plummeting lows, outrageous spikes

[Sally Turner]

Hi all

Having woken up at 6.30am this morning to a reading of 15.6 (I'm Type 2 but insulin dependent), I took 60 units of Levemir and 32 Novorapid. I then dropped to 8.1 and then still further to 7.2. I had lunch at 12.50pm which was a Boots sub with chicken and bacon and a pack of McCoys (high carb I know but I was worried I was dropping too quickly. To be honest I felt awful). 20 minutes after lunch I'd rocketed to 15.4.

Is this kind of mad fluctuation normal??? I was diagnosed in 2006 and started insulin therapy 2013.
All thoughts welcome

Sally

 

[Redkite]

How quickly did you drop from 15.6 to 7.2? If this drop happened over 2.5-3 hours, then that's exactly what you'd want to see - the idea of doing an insulin correction is to get you back in the 4-7mmol range. When you ate your lunch, did you count the carbs and inject an amount of insulin to match, or are you on fixed doses? If you're on fixed doses, I'd recommend asking to go on a carb counting course (DAFNE). If you're already carb counting, the timing of your injection could be the issue. Novorapid isn't instant, and foods like sub rolls are very high GI, which means the glucose from digestion of these foods arrives in your bloodstream very quickly, before the insulin has had time to start working.

 

[Sally Turner]

Hello, thanks for the reply. Yes the drop was over 2-3 hours. I didn't count the carbs no. I'm supposed to take 32 Novorapid with each meal. On this occasion I'll have to let it drop by itself as I didn't bring enough needles with me. I'll do a correction when I get home tonight, which will be about 7.00pm.
The point about high GI is very sensible. I'll watch out for that
Thanks again

 

[Copepod]

Welcome to the forum, Sally Turner. DAFNE courses are only for people with type 1 diabetes (although many have never been offered / able to attend). You might find it useful to do an online carbohydrate counting course such as http://www.bdec-e-learning.com/

 

[Northerner]

Hi Sally, welcome to the forum 🙂 Sorry to hear you are having problems. Redkite's point about GI is a good one - if you want to know a bit more about how to choose food that will have a slower and steadier impact on your levels I'd recommend having a look at The GL Diet for Dummies which is a good introduction. Are you on any other medication for your diabetes, e.g. metformin? Are you fairly new to insulin or have you been on it for a while? A quick introduction to carb counting is the Diabetes UK Carbs Count guide (pdf).