if you don't prove you can control the urge to over correct will they really be happy to give you a pump? I really do understand the discomfort I get my knickers in a knot about a 9 but I spent two weeks in the mid teens and higher to work out the right basal, hated every second of it but it worked so hang in there 🙂
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Thanks kooky. That's really helped. A lot.

My husband, who lives life by making jokes, asked about my sugars today. When I said I've been high he joked about cutting my foot off to save time. He was only joking, but I burst into tears. He apologised constantly. I don't think I've been too bad. Been running at 12 most of the day. I feel like my blood is treacle though.
 
Annette is 100% correct, Amberzak ! I was saying yesterday - do NOT aim so low! It's not forever! A few weeks now, as compared to the next what? - 50 years of your life?

We used to have a phrase - at the time really to do with dieting and exercise, but equally applicable to your current situation - No pain - No gain !

Stick with it. The tortoise actually gets there quicker and in better shape, than the hare.
 
Amberzak said:
Thanks kooky. That's really helped. A lot.

My husband, who lives life by making jokes, asked about my sugars today. When I said I've been high he joked about cutting my foot off to save time. He was only joking, but I burst into tears. He apologised constantly. I don't think I've been too bad. Been running at 12 most of the day. I feel like my blood is treacle though.
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Yes a wee bit too soon for jokes, but you've got to give credit for trying 🙂. It's OK to be scared and hate it, in fact that shows how much you want to control it. It helped me to think about it like this. My brain was screaming that I was losing control, and this brain doesn't like that no matter how much I try and influence her, she was nagging at me to correct all the time because that was the pattern of behaviour she was comfortable with. But I hadn't lost control, I was doing it on purpose, I was controlling it, I was just controlling it differently for a little while. Once I'd got my brain around that and I knew I was in control it was easier, not easy but doable. It felt like you had control before because you were actively doing something, so try thinking of it like an experiment and establish a new pattern of behaviour (I know that's hard). If you can that will help shift your brain away from the old pattern of over correcting. You could try focusing on maths, and do it in stages. I did stage one getting myself stable in the teens, stage two, proving I could be stable in the 8-9 range, and then the 5-7 range. My brain likes a puzzle so that got her good and distracted 🙂
 
Thanks kooky. That's great help.

And the nurse did say that running higher for a bit might bring back my hypo awareness.

The consultant said if I have a reading of 12, I don't need to correct for that until I eat. I've been giving myself correction doses if I have a reading of 8.

But, as they say, the first part of solving a problem is to admit you have one.

Hi, I'm Becky and I'm an insulinoholic
 
Correct !

Don't even test unless you are going hypo, to eat or drive your car. Oh or take exercise. Unless the hosp have given you other specific times to test other than Fasting, Before eating, Before bed.
 
trophywench said:
Correct !

Don't even test unless you are going hypo, to eat or drive your car. Oh or take exercise. Unless the hosp have given you other specific times to test other than Fasting, Before eating, Before bed.
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Slight problem wkth that. I don't actually feel myself going hypo, so only know by testing 😉

Oh, but I'm getting another CGM sensor so yay.
 
Amberzak said:
Slight problem wkth that. I don't actually feel myself going hypo, so only know by testing 😉

Oh, but I'm getting another CGM sensor so yay.
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In that case I hope you are not driving 🙂
 
Another possible suggestion is that when you *do* finally correct, only correct by half as much as you used to. Sounds madness, but I know at least one person for whom that worked like an absolute charm.

And remember that insulin is likely to work for somewhere between 4 and 6 hours, so long after you think it has probably stopped working there could well be some residual action.
 
Pumper_Sue said:
In that case I hope you are not driving 🙂
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It's okay. I got banned from driving because of my hypos 😉

(As you can tell I am feeling better today)
 
Amberzak said:
It's okay. I got banned from driving because of my hypos 😉

(As you can tell I am feeling better today)
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Long may it continue. (feeling better not the ban :D)
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
Another possible suggestion is that when you *do* finally correct, only correct by half as much as you used to. Sounds madness, but I know at least one person for whom that worked like an absolute charm.
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Well Mike, I really am going daft today aren't I?

Yes it definitely did work for someone you know - that was ME wasn't it !!

I was swinging between HI and LO on my meter at the time and my new DSN suggested that. It was the first time I'd met this woman. Well I'd tried everything else I could think of and had run out of ideas, so I said OK I'll give it a go. May as well, don't suppose it'll work ......

Well - it did. Of course Yes, I did indeed run higher. But it only took a couple of weeks to get back on the straight and narrow, it's been a work in progress ever since - but as Oscar Wilde said - 'It is better to travel hopefully, than to arrive!' LOL
 
trophywench said:
Well Mike, I really am going daft today aren't I?

Yes it definitely did work for someone you know - that was ME wasn't it !!

I was swinging between HI and LO on my meter at the time and my new DSN suggested that. It was the first time I'd met this woman. Well I'd tried everything else I could think of and had run out of ideas, so I said OK I'll give it a go. May as well, don't suppose it'll work ......

Well - it did. Of course Yes, I did indeed run higher. But it only took a couple of weeks to get back on the straight and narrow, it's been a work in progress ever since - but as Oscar Wilde said - 'It is better to travel hopefully, than to arrive!' LOL
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Oh wow. That's exactly what has been happening to me, constantly fluctuating from really low to really high to really low.

Yes, I have been running a bit higher yesterday and today, but when I checked my range of readings, the lowest I've been is 8.8 And the highest is 15.1. 3 days ago the lowest was 1.8 and the highest was 21.7 in one day. So cutting out corrections must be going something right 🙂
 
Brilliant that's what you're looking for! Chin up and stride forward as my Gran would have said because it all gets better from here 🙂
 
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