New Type 1

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Barnsley1978

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Hi there everyone.

New member type 1 diagnosed a couple of months ago aged 45.

Struggling keeping blood sugar down at the moment but trying to adjust.
 
Hi and welcome.

There are quite a few of us late starters with Type 1 on the forum. How are you doing mentally? There is a lot to take in during the first few months, so go easy on yourself. Also it takes time and experience to learn how your body responds to food and insulin and generally at diagnosis your levels are very high and it is important to bring them down slowly rather than get them into range straight away. The tiny blood vessels in your eyes are particularly susceptible to significant changes in your BG levels, so bringing them down slowly is much easier on them and less risky.

Which insulins do you have and are you on fixed doses or have you been encouraged to learn carb counting and adjust your meal time insulin doses for the food you are eating?

Hopefully you have Libre or some other Constant Glucose Monitor (CGM) to help you track your glucose levels?

I would expect that your diabetes clinic staff are still adjusting your basal (long acting) insulin to bring your base levels down slowly.
 
Welcome @Barnsley1978 🙂 How high is your blood sugar? Importantly, are you carb counting and adjusting your bolus/meal/fast insulin according to the carbs you’re about to eat?
 
rebrascora said:
Hi and welcome.

There are quite a few of us late starters with Type 1 on the forum. How are you doing mentally? There is a lot to take in during the first few months, so go easy on yourself. Also it takes time and experience to learn how your body responds to food and insulin and generally at diagnosis your levels are very high and it is important to bring them down slowly rather than get them into range straight away. The tiny blood vessels in your eyes are particularly susceptible to significant changes in your BG levels, so bringing them down slowly is much easier on them and less risky.

Which insulins do you have and are you on fixed doses or have you been encouraged to learn carb counting and adjust your meal time insulin doses for the food you are eating?

Hopefully you have Libre or some other Constant Glucose Monitor (CGM) to help you track your glucose levels?

I would expect that your diabetes clinic staff are still adjusting your basal (long acting) insulin to bring your base levels down slowly.
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Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I am on rapid and long acting fixed doses at the moment. Basal 16 units of an evening and rapid three doses of 6 before each meal.

I have a glucose monitor so I'm trying to get it in control but I'm really surprised how much it goes up especially if I exercise.

Thanks
 
Inka said:
Welcome @Barnsley1978 🙂 How high is your blood sugar? Importantly, are you carb counting and adjusting your bolus/meal/fast insulin according to the carbs you’re about to eat?
Click to expand...
Hi thanks for the reply.

My glucose monitor blood readings are very varied but I have higher readings on a morning usually, averaging about 12 at the moment.

I get lower during the day with my insulin and low carb but it rises lots with exercise and after sleep so I'm still adjusting.

Thanks
 
With activity, it usually depends on the type of exercise as to whether levels go up or come down, so don't assume that they will go up with all exercise. Generally a walk/ramble/gentle bike ride/swim etc will bring them down, but high intensity exercise where your body is under stress, will usually cause them to go up initially but may well lower them later. Exercise can also affect your levels for up to 48 hours afterwards. For me this means I will often go hypo during the night after I have exercised unless I reduce my long acting (basal) insulin to reduce the risk of this as my night time levels whilst I sleep are very susceptible to exercise.

Which particular insulins do you have? Ie the names of them? There are a variety of brands of both long acting and meal time insulins and they have slightly different profiles of activity.
 
What insulins do you take and when? Are you high all night or does your blood sugar shoot up towards the latter part of the night?

Type 1 doesn’t require low carb. You can eat a normal healthy diet. You just have to use your insulin appropriately.
 
Thanks all I'll give the books a look.

Regarding insulin I have Novorapid and Toujeo.

My insulin was 9 at bedtime and 12 when I woke. I didn’t eat and did a medium intensity workout with weights and it went up to 17.

Will eating some carbs help with the insulin? I haven't had a monitor long but it seems my blood goes very high with few carbs.
 
Also I have only been told to take rapid insulin before food at the moment. Should it be taken to lower the blood sugar without food or doesn't it work like this?
 
Yes, you can use rapid insulin to correct high blood sugar but you should not do this while you’re still learning and getting used to things.

