Help please?

[Northerner]

Yeah I guess I have. 🙂

12.7 now at 10.30pm....brie consumed, yum. Fizzy water to drink...rock and roll!

My finger tips hurt though now tonight

So, you have dropped from 20.1 to 12.7 = 7.4 mmol/l in just under 2 hours. I would guess that you'll eventually come down to about 7 mmol/l which, if that is the case. would mean that one unit of humalog drops your levels by about 6-7 mmol/l showing that you are pretty sensitive to it! 🙂

 

[lauraw1983]

So, you have dropped from 20.1 to 12.7 = 7.4 mmol/l in just under 2 hours. I would guess that you'll eventually come down to about 7 mmol/l which, if that is the case. would mean that one unit of humalog drops your levels by about 6-7 mmol/l showing that you are pretty sensitive to it! 🙂

This is good, yes? Your smiley face means you think so too I hope!

I'm going to set a 3am alarm I think, just out of curiousity, as I have 1000mg taken metformin tonight as normal too.

Hopefully this will get me back on track, and will see where I am at tomorrow morning.

I'm struggling a bit with breakfast meal ideas (levels spike!), I think I will be on the bedtime long acting insulin soon.....tbh I kind of just want it started to get on with it - unless these levels do settle right back down (I have a feeling not though....)

 

[Robster65]

I find that, if humalog is going to give me a hypo after an evening correction around 8 or 9ish, it'll do it between about 2 and 3am.

If you do wake up feeling hypo (or what you assume may be hypo), don't faff about with testing. Eat a jelly baby at least and wait a couple of minutes for it to start getting into your system, and then test. On a clean finger.

It's not the end of the world but is quite scary when you're disorientated, it's dark and you've probably woken from a bizarre dream.

But hopefully you'll be about 5 or 6 at 3am and can doze off again to dream of satsumas.

Rob

 

[lauraw1983]

I find that, if humalog is going to give me a hypo after an evening correction around 8 or 9ish, it'll do it between about 2 and 3am.

If you do wake up feeling hypo (or what you assume may be hypo), don't faff about with testing. Eat a jelly baby at least and wait a couple of minutes for it to start getting into your system, and then test. On a clean finger.

It's not the end of the world but is quite scary when you're disorientated, it's dark and you've probably woken from a bizarre dream.

But hopefully you'll be about 5 or 6 at 3am and can doze off again to dream of satsumas.

Rob

I'm totally having one tomorrow if my levels are behaving....lol.

Haven't experienced a hypo yet, but have been told what to expect. The OH got 2 boxes of jelly babies for Xmas, so I shall have a few by the bed. I don't even like them 🙄 lol.

I will do as you say though.

Thank you everyone who has replied, especially Northener and yourself, very helpful when I wasn't sure what to do! You are all great x

 

[trophywench]

Have anything except a lot of carbs for brekkers!

I favour 3 (half) rashers of back bacon, betwixt just one slice of bread on occasions like this one!

Or go for the full English, with one triangle (ie a quarter or half of a slice) of fried bread. With black pud, but sans sausage (I just can't do sausage in a morning) and defo without baked beans, compensated for by at least two halves of grilled or fried fresh tomato!

 

[lauraw1983]

Have anything except a lot of carbs for brekkers!

I favour 3 (half) rashers of back bacon, betwixt just one slice of bread on occasions like this one!

Or go for the full English, with one triangle (ie a quarter or half of a slice) of fried bread. With black pud, but sans sausage (I just can't do sausage in a morning) and defo without baked beans, compensated for by at least two halves of grilled or fried fresh tomato!

I have no bacon left,booo!

I have eggs, will have 2 poached eggs with one slice burgen I think....

I have no tomatoes in either, except tinned plum ones!?

That's if I can even face eggs, I often can't first thing, or anything savoury. Therein lies my problem.....!

