I was a newbie in March!!

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Shaz White

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Type 1
Hi I was diagnosed in March this year, everything was going ok until I went on holiday and obviously was eating and drinking too much started to get quite high readings and haven't really managed to get them back on track since do I eat or not very confusing!!!:confused:
 
Hi Shaz, welcome to the forum 🙂 Sorry to hear that things have gone a bit haywire since your holiday. I think the change of routine is often the major factor, as well as the extra temptations of course! What insulin regime are you on? What sort of levels are you going to bed and waking up with? Have you been on a carb-counting course? If you can describe a typical day we might be able to make some suggestions that will help get things under control 🙂
 
Hi yes probably too many temptations, I am on Humulin M3 twice a day, one before breakfast then one before tea, I take 12 units in the morning and I am now up to 18 units before tea. Recently my levels have been about 13 or 14 when I get up and some nights I can go to bed on a reading of 18!!! I haven't been on the Carb course yet the health teams have told me about it sounds very confusing. The point I want to get to is - inject, eat, forget about it!! or am I living in Cuckoo Land??
 
Shaz White said:
Hi yes probably too many temptations, I am on Humulin M3 twice a day, one before breakfast then one before tea, I take 12 units in the morning and I am now up to 18 units before tea. Recently my levels have been about 13 or 14 when I get up and some nights I can go to bed on a reading of 18!!! I haven't been on the Carb course yet the health teams have told me about it sounds very confusing. The point I want to get to is - inject, eat, forget about it!! or am I living in Cuckoo Land??
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Hi Shaz, I would highly recommend talking to your team about the basal/bolus regime (also known as MDI - Multiple Daily Injections). With this regime you inject slow-acting insulin one or two times a day, and then inject a fast-acting insulin before each meal to match the carbohydrates in the meal. This is much more flexible than the regime you are currently on as you only eat what you want, when you want and are not tied to having to eat at certain times. It really is very straightforward and you will quickly pick it up. As an example, you might want to eat a curry and rice which contains 70g of carbs. Let's say you need one unit of insulin per 10g - you would therefore inject 7 units. Have a look at Diabetes UK's free Carbs Count download:

http://www.diabetes.org.uk/OnlineSh...diabetes/Food-and-activity/Carb-count-e-book/

As well as matching your insulin to your food, you will also be able to 'correct' any high levels you get by injecting some extra units of fast-acting insulin. Ask your DSN tomorrow about it! Really, you won't regret it 🙂
 
Hi Shaz

Welcome to the forum 🙂
 
Shaz hi and a warm welcome to the forum
 
Hi Shaz

Can I just say - don't do what Northie said with your current insulin !

On that, you have to eat exactly the same amount of carbs at the same times every single day.

IMHO - Utterly ridiculous to start a young Type 1 person on mixed insulin at all in this day and age. None of the HCPs even know how to titrate it - they never learned cos we were all on better regimes when they were born. Really annoys me!

If you are 109 years old and doddery, well maybe.
 
That made me laugh, No I am not 109 I am a young 43!! Any tips on what you think I should try, at the moment I am finding myself starving, because my levels are quite high I don't want to eat anything in between meals because they will shoot up even higher, what is classed as a high amount of units in one injection anyway I have no idea???
 
Hi Shaz and welcome to the forum. My son is on M3 in the mornings, 42 units! He has been diagnosed 21 months now, is 17 years old, and his using the M3 is a backwards step in my opinion.

He started on the basal/bolus regime Northerner talked about - a basal injection at bedtime each night (Lantus) then Novorapid - a bolus insulin - with meals. He had to calculate the amount of carbs in each meal and inject accordingly - 1u for each 10g of carbs. Sounds confusing, but it really was easy after a week or two. You soon get used to looking on packaging for carb values and a good dietician will give you a list of carbs in basic foodstuffs. For my son this regime worked wonderfully. He injected 4/5 times a day and his control was good. It really does mean you can eat normally and eat according to your appetite and it's no problem eating when out and about as you can just inject according to the food on your plate.

The problems for my son came when firstly he didn't want to inject at school on exam days for fear of hypos during an exam, then when he returned to 6th form he was with a new peer group and refused to test or inject at school. The clinic decided putting him on M3 in the mornings was the answer, so he didn't have to deal with it at school. For him that's when all the control seemed to go out of the window. I admit he also then started skipping odd evenings injections, though he was put on a very complicated regime using M3 in the mornings, Humilin S at tea time (again a set dose) then still the Lantus at night. They keep changing things for him, Novorapid is back in the mix at teatime now, but he is now skipping his Lantus at night.

Though all this waffle, what I am trying to say is that M3 won't give you the kind of control that a basal/bolus regime will so I would really advise you ask to change to that. I also wonder if you have come out of your 'honeymoon period' and that is why your levels have begun to rise. Do you adjust your own doses or do the clinic do it for you? Sounds like you need to up your insulin, but you should only do this with guidance from your team. Perhaps you could request an appointment with a hospital consultant to get things properly sorted. Good luck.
 
trophywench said:
On that, you have to eat exactly the same amount of carbs at the same times every single day.
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Interestingly Trophywench, when my son was put on the M3 they gave him/us absolutely NO information about what and when he should eat whilst on it and they never have since. I grant you my son always seems to be eating, the same as he used to before diagnosis. He used to start his lunch at morning break at school then eat more at actual lunchtime, then come home and snack some more before dinner, but no-one has ever talked to us about amounts of carbs and when he should eat them. He just eats what he wants when he wants. I don't suppose he would listen anyway even if they did, but I still wish he was back on the Novorapid and carb counting. Of course it has to come from him to want to do that and at the moment he just wouldn't be prepared to inject any more than once or twice a day so it won't work.
 
Welcome to the forum Shaz 🙂
 
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