high

[staceyc]

sorry for all the questions
i have just started on friday 4 units (do they call them units) of insulin a day all weekend the reading ahve been up and down for lunch i had a ham sandwich and a few crisps i did my reading a hour after and it was 9.9 the nurse told me what to do if it get to low but is there anything i can do when its high she keeps saying its not good for the baby to be high but thats all
thanks again stacey🙂

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Hi Stacey

Speak to your clinic about what levels to expect after eating, and what to do about it. Without knowing which type of insulin you are on it's hard to know it's profile, but it will be working over a set number of hours (4,12,24) depending on type. Everyone is slightly different of course, but there are generally expected profiles for each different insulin.

At 1 hour you will still have insulin 'active'. If it's a modern rapid-acting one (NovoRapid for example) it will most likely work from 30 minutes after injecting until about 4 hours afterwards. After 4 hours you'd be able to see whether the dose has dealt properly with the food you have eaten.

As a T1 I would expect some sort of rise after eating a meal with carbs in (a rise of 2-4mmol/L would be quite normal for me), it's just a question of trying to get the profile of the insulin to match with the digestion of the carbs to keep the levels as even as possible.

Hope that made some kind of sense!
M
M

 

[Ellie Jones]

Hi Stacy

What insulin are you'll using?

I'm assuming that you'll on a once a day background insulin, in which case it will take a couple of days to see what affect it's truely having. Another porblem is that it can't be used to correct a high when they happen, but has to be adjusted so that you get a blance between not going low or going high over a 24 hour period the duration of the insulin..

You can prevent some of the highs after meals, with looking at the food you are consumming in the main what carbohydrates both in amount and type, this can lead to spiking after a meal.. Say yesterday not sure what type of bread you used with your ham sandwich, but if it was white bread this tends to spike the BG quicker than using a wholemeal bread such as a grannary bread.. Crips would have added to your carb consumption so perhaps a small yogert would have had lesser effect after your meal!


It's harder dealing with diabetes when pregnant has insulin needs can change week by week, so your diabetic team will be working with you to enable you to maintain control, and perhaps may introduce a fast acting insulin to use when you are eating to cover the carbs in your food..

Never be afriad to ask questions..

Oh yes, and insulin is referred to as units for dose.

 

[Copepod]

Yes, Stacey, insulin is measured in units - there are 100 units of U100 insulin in 1ml. Stating the obvious, perhaps, but when there were U40 and U80 insulins, there was more scope for confusion.