Living alone

[brisr949]

Do you think that living alone can either consciously or subconsciously make you run slightly high, especially overnight through a fear of hypos.
They used to wake me when i was around 4 but now if i get one overnight i get woken 2.5 and under. So maybe the fear of having no one here to help in an emergency makes me run a bit high but there are obvious pitfalls to this..anyone else in the same boat?

Adam.

 

[MrDaibetes]

I don't have hypo symptoms so that scares me when I try and find a place for myself. I hope by that time I am in a long relationship and it's a mutual decision to move in together.

 

[Northerner]

Hi Adam 🙂 Yes, I totally get what you are saying. I have always lived alone and have been diagnosed for 12 years now. Although my control has been pretty good over the years there was always that subconscious anxiety about the possibility of a night hypo, so I always tried to make sure that I was at a comfortable level before bed, and, importantly, that my evening meal insulin had had time to fully expire before going to bed - despite the 'rapid' or 'fast' name attached to bolus insulin it can actually take up to 5 hours to fully expire, so if you go to bed 3 hours after eating/injecting then it could still have the capability to drop you lower for another two hours. This, of course, can vary from person to person. If I was, say, 5.0 before bed then I would eat a slice of bread and peanut butter to help keep my levels elevated overnight, and I would frequently test in the middle of the night if I had to get up for the loo 🙂

If you wake in the 7s or 8s, it's not a worry, it's more important to stay safe in my opinion, especially in the early weeks and months after diagnosis 🙂 In time, you build up experience and knowledge of how your body reacts to your background insulin, food you have eaten, the effects of exercise during the day etc. As long as you can maintain good levels during the day, running a little higher overnight will not have a significant impact, and you will fine tune things as time goes on 🙂

I'm particularly aware of how living alone can make you a little more anxious, even if it's subconsciously, because it emerged that I'm a Type Weird rather than Type 1 - after 4 years I stopped needing a background insulin, and I remember very well the feeling that a little stress had been lifted from me, so I can fully appreciate the contrast 🙂

 

[Pumper_Sue]

I live alone and yes at night my hypo symptoms are not as good at night so I use the Dexcom CGM which alarms when I get down to 5. I def feel safer using the CGM.

 

[SB2015]

Hi Adam, I tend to pick up a hypo at different levels, depending on how it is dropping. If it is a gentle decline I am less likely to notice than one that is dropping rapidly, when I will pick it up at around 4.2.

Whilst I am not living alone, when I have been away on my own I have felt more anxious about possible hypos and so been more cautious at night. I try when I can to follow the idea that @Northerner has said of making sure that my food and insulin for the evening meal have done their job. I try to eat 5 hours before going to bed, then I know that I am just making use of my background insulin whilst asleep.

You are in the early stages so it would be sensible to play safe. You will develop more confidence in your management and then be able to bring things down to what you feel comfortable with.

A Libre sensor certainly helps many people at night. If I get a reading I am happy with and a level arrow I would do nothing. If the arrow was downwards I will snack to address that drop.

Whatever you do have the hypo stuff by the bed. You don’t want to have to wander off to find it. I have JBs in every room in the house. I also have a carton of juice by the bed as that gets going more quickly and I use that in place of JBs for anything below 3.

 

[Northerner]

Whatever you do have the hypo stuff by the bed. You don’t want to have to wander off to find it. I have JBs in every room in the house.

I'm the same! 🙂 A Libre sensor is also helpful because it's much easier to do a quick scan during the night than to go through all the business of finger pricking, which you need to be more awake to do properly, so it's often harder to get back to sleep 🙂

Also, one other thing I might mention: I went through a period where even though I wasn't using background insulin any more, and I was not going to bed until 5 hours after my last injection of rapid, I was experiencing hypos I couldn't explain it at first, nor could my consultant, but I eventually worked out that it was because I had been using my backside for injections and absorption of insulin can be slower from this. Having realised this might be the problem I changed to always doing my evening rapid injection in my abdomen, which has faster absorption...and the problem was solved 🙂 As I said earlier, experience helps you work out these things. For now, the main aim is to stay safe and keep a good diary of your tests and injections, preferably with notes about anything that might be relevant (food, exercise, illness, stress etc.) and might affect those readings and decisions 🙂

 

[SB2015]

This is why I so enjoy being part of this forum @brisr949 .
Got a puzzling problem? Someone here will have an idea to help you find a practical solution.

 

[Lanny]

I live alone too & I’ve gone through periods where I have a series of hypos, usually coming out of Winter into Spring when I need less insulin, & to make things worse sometimes after eating I get very tired & tend to dose off: I’ve had apnoea for most of my life due to nose having a narrower nostril on the right side; had a nose op to remove cartilage from the inside to widen that when my GP once asked me how I slept? Didn’t realise that waking up for a few seconds to minutes every 3/4 hours WASN’T normal: it WAS for me; brain woke me up when I stopped breathing! It was terrifying the first time the series of hypos happened to me in Jan./Feb. 2018: now know about & expect that seasonal change; was on blood sugar lowering tablets for 11 years as a type 2 before switching to insulin!

I would repeat the advice to keep everything you need to hand. I have my top bedside dresser drawer filled with testing kit, Tupperware boxes of jelly babies, oatcakes & biscuits!

I don’t like going to bed with my blood sugars too low either & have a cup of tea & a biscuit before bed if needed!