Out of control blood sugars

[andrewnina23]

Hi there.

I am type 2 and can not get my sugars under control.

I carb count when I can.

Today I had two pieces of Granary toast and a regular size tin of macaroni cheese.

Total carbs was 80g

I was told by my diabetic nurse to use a 2:1 ratio when it comes to insulin so I took 40 units of Humalog fast acting insulin.

My sugars have spiked at 16.2 and are slowly coming down

Can anyone offer advice on what I am doing wrong.

Thanks,

Andrew.

 

[Ciara DUK]

Hi @andrewnina23 thanks for reaching out 🙂

We would say that whilst there are a lot of factors that can raise someone's blood sugar levels, and that you may not be doing anything 'wrong', please go easy on yourself.

However, with your levels being elevated, we would always recommend that you report these levels to a medical professional such as your GP or your Diabetes Specialist Nurse (DSN) for further investigation. There may be something else going on here and an analysis would require the expertise of someone medically trained.

We would invite you to give our helpline a call for some general dietary guidance and to chat through small tweaks you can make to help better control your blood sugar levels. We sadly can't comment on dosage or medications, and we are not medically trained, so again, it would be worth raising any concerns about your insulin with your DSN.

We hope this supports your situation, and please continue to check in with us should you wish - it'd be great for us to know how you get on 🙂

And please do continue asking questions - we're all here to help! 🙂

 

[askeelsepttype2]

I had the same problem. I went on a very low carb diet (19g per day) cut out all processed food and made all my meals from scratch. I managed to get my glucose level down from 78 to 54 but it took about 3 months. My levels are still a bit high (8.8ml fasting blood glucose) but I am working on it.

 

[Eternal422]

Hi @andrewnina23, do you pre-bolus, I.e. inject your Humalog some time before eating? This will help tame the spike as the onset of Humalog is around 30 minutes for it to start taking effect (your results may vary as we are all different).

Also, I find that I digest pasta slowly and my BG will start rising some time after eating, also not helped by the cheese as fat tends to slow down digestion of the carbs so in effect you could be getting a slow release after the meal which keeps the levels elevated for some time?

As @Ciara DUK says, it may be a good idea to reach out to your DSN for some advice and tips tailored to your situation. But I would say, don’t beat yourself up as diabetes is a fickle beast and won’t always give you the same results two days running. I’m sure you’ll get your BG down as time goes by and you learn how your body deals with different foods. Take care!

 

[Inka]

Welcome @andrewnina23 🙂 How far in advance of eating did you inject the Humalog? Your meal was very carby - carbs plus more carbs - so you might get better results with eating fewer carbs and adjusting your Humalog accordingly. The size of your Humalog dose suggests you have a not insignificant amount of insulin resistance. Eating lots of carbs and taking enough insulin to cover them could lead to further insulin resistance. I’d look for lower carb meals and maybe even have a max carb amount per meal. Again, always adjust your Humalog to take less if you eat fewer carbs.

 

[rebrascora]

Can you just clarify what your carb ratio actually means because carb ratios are usually expressed as insulin:carbs with the insulin first, so 1:10 in my case, as in 1unit of insulin to 10g carbs, so I am wondering if in fact the 2:1 you quoted should actually be 1:2 ie 1 unit of insulin to every 2grams of carbs which looks to be what you have calculated or if the carbs are being denoted as "carb portions" which is the old fashioned way of expressing it (a "carb portion" is 10g carbs), which means 2 units of insulin for every 10g carbs, in which case your 80g carbs would need 16units not 40units, so you might be at risk of a nasty hypo later, if that is the case. How long have you been using insulin?

As mentioned above, it is carbs (bread) with more carbs (macaroni) in one meal and that amount of carbs will not help your insulin resistance, especially if that is a typical meal for you. I think you may find that half a tin is probably the recommended portion of the macaroni cheese.