Hi my name is Dotify. I have diabetes 2.I am trying to regulate sugars. They are ok in the morning. At night they are around 12.5. I am on insulin take more am as directed by doctor. I keep waking up around 5am with hypo symptoms, but sugars ok if I take them then. What should I do at this point?
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Night worries
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Hi Kaylz, Thanx for replying diagnosed T2 approx.12yrs. Couldn't tolerate tablets, so have taken insulin last 5yrs. Currently tweaking dosage to avoid night time problems AM 8-8.5 those are also readings when experiencing dawn hypo symptoms. Normally 12-125 Pm before insulin. Dosage AM 8mml Pm 2ml. have tried 3 at night which doesn't work yet. Wondered if any one else experiences this. Any tips?xx
Kaylz
Well-Known Member
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- Type 1
Sorry I have no experience with twice daily insulin as I'm on basal/bolus regime so I inject a minimum of 4 times a day, do you have much to do with your diabetes team? They should be working closely with you to get the doses pinned down as close as possible xx
I have been reading through lots of posts and realise 'fake' hypos, although symptoms seem real and quite scary and depressing, can appear as BS levels come down. Do I treat these? Hope someone can help, have had conflicting advice from health team.
TheClockworkDodo
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- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Hello @Dotify and welcome. Yes, I think most people who have false hypos find it helps if they eat a small amount of something sweet to treat them - maybe not a full hypo treatment, but if you eat one jelly baby, or a small biscuit, or a few raisins, or something like that it should stop the symptoms without sending your blood sugar rocketing up too high. If you find it climbs too fast when you try that, just eat a bit less the next time.
trophywench
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Well you're very high at bedtime and it would be best to sort that out - are your doses 12 hours apart - cos different types of insulin are effective for different amounts of time, for different people - and exactly what insulin do you take? Is it a 'mixed' insulin like eg Novomix or Insulatard - or what?
trophywench
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- Type 1
Levemir isn't 'mixed' - it's just one of the longer acting insulins, and the length of time it's active depends on your own body weight and the dosage - which you'd think would be expressed in ml not mg, since it's a liquid, however insulin is NOT measured in ml when talking about dosage - it's measured in Units. 3 ml of it = 1 entire pen cartridge = 300 Units. Very very different !
So how heavy are you, and what are your actual doses of it? - then we can look on the graph and see about how long each dose is going to act for, and how long after jabbing it will be at it's peak performance. No insulin has a completely 'flat' profile, which is good cos the human body does not have a 'flat' need for insulin either.
The trick is to get the action of the insulin as near to matching what our own body needs as we can.
So how heavy are you, and what are your actual doses of it? - then we can look on the graph and see about how long each dose is going to act for, and how long after jabbing it will be at it's peak performance. No insulin has a completely 'flat' profile, which is good cos the human body does not have a 'flat' need for insulin either.
The trick is to get the action of the insulin as near to matching what our own body needs as we can.
Thank you, I joined the forum as my knowledge is sadly lacking, however, I have talked this through with my doctor, and we agree things need to change, and I am now in regular contact until we get this right. The information I was after was does anyone else have pseudo hypos through the night as their bs reduces. Thank you for your help
Hi again, my actual dosage is 7unitsAM and 3 at night, obviously not a pen cartridge! This simply highlights a complete lack of knowledge. I am being referred for a course. I think before I retired, I was probably too preoccupied as a headteacher, maybe neglectful of my health? Thank you again
trophywench
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- Type 1
Dotify - I think it's perfectly understandable being a tad pre-occupied with being a Head Teacher myself, even more so, in this day and age!
In teacher parlance, you know how you always wanted to tell kids if they just learned 'this' now, even though they thought it was a bit difficult, it would actually make almost everything in school thereafter and most likely in life thereafter, SO much easier for them? You know, like the times tables, the alphabet, the formula for solving a simultaneous equation or whatever it happens to be that they need to know ?
Wellllllllll said grandma - you obviously were just like them, when it comes down to it ! I can only put it down to having been exposed over a whole career to the Katherine Tate 'Regardez mon visage' brigade meself.
