Hi - trying to learn to help elderly mum newly diagnosed.

[pixiepolly1966]

Hello all
Mum 83 diagnosed 10 days ago with type 2 after having DKA. It showed up on her recent GP blood tests but wasn’t followed up unfortunately. It’s been caused by her immunotherapy we have been told (rare complication) I found her semi conscious and slumped in a terrible state. Called 999. Hospitalised for 10 days. Just got her home and we are having trouble with the glucose monitor the hospital gave us. Also her glucose is a bit haywire and was 16.5 late in the night. She’s on white basal pen dose of 10 at 8am followed blue pen rapide dose of 4. Then just one more blue pen rapide dose of at 1pm. Dads 86 and doing his best but I’m just hearing about sensors and pumps. Does anyone have recommendations and where best to buy please ? Thanks !

 

[Inka]

Welcome @pixiepolly1966 Sorry to hear your mum’s been so ill. I hope she’s gradually feeling better now she’s on insulin.

Can you tell us the names of the insulins she’s on, please? There are lots of different kinds.

What problems are you having exactly with the glucose meter the hospital gave your mum? Is the problem getting enough blood? Getting error messages? What meter is it?

Type 2s don’t qualify for insulin pumps - and many Type 1s don’t either. They’re not an easier option and need a fair amount of work. I’d discount those.

However, you could look at getting a free trial of the Libre sensor. This goes into the arm and gives the blood sugar over the day and night with no fingerpricking apart from a few to check it’s accurate. It also has alarms that alert to high and low sugars.

Finally, it’s very likely your mum has been started on less insulin than she needs for safety reasons. They do that for everyone no matter their age, but I imagine they’d be even more cautious with older people. So, her doses might be increased gradually over the next few weeks. Make sure she has hypo treatments - Dextro glucose tablets, jelly babies, etc - that she can take if her blood sugar goes too low. This is very important.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Hello all
Mum 83 diagnosed 10 days ago with type 2 after having DKA. It showed up on her recent GP blood tests but wasn’t followed up unfortunately. It’s been caused by her immunotherapy we have been told (rare complication) I found her semi conscious and slumped in a terrible state. Called 999. Hospitalised for 10 days. Just got her home and we are having trouble with the glucose monitor the hospital gave us. Also her glucose is a bit haywire and was 16.5 late in the night. She’s on white basal pen dose of 10 at 8am followed blue pen rapide dose of 4. Then just one more blue pen rapide dose of at 1pm. Dads 86 and doing his best but I’m just hearing about sensors and pumps. Does anyone have recommendations and where best to buy please ? Thanks !

Welcome to the forum @pixiepolly1966

Sorry to hear about your Mum, that must have come as quite a shock!

Hopefully she will begin to feel much more human once the doses are tweaked to where she needs them. Don’t worry if this happens fairly gradually in stages, it can be kinder on the fine blood vessels in the eyes, and on nerve endings, for her levels to come back towards the top of the recommended range. This should be individually discussed, and is usually higher in older people, to reflect what happens naturally in older age. And as @Inka says, you don’t want to risk a hypo by trying to get things down too low.