 

[schmeezle]

I'm struggling a bit with breakfast meal ideas (levels spike!)QUOTE]

Hi Laura, For brkfst I've had luck with oat bran lately - replaces oatmeal I used to love and doesn't spike BS as oatmeal (low sugar variety even) used to. To add a little something - I mix-in walnuts, a few raisins (not many, I know they're all sugar) and a touch of honey. For ref from box.....just the oat bran carries 23 g carb w/6 fiber and 0 sugars per 40g serving of dry OB.

 

[lauraw1983]

Hmm so at 3am I was 9.9 and now on testing I am 10.5...what should I do re; insulin before eating?

 

[Northerner]

Hmm so at 3am I was 9.9 and now on testing I am 10.5...what should I do re; insulin before eating?

It would depend on what you are going to eat I think. If you plan on having very little in the way of carbs for breakfast then given your sensitivity to insulin you probably don't need any. Shouldn't your DSN be back at work today, so he/she can advise you? Obviously, we're all biting our tongues here as we can't advise you! 🙄

You now have a fairly good idea that one unit reduces your levels by about 5 mmol/l so it might be better to think about correction doses for the time being, until you can receive proper guidance from your DSN 🙂

 

[AJLang]

Hi Humalog can affect your BGs for up to 4 or 5 hours i.e. continue lowering them for that long - but most of the impact will be within 1-2 hours. I have a continuous glucose monitor and have found that humalog has no impact on my BG until after an hour - unless I exercise, then it starts working very quickly. As the others have suggested have one unit of humalog and then test very regularly for four hours. The amount that it reduces your BG should be an indication of how much one unit of humalog affects you provided that you haven't eat anything i.e. if one unit of humalog reduces you from 20.1 to 16.1 four hours after injecting then another unit of humalog should (in theory) reduce you from 16.1 to 12.1. I hope this makes sense but please say if it doesn't. Good luck on getting your sugars down without having a hypo.

 

[lauraw1983]

I'm still awaiting a call back from my dsn northerner...getting hungry now!! Not sure what do do, their notes they gave me said 4 units pre breakfast so maybe should just do that and eat and stay in til after lunch to check and test? Have stuff to do tho grrrr.

Was going to make 2 poached eggs and 1slice of burgen if that helps? And some brown sauce. Lol.

 

[lizabetic]

Laura! I did not realise you were an inbetweenie too 🙂

I'm having the same problems at the moment. Levels are frequently in double figures, yet I don't feel symptoms I am pretty aggy :/

Your team sound like they have done the right thing though! Wish I had some insulin to hand to sort me out once and for all. Hope you have managed to deal with it okay now! Xxx

 

[Northerner]

I'm still awaiting a call back from my dsn northerner...getting hungry now!! Not sure what do do, their notes they gave me said 4 units pre breakfast so maybe should just do that and eat and stay in til after lunch to check and test? Have stuff to do tho grrrr.

Was going to make 2 poached eggs and 1slice of burgen if that helps? And some brown sauce. Lol.

Given the effect of your 2-unit correction last night I would think that 4 units for approximately 15g of carbs would almost certainly give you a hypo. When you are starting out on insulin the doses are pretty much a stab in the dark as they have no information to go on. The usual practice seems to be to try and start you on what they think are low doses and then increase them if your levels remain too high, but it basically ignores the rather significant point that it depends chiefly on the amount of carbs you intend to eat! Bacon and eggs would need little or no insulin, whereas porridge and toast would be a completely different story!

For the breakfast you suggest and the fact that your levels are currently 10.x I would have thought that 2 units would be a safer bet - one for the toast and one to reduce your levels. But obviously that's not advice 😉 It's always going to be trial and error to begin with as you start to amass information that can inform future decisions.

 

[lauraw1983]

Ok, spoke to my DSN.

She said I did exactly the right thing last night, gold star for me (and you guys 😉 ) lol.

She said this morning not to take any for now, but to eat and see how I am in a couple of hours too. She said to take 2, poss 3, units with my dinner tonight, as that will in turn help correct my morning readings too...

