highs and lows

Status
Not open for further replies.
M

micky turner

Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
i have been a diabetic all my life., but have only on insulin for twelve years. i am type 2. since being on insulin, my sugar levels have never been stable. i first went on insulin because my left foot went black, so off part of it went. then i had kidney trouble, heart, ulcered legs, cateracs, all of which i have got over to a point. no matter what i eat, i keep to my diet, i lost two stone on it. i still get hypos, to many highs, for what seems to be no reasons. can any one got any ideas?😉
 
Micky, when you say you get hypos, is that after injecting? The vast majority of hypos i get, are from me injecting too much insulin for the food I have eaten - a hypo about an hour & a hlf to two hours later.
 
Micky,
The fact that you suffer too many highs means that you're not using insulin correctly. You need to get in touch with your GP/diabetics nurse. Have you considered doing the DAFNE course?

Regards Dodger
 
Alan221 said:
Micky, when you say you get hypos, is that after injecting? The vast majority of hypos i get, are from me injecting too much insulin for the food I have eaten - a hypo about an hour & a hlf to two hours later.
Click to expand...
no. my hypos can happen at any time. quiet a lot duering the night, even though i have something to eat before i go to bed
 
C*5_Dodger said:
Micky,
The fact that you suffer too many highs means that you're not using insulin correctly. You need to get in touch with your GP/diabetics nurse. Have you considered doing the DAFNE course?

Regards Dodger
Click to expand...
no. never really thought about doing a course. i have asked my diabetic team, and they say that i am injecting alright. hypos seem to happen at any time
 
have you read 'using insulin' by John Walsh, a great book for solving insulin dosing issues.

what insulin are you on? if you are having alot of night hypos looks like your basal insulin isn't right.
 
sofaraway said:
have you read 'using insulin' by John Walsh, a great book for solving insulin dosing issues.

what insulin are you on? if you are having alot of night hypos looks like your basal insulin isn't right.
Click to expand...
mornings- human insultard
evenings- mixtard 30
 
mixtard 30 doesn't provide a flat dosage of insulin, it is a mix of reasonably fast acting insulin combined with a longer acting portion... what you could be seeing is the insulin in your blood stream increasing in your blood stream when you are asleep and lowering your blood sugars - i suffered from this alot before i switched insulins, it might be an idea to discuss if there are more suitable insulins for you that you could be using
 
When you first go onto insulin, who decides what type is best for you - is it with discussion with you as to lifestyle etc or is it just hit and miss ? I ask because several of the posts on here seem to indicate the diabetic clinic/advisors/consultants didn't get it right first time for a good number of people.

I'm just wondering what the procedure is and how much say you, as the diabetic person, has in the matter. My team are being very considerate to me but I do feel "they" are doing things to/for me rather than me being consulted - and I'd like to know how things are decided before I make any more decisions on matters which frankly I so far know little about (no matter how much I read up on things).

Any opinions ?:confused:
 
number of injections

Hi Vince

I'm guessing here, but I reckon that diabetes specialists tend to assume people will want the fewest number of injections, and then perhaps be shunted along to more injections per day later.

This was certainly a false assumption in my case (diagnosis 1997) - if they'd asked, I'd have said my priority was flexibility as I fully intended to return to more interesting work and activities than I was suffering at the time - I was working in a Midlands travel agency, but wanting to use my Marine Biology degree (earned after qualifying as a nurse) and do more outdoor activities. Fortuitously, I went away on holiday, touring WW1 battlefields with an Australian student midwife who I knew from an expedition in Australia. She noticed that predicting when you are going to eat (30mins and then again in 4 - 5 hours) wasn't going to fit my aspirations, so she had a quiet word with her mother, a pharmacist in Tasmania, who posted me photocopies about basal bolus regime from a pharmacy journey. I asked about changing when I next went to the hospital, and the doctor, who I'd never met before, agreed that it would suit me better. After that, things began to improve, and I actually felt I could look forward for the first time in months. The hospital had offered counselling, but I had declined, explaining I wanted practical solutions to problems such as how I could continue with interesting work, travel , activities etc. They didn't help with the practical solutions until I knew what to ask for.

I'd appeal to medics to ask patients about the patient's priortities, not make assumptions - it would promote better co-operation and satisfaction all round, I reckon. And ask at diagnosis and at every annual review as a minimum.
 
To answer you Vince when I went to the hospital to be put on insulin my DR informed me that I would be going onto 2 injections a day of mixed insulin. I just replied that i wasn't. I was a student nurse at the time and had been around diabetes forums so I knew that mixed insulin wouldn't suit me. So I said I wanted basal bolus and she agreed. about 2 weeks of basal only then the novorapid was added in as my blood sugars were still high (as they would be). The DR had made the decision for me without discussion. I think that although that does tend to happen if you know what you wnat or know other options then they are gernerally happy to discuss with you and allow you to choose.
 
Hi Sofaraway

So, I'm not the only person with a nursing background who was diagnosed in 1996 (actually I'd been qualified about 8 years by then, and was no longer working in the field, so hadn't heard of basal bolus regime) put on bimodal without thinking, despite having mentioned a varied lifesyle - equivalent of nursing shifts. I only heard about basal bolus thanks to an Australian student midwife and her pharmacist mother - it should have been virtually automatic. After all, nurses are hardly going to object to injections! It's not as bad injecting myself as injecting pet cats, starfish (skin feels likes hitting a bone) and cattle as I have since then! Please see my post about Simon O'Neill's "At the sharp end" in "Books" forum, as you might like it, too. If you want more info about what he wrote, then please PM.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top