problem sleeping waking up with low blood sugar and anxiety

[anilp]

Hi Guys,

Just reaching out to find what i can do to improve my problem with sleep. I used to sleep better when I was normal, eating normal carbs etc but since my type 1 diagnosis i made the choice to stick to a low carb diet because it was the only way i found to manage my blood sugar.

I was diagnosed in January and I'm still in the process of adapting to a normal life. I'm focusing on being regimented with taking insulin, eating low carb diet and constantly monitoring my bloog sugar.

My problem with sleep is that since my diagnosis has been trying to sleep for 7 hours, but every night i wake after 4/5 hours and feel tiredless, where i feel worried and i can feel my heart racing. My blood sugar is low at this point but I am not having a hypo. The lack of sleep is making feel moody alot and I'm feeling fatigued during the day. My family and work colleagues have raised their concern about my moods and tiredness so I am reaching out to find out what i can do about my problem.

 

[Inka]

Hi @anilp A racing heart is a hypo symptom for many people. How low is your blood sugar when you get these episodes?

What insulins do you take and when? Have you been shown how to adjust your mealtime insulin so you can eat a normal diet? That’s the key - good use of the insulin.

And could you just be anxious? A diabetes diagnosis takes a while to get used to, and we’re living in difficult times at the moment too.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Hello @anilp

Welcome to the forum!

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis and worries overnight. Adapting to a big life change like a diagnosis with diabetes can be challenging and feel a little overwhelming to begin with, but we have several members on the forum with many decades of happy, healthy live with T1d under their belts.

Diabetes does like a bit of routine it's true, but learning to have some flexibility and be able to adjust and adapt as life changes is important too.

When you are getting those low BG overnight, what sorts of levels are you seeing?

When do you generally take your last bolus (mealtime) insulin before bedtime, and which basal (background) insulin do you use?

 

[Pumper_Sue]

Hello @anilp and welcome to the forum.
It's just a suggestion for you if you haven't already done so, have you done any overnight basal testing? This involves testing your blood sugar every two hours through out the night, so you can then see what is going on.

I would suspect from what you are saying that your bloods are a tad to low so you need to consider perhaps dropping your basal (background) insulin a tad and see if that helps.

 

[anilp]

Thanks for replies.

My Insulin regime is basal bolus (levermir for background and novarapid before meals), its pretty basic at the moment, where I am waiting for my next hospital appointments and DAFN course to learn about being more dynamic with insulin dosages. So my dosage protocol is fixed, the consultant did mention increments of 1 unit or 2 for certain situations and vice versa for aerobic activity. I am abit scared about making decisions about how much insulin to take because of the scared hypo stories I had read about online.

My Low at the time of waking up is around 4.0 - 5.8.

Overnight basal testing sounds interesting, I'll give this a go and see how it goes, but I'm thinking that waking up every 2 hours may trigger my stress hormones and thus raise my BG ? but something I can do now. I bought the Libre starter pack before the lockdown because diabetic nurse would not provide this, maybe I should start using this now.

I probably had anxiety issues before diagnosis, where I dealt with this by comfort eating and exercise, but i feel restricted now with my diet because I still don't know my insulin to carb ratio. I tried to work this out but my BG results keeps changing after meals.

 

[Inka]

Once you’re sure your basal is right, you can move on to your bolus insulin and start to work out your insulin to carb ratios. It’s not too hard to do 🙂

Do you have a snack before bed? Can you tell us a little about what you eat? Am I right in thinking you’re restricting your carbs because you’re nervous about adjusting your bolus insulin? That must be hard. You should be able to eat relatively normally and use your insulin to control your blood sugar. Yes, I find carbs help me sleep too. If you’re restricting your diet too much that could be affecting your sleep.

Your 4 to 5.8 wasn’t officially a hypo, but I’d eat a small amount to raise that a bit. I know everything must seem daunting now but you’ll gradually get the hang of what you’re doing and learn what works for you.

 

[trophywench]

OK ... do 24hr basal insulin testing first because unless you get your basal doses and timing nailed down to where your body needs them to be for as long as possible out of each day/night, nailing down your bolus to carb ratios is guesswork, so start here https://www.diabetes-support.org.uk/info/?page_id=120

Don't be misled by the words 24hr testing though - it's impossible to do in anly 24 hours as you will realise when you read thhe info in the link. However - it's mega worth doing it, whenever we all need to, in order to be able to cope sensibly with control of our D for the rest of our lives. It isn't a 'once in a lifetime' necessity cos our bodies change all our lives and we can't avoid that.

Then it's comparatively a LOT easier to sort out the mealtime insulin! - but I'm not telling you how to go about that right now until you've done the first thing, cos there's no point!

Just do it, PLEASE.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

If your body has got used to running a bit higher, it may be that your hypo warning signs are kicking-in overnight at the bottom end of the normal range, especially if you’ve dropped quite sharply in the early hours?