Because I can't currently post Links without a mouse on this laptop (rodent is deceased) I'll tell you where to find it - on a website at www.diabetes-support.org.uk, if it takes you direct to the forum, then click on 'Diabetes Info' on the horizontal menu near the top of the page, which will take you to the website. There, look down the menu down the LHS and click on 'Levemir - details'. One you get to that page I highly recommend increasing your screen resolution to make the lines across the graph easier to see. Work out by dividing 7 by your weight in kgs, and locate whatever that figure is on the upright axis (see, I've forgotten which is the X axis and which the Y, LOL) Then follow that line across the page, following the curves of the line below cos it's apparent . The horizontal axis is marked in hours. You will note there's a rise and thereafter a far more gradual descent of the graph lines until it peters out and won't be enough to do anything much of any use.
If the bump in the dose graph line happens to be at a time when the human body's blood glucose naturally drops anyway - roughly at 3am for most people - it is very frequently around the time when Type 1s (who rely 99.9 or 100% on the insulin they inject) will go hypo in the night.
The other thing is that non-diabetics mostly don't get hypo symptoms in the middle of the night even when their BG naturally drops into the high 3s - they have to drop nearer 3.5 before they do. Because alcohol reduces BG (unless it's a sugary drink (eg a single Bacardi and a lot of full sugar Coke) - people naturally get the munchies when they leave the pub. Their low blood glucose causes the brain to tell them they are hungry - Feed me! it demands So - off they go to the chippy/Chinese/Indian/other fast food outlet, and obey - and recover. Been there and done that, before and during diabetes, more than once! It was nice to find out WHY, though.
In teacher parlance, you know how you always wanted to tell kids if they just learned 'this' now, even though they thought it was a bit difficult, it would actually make almost everything in school thereafter and most likely in life thereafter, SO much easier for them? You know, like the times tables, the alphabet, the formula for solving a simultaneous equation or whatever it happens to be that they need to know ?
Wellllllllll said grandma - you obviously were just like them, when it comes down to it ! I can only put it down to having been exposed over a whole career to the Katherine Tate 'Regardez mon visage' brigade meself.
Because I can't currently post Links without a mouse on this laptop (rodent is deceased) I'll tell you where to find it - on a website at www.diabetes-support.org.uk, if it takes you direct to the forum, then click on 'Diabetes Info' on the horizontal menu near the top of the page, which will take you to the website. There, look down the menu down the LHS and click on 'Levemir - details'. One you get to that page I highly recommend increasing your screen resolution to make the lines across the graph easier to see. Work out by dividing 7 by your weight in kgs, and locate whatever that figure is on the upright axis (see, I've forgotten which is the X axis and which the Y, LOL) Then follow that line across the page, following the curves of the line below cos it's apparent . The horizontal axis is marked in hours. You will note there's a rise and thereafter a far more gradual descent of the graph lines until it peters out and won't be enough to do anything much of any use.
If the bump in the dose graph line happens to be at a time when the human body's blood glucose naturally drops anyway - roughly at 3am for most people - it is very frequently around the time when Type 1s (who rely 99.9 or 100% on the insulin they inject) will go hypo in the night.
The other thing is that non-diabetics mostly don't get hypo symptoms in the middle of the night even when their BG naturally drops into the high 3s - they have to drop nearer 3.5 before they do. Because alcohol reduces BG (unless it's a sugary drink (eg a single Bacardi and a lot of full sugar Coke) - people naturally get the munchies when they leave the pub. Their low blood glucose causes the brain to tell them they are hungry - Feed me! it demands So - off they go to the chippy/Chinese/Indian/other fast food outlet, and obey - and recover. Been there and done that, before and during diabetes, more than once! It was nice to find out WHY, though.
Wow, that site is so informative. When I was first diagnosed I was given various tablets none of which I could tolerate
as they reduced me to an almost zombie-like state. I was threatened, really, with insulin which I was given, shown how to inject, and that was that! No other info apart from pretty useless course about healthy foods and little else. Never mind progress at last! Thank youx
as they reduced me to an almost zombie-like state. I was threatened, really, with insulin which I was given, shown how to inject, and that was that! No other info apart from pretty useless course about healthy foods and little else. Never mind progress at last! Thank youx
trophywench
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Thanks Dotify - I was one of the founder members of that forum and we all helped with bits of the website - but I can't lay personal claim to any of the graphs. Years gone by, things like that used to be published in the Research papers so once you know where to start looking for them, you could find all sorts of things out. Originally having one Admin who was a freelance journo helped no end with stuff like it!
Did you discover the 'free' vegetables list too? There are things on that, which I've still never seen!
Did you discover the 'free' vegetables list too? There are things on that, which I've still never seen!
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