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no carbs and insulin?

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HannahVictoria

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hello,
If you have a meal with no/next to no carbs in it do you still have to inject insulin? I am on the novorapid fast acting insulin injections and normally give 1 unit of insulin for every 10g of carbs. My lunch (omelette and some veg) altogether had 4g carbs so I have not given any insulin. what do you do in this situation?
any advice would be helpful,
thanks 🙂
 
People are different in this. Personally I find my body to be quite good at converting protein into glucose so I would need some insulin but as I have a pump I can use an extended bolus. If I was still on injections I would be very cautious about this because until you know when and if the spike will happen it’s a bit risky. I used to have beans with my omelette to avoid the problem (and because I like beans)!
I would do what you have done initially and then test every hour for four hours to see if my levels were steady. If not then maybe you might need insulin but possibly not up front.
 
I wouldn't have any insulin with it.

We once had a graph on the DSF website which said that if the body has to use other foodstuffs to make glucose, comparatively, for protein you'd need X% of the insulin you'd need for carbs and Y% for fat. Good Lord !! If I'd gone by that I'd have died from an insulin overdose a very, very long time ago! - so absolutely DO NOT DO IT without controlled testing over months in a large variety of totally different scenarios - exercise, weather, time of day etc - and ALWAYS with glucose at your fingertips immediately available.

If you go on a carb counting course - this is never mentioned - ONLY carbs.
 
I would do the same as @Radders 🙂 Try it without novorapid and see how my body coped with it. With such a small amount of carbs it's highly unlikely your levels would go particularly high, but by trying it and testing you can see the impact and make a decision what to do the next time 🙂
 
It would depend what my levels were like before the meal as to what I would do but with the possibility of the protein turning to glucose in the absence of carbs I may also just give myself a half unit and keep an eye on things, I tend not to do no carb meals though x
 
I was very confused when I had zero carbs, and found that for some foods my BG still went up. Only then did I find out about how my body reacts to protein with no carbs present. Being very happy with percentages etc, I then put in the appropriate percentage of grams of protein as carbs to trigger some insulin, BUT this is only after a lot of testing and monitoring t find out what I needed to do for me.

We are all different so see what happens. A lot of people just need no insulin for no carbs. Find it what you need.
 
SB2015 said:
I was very confused when I had zero carbs, and found that for some foods my BG still went up. Only then did I find out about how my body reacts to protein with no carbs present. Being very happy with percentages etc, I then put in the appropriate percentage of grams of protein as carbs to trigger some insulin, BUT this is only after a lot of testing and monitoring t find out what I needed to do for me.

We are all different so see what happens. A lot of people just need no insulin for no carbs. Find it what you need.
Click to expand...
Do you find that you need an extended bolus for the protein as well?
 
Radders said:
Do you find that you need an extended bolus for the protein as well?
Click to expand...
Yes I use extended as it seems to take longer to get to be glucose. Works well, and only needed when there are no carbs present (A rare occurrence!!)
 
HannahVictoria said:
Hello,
If you have a meal with no/next to no carbs in it do you still have to inject insulin? I am on the novorapid fast acting insulin injections and normally give 1 unit of insulin for every 10g of carbs. My lunch (omelette and some veg) altogether had 4g carbs so I have not given any insulin. what do you do in this situation?
any advice would be helpful,
thanks 🙂
Click to expand...
Test & test, Good luck. I am on a pump & adore to Miss my lunch. Only you will know how it affects you 😉
 
David Garbutt said:
Carbohydrates are broken down very quickly by our bodies. The fast acting insulin we inject has an activity curve designed to match those carbohydrates. This is what you see if you have a bowl of cornflakes. Blood glucose goes high very quickly and all in one go, then drops down quickly.
Click to expand...
With me, the activity curve only works well if I have a balanced meal with carb fat and protein, which I believe is what fast acting insulin was designed to cope with.
Too many fast acting carbs, and I've spiked sooner than the insulin can work, and I have to sit it out at a high level until the insulin catches up. Not good for my long term prospects!
Too much fat and protein, and as you say, the pizza effect happens. Which still means that I need to inject some insulin further down the line, the glucose produced by the protein and fat, albeit several hours later, doesn't just go away of its own accord!
I find the best sort of meal to eat is one that matches the insulin profile. But if I want an omelette, I'll have one, and I'll test later and see if I need a correction dose.
 
For me it would depend on the time of day. For lunch if I had no carbs I'd have no insulin, and I'd almost certainly still hypo some time during the afternoon, and/or evening, and/or night! But if it were breakfast I'd have a couple of units of insulin because my blood sugar just goes up mid morning no matter what I do or what I eat. And then I'd have to cut my lunchtime insulin or I'd hypo during the afternoon - I can't eat no carbs at all! But as several people have said, we're all different, so it's best to try it a few times, testing a couple of hours after eating, and then you can work out what works for you.
 
Good luck with that, David. Splitting Lantus was a disaster for me, but I need such a tiny amount of basal that Lantus really wasn't suitable for me at all. Tresiba is working out much better, but as you say, always a work in progress!
 
David Garbutt said:
Back to the basal.
My glucose levels go down in the a.m. then up before lunch. I am splitting my Lantus again, after discussion with the specialist. Basal control always seems to be a work in progress.
Click to expand...

When I wanted to split my basal insulin I was switched to Levemir, as I was told the profile of that makes it more effective for splitting. It may be worth asking about different insulin. He weaver it is four years since I was injections so things may well have changed.
 
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