Insulin doses

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Bobbingbuoy

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Morning all,

Just curious if food you ate at 6:45pm yesterday and 3-4 cups of tea from then up to around 10:30 before bed ( with 1.5 sugars in each ) would affect my BG levels this morning at 09:30 ? ( reading 19.6 at wake up ) drinking only water through the night.
Over the past 4 weeks since diagnosis I just seem to be increasing my insulin every few days, I’m now on 3 X Novorapid 12 units with each meal and 22 units Toujeo ( so 58 units in total ) and 2 X Metformin 500mg tablets. Tuesday just gone was my lowest reading to date at 15.9 ( at wake up ) but since then it’s been back up from low 20’s to low 30’s ?? Im still waiting to see a dietician but don’t consider myself to be eating badly ( atleast I think not ?) but im wondering if I’m fooling myself and my intake of food and drink is causing the high readings all the time ? The headaches and tinnitus seem to be making a return too over the last 2-3 days but I’m unsure if that’s stress or diabetes related as I’ve returned to work again for the 2nd time in almost 12 months ?
 
Yes it could affect your morning reading, but what your reading was before bed, and food and timings, is useful context

If your long acting insulin isn’t high enough dose then your blood sugar could have risen overnight

If the food was high fat and your short acting wasn’t enough for the food then that could make you rise overnight

If the food wasn’t high fat but your short acting wasn’t enough for the food, and your long acting is correct, then your blood sugar could have been high before bed and then stay high until you take a correction dose
 
There’s about 4g sugar in one teaspoon so 6g in 1.5 teaspoons. If you’re not taking insulin for them then they will raise your blood sugar.

4 cups of tea at 8g carb each (6g carb in the sugar, maybe 2g in the milk) is 32g carb. 10g carb raises me 3mmol so that would be roughly 9mmol increase if not taking insulin for them.
 
Are you injecting insulin for the 3-4 cups of tea with sugar? If you say that 1.5 spoons of sugar is 6-7g carbs and the milk might bring it up to 8g then 3x8 is 24g of unbolused carbs which could potentially raise you about 7.5mmols (working on 10g carbs raising your BG about 3mmols as a rough guide) and if your levels are already in double figures, plus Dawn Phenomenon kicking in in the morning, where your liver releases some of its glucose stores to give you energy for the day ahead, then yes, 19.6 is not surprising.
 
Lucy is clearly faster at typing than me....
 
Milk has been mentioned above, so make sure you include that - my strong coffee with lots of milk (sort of a flat white) has 100g of milk in it, which is ~5g of carbs. It all adds up.
 
I must admit i don't bolus or milk in tea/ coffee, though i suppose it depends on how much you use per cup, though if you think there is an issue with milk you could move to almond milk which has pretty much zero carbs.
Sugar carbs, however will act a lot quicker and i would recommend taking them into account or cut them out or move to a sweetner perhaps?
As for increasing your insulin..you need the insulin you need. Are you carb counting yet? As you are type 3 i can't really advise, but as a type1 i found carb counting a must...
Do you have a cgm? That will help you to see if your basal (long acting) insulin is keeping you level overnight. Once you get your basal right, other things tend to be easier to control. Your levels will go up on/ befire wakjng due to dawn effect but that is highly unlikely to be due to anything you are.

At the moment, i'd concentrate on reducing your general glucose level...15 seems very high for me as a peak, never mind a valley.

Do you have a means of testing for ketones? At those levels, you should be testing for ketones
 
Im still waiting to see a dietician but don’t consider myself to be eating badly ( atleast I think not ?) but im wondering if I’m fooling myself and my intake of food and drink is causing the high readings all the time ?

@Bobbingbuoy You’re not having enough insulin for your needs. I suspect you need more Toujeo but you might also need more Novorapid too. If your own pancreas can no longer produce sufficient insulin, then the problem isn’t the food, it’s the insulin - ie you’re not having enough.

Having said that, you shouldn’t be having sugar in your tea without Novorapid, unless you’re purposely raising your blood sugar.
 
I'd packed in sugar in coffee in my teens but just didn't like the taste of unsweetened tea so still had half teaspoon of sugar in my tea. Until I was admitted to hospital and diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when I was 22, that is. I had the raging thirst typical of undiagnosed Type 1 where I could literally drink a whole pint of tap water gulped down in 2 minutes and by the time I'd rinsed the glass out be ready for another drink, and they hadn't yet got the 'armful of blood' they'd already taken to test back from the Lab so no fluid drip set up yet so I was more than ready for a cuppa but they said immediately that I couldn't have any sugar so I didn't - and it took me 2 days to realise that it was far more thirst quenching without the Tate & Lyle's than it ever had been, with it!!
 
I’ll try again ! Thank you everybody for your replies, I haven’t been ignoring you, just been mad busy since I posted up !! I’m very grateful for your advice. Hopefully it’s ok to post up photos but here’s my readings from yesterday and today ….IMG_2291.jpegIMG_2290.jpeg
 
It looks like your doses still need to be adjusted upwards @Bobbingbuoy

It’s quite common for Drs to deliberately start people on lower doses of insulin than they suspect they will ultimately need, so that these can be adjusted upwards in stages, and bring levels back towards their target range more gently.

So while it can be a little disconcerting for someone newly diagnosed to feel like they are needing ‘more and more’ insulin, this may in part be by design - because reducing levels gradually is
kinder on the body, and gives it time to adapt and adjust as the levels gradually reduce over weeks.
 
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