Periods and BG

[Rae]

Hi all

I've been trying to find a nice way to title this, but that's what I need to talk about.

At midnight last night, despite eating at 7 (BG 6.8) and putting in the normal amount of insulin for my carbs (24u in my case), my sugars hit 19.5. Tested ketones, and they were 0.5.

I kept an eye on it for an hour but caved and put 14u correction in at about 1am. By 3am I was only down to 13 and then Dawn Phenom came in and upped me to 15.4 at around 5.30am.

I had a 7g carb breakfast, and bolus primarily to correct the continued hyper. It was only then that it started to drop, although only now, 4hrs post food, it is stable at 10.

Here's the thing. I am on day 2-3 of my period. And something in the back of my mind said this had happened before. Went back, compared calendars, and 30 days ago I had the exact same thing. 19.5, refused to budge below 10 for about 24hrs. Interestingly, 30 days before that is when the symptoms of what I eventually found out was a building DKA started.

I've read that hormonal changes around your period can cause changes to insulin resistance, but this is not just a point or so. It's fair to mention I have PCOS so my hormones are wild and wacky at the best of times.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? Do you have a strategy to manage it? I'm thinking that significant carb restriction around that time of the month might be the way to go, as even pretty large doses of insulin were doing very little.

Thoughts & advice appreciated.

Rae

 

[Sally71]

Yes my daughter sometimes gets BG disturbance around that time, usually though she goes low for 2-3 days and then sky high for another 2-3 days afterwards. It doesn’t happen every month though unfortunately so we haven’t been very clever in finding ways to deal with it! Being on a pump we can just chuck extra basal in if the highs are very stubborn, not sure how you’d deal with that on MDI.

 

[rayray119]

i fnd i tend to run higher about week before mine starts quite offfen.

 

[pawprint91]

I'm glad you've asked this as it's one of the trillion questions in my brain right now. As a newly diagnosed diabetic, I am yet to have a period knowing that I now have diabetes. My periods can be a bit all over the place as I have a contraceptive implant - has anyone got any experience with being diabetic and contraceptives? My periods are MIA at the moment anyway, I think that's due to the weight I lost pre-diagnosis.

 

[helli]

My monthly hormones would lead to some insulin resistance which I would handle by increasing my basal.
This depends on what basal you are taking - Tresiba is not very flexible to adjustments but Levemir is easier to adjust,

 

[EmmaL76]

I run high day 1&2 of period but my worst time is ovulation. Which is right now… and I have covid, so I’m in a bit of a mess lol

 

[Lucyr]

Honestly mine are completely random on my period, sometimes high, sometimes low, i always just blame hormones, correct as I go, and wait till it ends

 

[Rae]

I run high day 1&2 of period but my worst time is ovulation. Which is right now… and I have covid, so I’m in a bit of a mess lol

Oh no! Honestly what is all this hormone nonsense we have to deal with?

Keep your fluid intake up and rest, rest, rest. Seems to be critical in reducing recovery speed. If you try and 'push through', you'll make your recovery slower overall. Wishing you well.

 

[Rae]

Honestly mine are completely random on my period, sometimes high, sometimes low, i always just blame hormones, correct as I go, and wait till it ends

I guess there's not much more for it. It basically took a 1:1 correction bolus to get me out of DKA risk territory. So I think combining it with strict carb cutting at the start of my period might be safest. But it makes me feel a little better that I don't have a load of people going WHAT NO THAT'S NOT RIGHT. Guess it's just another reason why this kind of internal plumbing is just naff. XD

 

[Rae]

My monthly hormones would lead to some insulin resistance which I would handle by increasing my basal.
This depends on what basal you are taking - Tresiba is not very flexible to adjustments but Levemir is easier to adjust,

Yeah, they moved me from Lantus to Triciba because I was burning through the lantus by 16hrs. I suppose if another few months of readings corroborates these spikes, I can look at titrating up a few days before and then easing down after.

 

[helli]

It’s funny how The Amazing Bernstein’s approach was to say that all women should go on the pill - he had no answer to our hormones.

 

[Rae]

It’s funny how The Amazing Bernstein’s approach was to say that all women should go on the pill - he had no answer to our hormones.

If I could I would to be honest, loved not having periods all through my 20s. Then I had a CV event caused by contraceptive pill and they took me off it and I can't go back on. Still, with PCOS no guarantee even that would sort me out. I'm 40 now, my mum went through menopause at 38 and I'm dreading it but also crossing my fingers for it at the same time. Absolutely done with the whole business!