No slow acting for now either, she said they don't want to go in all guns blazing as I would prob end up with hypos galore, and with my OH being in work now for 4 days (inc 2 nightshifts) I am alone with the kids a lot of the time and that's quite scary....

So plod on as I am for now, she said levels being around 10 or so for a couple of days is ok, though ideally the units with dinner might help correct things anyway too.

Sound ok??

currently munching eggs and burgen!

 

[lauraw1983]

Laura! I did not realise you were an inbetweenie too 🙂

I'm having the same problems at the moment. Levels are frequently in double figures, yet I don't feel symptoms I am pretty aggy :/

Your team sound like they have done the right thing though! Wish I had some insulin to hand to sort me out once and for all. Hope you have managed to deal with it okay now! Xxx

Yes I sure am! Great fun :-/

I totally notice it in my mood more than anything else when they are running high - agitated and more shouty!

My team are really good I have to say, I have not a bad word to say about them. Their view is they know I will need insulin soon (antibodies were high), but they can't say when either (no-one can), so having insulin there was sensible - esp over the xmas time!

When were you diagnosed? Was it by anti-gad test?

 

[trophywench]

That sounds right to me mate.

See - I know that 10g carb increases my meter reading by 3.0 and that 1u fast-acting reduces my BG by the same 3.0.

You have consumed approx 12g carb, so I would expect my pre-meal reading to increase by 3.6. 'We' know that 1u reduces you by 5. But we don't know what the carbs do, it doesn't always work out so handily exact as mine! However, by lunchtime - 'we' will know!

Point being, if your BG goes up by 5 or 5+ or something equally large, then you may need to think about correcting at lunchtime ....... and we won't actually know if it is just the food or whether you need basal insulin too ... but I'm with your DSN here - the effects of too much or too little fast-acting are much easier to cope with than the effects of the wrong amount of slow acting. (because it's over and done with quicker)

Poxy Beta cells - wish they'd just get on with it and pop their flipping clogs - so much easier when you know they definitely aren't gonna put their interfering little oars in to mess you up !

 

[Northerner]

...Poxy Beta cells - wish they'd just get on with it and pop their flipping clogs - so much easier when you know they definitely aren't gonna put their interfering little oars in to mess you up !

Maybe, but consider my situation: my consultant believes (as do I) that I still have some functioning beta-cells 3.5 years after diagnosis. The reason for thinking this is the relatively low dose of basal insulin I take, equating to about 15-20% of my total daily dose. Yet my control is extremely stable, I hardly ever get numbers in double-figures, and if I do then there is usually a clear reason why, plus my HbA1c has been in the 5% range practically since diagnosis (only one above, at 6.8%, but that was about 6 weeks after being diagnosed at 11.8%). I don't know, but I imagine that the honeymoon is more of a problem the younger you are - children succumb to Type 1 very quickly and then may have a 'spluttering' pancreas for a few months, but adults appear to have a slower onset and more gradual destruction of beta-cells, with less sporadic production of insulin. Just my guess based on my own experience and those of others that I have read about here 🙂

So I'm happy to have some functioning beta cells for as long as I can! I suspect (and hope!) that once Laura and Liz get the right doses of insulin they need to supplement whatever their pancreas is producing then they too will have lovely stable levels too! 🙂

 

[trophywench]

And of course there is always the C-peptide issue. Which I do believe is an advantage on the complications (lack thereof) front - as per the Joslin Institute findings.

I have no idea what my Beta cells did post D or do now, as they never tested me. AFAIK I never had a honeymoon period either - I was 22. And who knows what my BG was doing generally for the first few years until they invented and I bought a meter?

I certainly wasn't going hypo though and that's an absolute fact. I know I had hypo symptoms quite a few times in the hospital and first couple of months but those were most likely false hypos, as I never actually did the passing out thing until after I went onto MDI in 1984. And every time I've changed either insulin ever since!

You seem OK because you are stable - but I'd hate not knowing if/when my pancreas was gonna perform or not - which is certainly what certain folk here have said happens to them. Just tedious ......