It sounds like your insulin needs adjusting, but it might be deliberate to keep you a bit high in the early days. I’d ask your team though.

Once you’ve got your basal insulin at the right level, you’ll be able to build on that by learning how to adjust your mealtime insulin. That’s more important than corrections at this stage. It’s not hard to do so don’t worry about it.

Your blood sugar is high not because of the small amount of carbs you’re eating but because you’re probably not having enough insulin.
 
Barnsley1978 said:
Hi there everyone.

New member type 1 diagnosed a couple of months ago aged 45.

Struggling keeping blood sugar down at the moment but trying to adjust.
Click to expand...
Hi @Barnsley1978 and welcome. I was diagnosed at 56 about 6 months ago so you’re not alone. At first, as people say below, you need to take things easy while your body learns what’s necessary. The diabetes nurses will keep you on fixed doses for a while to bring your levels down slowly. Be aware your eyesight may go blurry for a while as your blood sugar decreases but it will go back to normal (or thereabouts) after a few weeks / couple of months. Don’t go and buy new glasses just yet!

Any questions, just ask. There are lots of threads on exercise on the forum but the main message is it’s all still posssible - just look at Steve Redgrave with his 5 gold medals 🙂

All the best - it gets easier.
 
The_Bowlii said:
Hi @Barnsley1978 and welcome. I was diagnosed at 56 about 6 months ago so you’re not alone. At first, as people say below, you need to take things easy while your body learns what’s necessary. The diabetes nurses will keep you on fixed doses for a while to bring your levels down slowly. Be aware your eyesight may go blurry for a while as your blood sugar decreases but it will go back to normal (or thereabouts) after a few weeks / couple of months. Don’t go and buy new glasses just yet!

Any questions, just ask. There are lots of threads on exercise on the forum but the main message is it’s all still posssible - just look at Steve Redgrave with his 5 gold medals 🙂

All the best - it gets easier.
Click to expand...
Thanks
 
Hiya! Query please - when you refer to 'my glucose monitor' - is this a glucometer which you use via fingerpricking a drop of blood onto a test strip inserted in the machine, or a CGM that your results appear on your phone or alternatively scanning it with a Reader device?
 
trophywench said:
Hiya! Query please - when you refer to 'my glucose monitor' - is this a glucometer which you use via fingerpricking a drop of blood onto a test strip inserted in the machine, or a CGM that your results appear on your phone or alternatively scanning it with a Reader device?
Click to expand...
Hi,

Thanks for the reply, I mean CGM but when I do a prick test my results are pretty similar at the moment.
 
Well - the 9 at bedtime then 12 on getting up again on their own immediately suggested not enough insulin overnight but, if you were relying on one test at night and the next one the following morning it would take a while to actually discover at what time it starts to increase, how high it actually gets, what time after that it goes level, what time it might reduce etc etc so having the benefit of the graphs recorded by the CGM enables those with the expertise to fathom out when your body needs more insulin and when less, and how much or less at that time (of day or night)
So what can you do whilst you wait to see the medic and get their advice? well, have a good study of, at the very least, your overnight graphs over a week or so and see if the pattern is usually repeated, is that every single night or just the ones when you do X or Y before that happens.
As merely a woman with no medical training I wonder whether exercising without any food in your belly (NB not necessarily carbs!) is really a brilliant idea - notwithstanding what your CGM told you - especially at the moment, not necessarily for ever - though perhaps at the moment you've been told to just do what you'd normally do - so I do think you ought to discuss that specific thing with your medical team and see what they say.
You'll get there! All this is the equivalent of eating a whole elephant cos everybody knows that nobody can possibly eat a whole one right away - so the very first thing is to divide Jumbo up into bite sized pieces, so the task becomes more manageable. Takes ages to eat that amount of food too (let alone decide which bits to eat first) so, you do just have to plod your way through it at your own pace, however slow or fast that might be. (That was actually part of a course the firm I worked for 40 years ago delivered to their trainees in an effort to get them to self-develop their common sense - but I firmly still believe in its efficacy)
Best of luck in developing your own skills!
 
Welcome to the forum @Barnsley1978

Glad you have found us!

It’s a steep learning curve with T1 in the beginning for sure. But keep plugging away and you will get there 🙂
 
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