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hello . i have been diabetic nearly 12 years and still need to learn .

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stephen evans

stephen evans

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
hello . i was diagnosed nearly 12 years ago { diabetic but they couldn't decide which type i was so treated me as both } .when i moved to leeds the first doctor told me that i was definatley type 1 and changed my insulin . i have always had control problems which i have recently started to get a grip with . my main problems are with lows which mostly happen at night but i also get quite a few during the evening but i am also a sweaty person when active so i miss that obvious warning sign . how does anyone else know when your starting to go low?
 
Hypo symptoms vary so much, not just from person to person but even from hypo to hypo! My signs include any/all of the following : inability to think straight, inability to see straight (especially moving things such as the tv), pins and needles in my lips, sudden extreme tiredness, nausea, inability to make decisions, tenderness in the skin of my thighs such that I dont like anything (like clothing) touching them, general feeling of something being wrong, shaking, paleness, do I need to go on?
What insulin regime are you on, Stephen? Do you take a long acting in the morning or the evening (or both?)
 
hi i take my long acting on an evening bua nurse at my recent review said i split it into two to stop the overnight lows but i dont know anyone else who does that . i take 30 ml lantus at night and novo when i eat / i have noticed the inability to think because that is when my wife notices that something is wrong but the other night i had a real low 1.6 and was struggling to get things done as was fixated on something my wife had said to me
 
I've been Type 1 for 8 years. I've just swapped my Lantus dose to mornings, because I found I was getting a huge drop just after I went to bed. I used to take it at 6pm,( having brought that forward from 10pm a couple of years ago) My BG naturally falls towards 3am, and then rises towards dawn, but this seems to have ironed out the steep curve a bit. I only realised what it was doing because I bought myself a Freestyle Libre recently, so could get a read out of the whole night. I find coping with a Lantus spike during the day easier to deal with ( I'm awake, for a start). My DSN once recommended a split, but I decided that would just cause two mini spikes 12 hours apart!
My daughter can always tell if I'm going hypo, I lose the thread of my conversation, or stumble over words, and she can spot it while I'm still thinking about it! If I have a fast drop, eg if I'm gardening vigorously or shovelling snow, I start shaking and getting visual disturbances, sort of splodges before the eyes. At night, I just know if Im awake around 3am, I need to get out and test. Quite often, I've tested, treated, and got back into bed before I start getting the shaky symptoms.
 
Hi Stephen, welcome. There are one or two folk on here that have split their long acting for counteract hypos, others, as Robin says, take theirs in the morning, as I do. It seems to work for me. It's a case of trying things out to see what works best for you.

I've had very low hypos (low 1s) where I was still operating more or less OK and others when the same reading had me fitting on the floor. It seems to depend on the speed of the drop what symptoms I get, but mostly, I get shaky and cold, I feel sick and can get very confused. I can get a stonking headache if I fall fast and may keel over. A tremor in my hands if I fall slowly is often my first clue something's wrong. Not very helpful I'm afraid, but the symptoms vary so much it's hard to be specific.
 
I played around with timing and splitting Lantus for a couple of years, and nothing worked as well as I needed it to - so I tried 2 x Levemir and WOW! What a change for the better.

There is an easy - but scientific - way of telling what your Lantus (or other basal insulin) is doing, or not doing, for you, you know!

It's called Basal Testing - instructions here - http://www.diabetes-support.org.uk/info/?page_id=120 - and it can benefit all Type 1 diabetics to do it occasionally at least, if not regularly at intervals. Those of us on pumps definitely need to do the latter.

Our actual basal needs don't actually stay exactly the same for ever so long anyway - and that's something I bet nobody bothered to tell you?
 
Hi stephen and welcome to forum
 
hello . thanks to everyone for their replies and i think i will try taking my lantus in the morning . no one has mentioned basal testing will check it out
 
Errr, have you been on a Carb Counting course? That testing procedure is an amalgam of what one of us learned from 'DAFNE' and the other from their local take on 'BERTIE'.
 
hi . no i havent been on a carb counting course , i have a book to help estimate amounts to food size and i am on the waiting list for a dafne course .
 
i have just read the info on the basal testing and will give that a go as soon as i see how taking morning lantus affects me ..
 
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