Mystery

[Peter kinchin]

Last night I injected 11mg insulin. This morning my reading was 2.8! I ate 5 jelly babies & had breakfast cereal & toast took 1 Metformin but no insulin. My reading at 12noon was 20.8. Have now injected 5mg insulin. Why are my readings all over the place?

 

[Robin]

Last night I injected 11mg insulin. This morning my reading was 2.8! I ate 5 jelly babies & had breakfast cereal & toast took 1 Metformin but no insulin. My reading at 12noon was 20.8. Have now injected 5mg insulin. Why are my readings all over the place?

It sounds like you’ve got into the roller coaster effect of too much insulin, followed by too much carb followed by too much insulin, et etc. Which is very easy to do when you’re not sure what you’re doing,
What insulin are you on? It makes a lot of difference to the advice you’ll get, depending whether you’re on a mix of long acting and mealtime, or if you're on a mixed insulin. (I assume you are talking units, not mg, by the way, a 'unit' of insulin is how we usually measure doses)
Have you recently started insulin? Are you on other meds besides the Metformin (which is a long term drug, designed to curb the output of glucose from your liver, it doesn’t directly lower blood glucose)Do you have a specialist nurse or other health care practitioner that you can call on? They are supposed to give you support while you’re getting to grips with insulin, so don’t be afraid to pester them.
Sorry for all the questions, but it does help us to tailor our responses. And welcome to the forum!

 

[helli]

@Peter kinchin welcome to the forum.

Do you mean 11mg of insulin or do you mean 11 units?
I was curious (and pedantic - I realise that is a fault of mine) so asked Google and learned
"One international unit of insulin was the amount of insulin required to lower the fasting blood sugar of a rabbit by 2.5 mmol/L. With the advanced technology nowadays, we now know one unit of insulin is equivalent to 0.0347mg of pure crystalline of insulin."

Sorry, I digress.
Whilst it does sound as if you are on a rollercoaster, did you feel as if your levels were so low followed by so high? I ask because, either reading could be an anomaly, especially the high reading if you had something on your finger.

 

[Inka]

Hi @Peter kinchin What insulin(s) do you take? If you normally take insulin at breakfast but didn’t today and ate cereal and toast, that would be why you were 20 at lunchtime.

If you tell us a little more, you’ll get more suggestions.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Sorry to hear you have been having such a difficult time with your doses @Peter kinchin

It sounds like you may need a review with your nurse to get some advice on your doses, perhaps discuss adjusting them, and ask some questions on how to best balance the insulin you are taking with the food you are eating.

2.8 must have been be very alarming! Have you been told about the ‘15 rule’? If you see a BG below 4.0mmol/L take 15g of fast acting carbohydrates, wait 15 minutes and recheck. If still below 4.0 take another 15g of fast acting carbs and wait another 15 minutes.

This can help prevent overtreating lows, especially when your brain can be screaming ”EAT EVERYTHING!!”