Just Changed Insulin And Panicing

[sofaraway]

I also think that a few months is a bit long, you already have the idea that if you eat less carbs (the soup) then you will need less insulin. Believe me some people don't ever 'get' that.

Counting carbs is not difficult when you get the hang of it, you'll soon learn to look at a plate of food and be able to estimate pretty closely how many carbs there are. you might even have to stop yourself doing to other peoples plates! 😱

What I's suggest is by starting to write a detailed diary of what you eat and insulin doses. See if you can work out how many carbs are in what you are eating. some things are easy they have it written on the packet, other things for example like fruit you can easily find online or in a carb counting book.

ok i've gone into my cupboards and I'll do you an example.

for lunch I am going to have a tin of soup a slice of bread and a pot of jelly
look at the total carb not 'of which sugars' to get your numbers.

lentil and vegetable soup says half a can (200g) contains 17.6g carbohydrate
I'm going to eat the whole can so need to double it 2x17.6g = 35.2g

bread it says per slice is 11.8g carbohydrate

pot of jelly 0.4g carbohydrate, to me this is not worth counting as it's too small to make a difference.

so i need to add it all up
soup 35.2g + bread 11.8 = 47g total

if my ratio was 1 unit of insulin to 15g carbs then I would divide 47 by 15

=3.1333

so the dose I would inject would be 3 units.

if my ratio was 1 units of insulin to 5g carbs then 47/ 5 = 9.4

So I would inject 9.5 units

Each person with diabetes will have a different insulin to carb ratio, which can be found out by getting an estimate based on your total insulin used in a day and then fine tuning it. If you start by just writing down your carb intake and the doses and blood sugars your nurse/Dr has given you then you will be able to see patterns.

hope that has made things clearer rather than confused you even more, if anythign is unclear I will try to clarify.

 

[hellbell84]

thanks for the advice on carb counting, sofaraway, that really helps that you used a realistic example as well

can i ask a stupid question, the more insulin you inject, does that affect your ability to lose weight? im kinda fightin two battles here, trying to get my sugars right with this new insulin as well as eating healthy but the hypo's are becoming a bit of an issue in terms of eating healthy

what healthy snacks does anyone have when having hypo? has anyone managed to successfully lose weight through injecting insulin

i know im going to hit a raw subject but i have seen articles on the internet about diabulimnia, not that im going to risk my health like that but I never knew things like that existed!!

xxxx

 

[sofaraway]

no worries,

that is one of the problems of having hypo's that you have to eat when you wouldn't normally be doing so adds extra calories. if you are having alot of hypo's then overall you are probably getting too much insulin, I'd consult your DSN.
I tend to try to treat hypo with glucotabs and then eat something like a piece of fruit. I'm fortunate to not be getting many hypo's at the moment.

I think it can be harder to lose weight whilst on insulin, my heaviest weight was actually when i started on insulin and have lost 10kg since then. (well i lost more than that but have put a bit back on), so it is possible.

A way to use less insulin is to eat lower amounts of carbs, which generally seems to help people with weight loss. that might be something to consider once you are confident in adjusting insulin doses according to carb content.

diabulimia can be very serious and like all eating disorders is about far more than losing weight, so if anyone is thinking of using insulin manipulation then I would suggest that they need to look at what else is going on for them.

 

[hellbell84]

When you started insulin? are you on the pump now then? been reading posts on that as well, wasnt aware that there were so many people on that!!

thanks everyone to all the advice so far, it has been brilliant, i dont feel like an idiot asking questions that i probably should already know!!

xxx