Sudden insulin sensitivy

[MrDiaB]

Type 1 diabetes now for 30+ years.
In the last 2 years, my average clucose have been relatively high due to fear of going low.
About once a month now without doing anything other than my normal routine I will become extremely sensitive to insulin. at 18 it usually takes 3 units to get it back to 9-10. When I suddenly get insulin sensitive, it goes from 18 to 6-7 in about 30-40 minutes and keeps dropping even faster after that.

My comfort levels are now at 15+, and I never take any insulin to meals before I see 15. If this were to happen with a clucose in normal range, I fear I might not get enough sugar in time.

I have seen two doctors who had never heard of anything similiar. I honestly felt that they did not believe what I was telling them.

Does anyone have any similiar experiences / ideas what might be causing this?

 

[Leadinglights]

Type 1 diabetes now for 30+ years.
In the last 2 years, my average clucose have been relatively high due to fear of going low.
About once a month now without doing anything other than my normal routine I will become extremely sensitive to insulin. at 18 it usually takes 3 units to get it back to 9-10. When I suddenly get insulin sensitive, it goes from 18 to 6-7 in about 30-40 minutes and keeps dropping even faster after that.

My comfort levels are now at 15+, and I never take any insulin to meals before I see 15. If this were to happen with a clucose in normal range, I fear I might not get enough sugar in time.

I have seen two doctors who had never heard of anything similiar. I honestly felt that they did not believe what I was telling them.

Does anyone have any similiar experiences / ideas what might be causing this?

Welcome to the forum, I can't help but it would help people make some suggestions as to how you can cope or find a solution if you say what insulins you are taking and when.
Running at such high levels is not too good. Do you have a Libre or similar.

 

[Lucyr]

Does anyone have any similiar experiences / ideas what might be causing this?

What’s your cpeptide - is your pancreas producing some insulin still?

Or do you have lipos from injecting in the same spot too much - does this happen in particular injection locations or anything?

 

[Inka]

Welcome @MrDiaB 🙂 Do these drops always happen after you inject bolus/fast insulin? Where do you inject it (which body part?)

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Sorry to hear you’ve been having some trouble with your insulin therapy, which has left you with anxiety about the risk of hypoglycaemia @MrDiaB

Dropping from 18-9 with three units equates to an insulin sensitivity of approx 1u to 3mmol/L which is a fairly standard starting point. However ‘rapid’ insulin is often quite slow off the mark, and you’d usually expect a pattern of onset / peak / fade in insulin action between something like 15 minutes to 4-5 hours after injecting.

Warmer weather can increase insulin sensitivity and uptake, so the summer may be playing a part.

Is your background / basal insulin adjusted properly? A little over-run on my basal can throw all my meals doses and corrections into chaos!

What are your activity levels like? I find even a fairly gentle walk can seem to supercharge any ‘insulin on board’ - which is a technique I actively use when trying to bring down high numbers.

I completely understand the temptation to run a little higher because of your worries about low blood glucose, but part of me wonders whether this may not be helping you. Running your BGs at such high levels will be putting your body under a lot of strain (15 is more than double what your body would expect as a general glucose level, and at a point where your kidneys will be trying to flush out excess glucose).

Plus if your body has been running at that level for a while you are likely to get ‘false hypo’ symptoms as your BG approaches 4-10. These are every bit as strong and unnerving as genuine hypo warning signs, but can be triggered at perfectly healthy BG levels if those a simply lower than the body has become accustomed to.

Hopefully you can begin to reduce your BG levels gradually and gently, so that your body is having to fight the highs less - and you’ll have a clearer picture of what your insulin is actually up to?

 

[rebrascora]

How long have you been using CGM?
I wonder if you are using Libre or other CGM to calculate corrections. Libre can over exaggerate the highs and the lows. I also wonder if your hypo anxiety is being fueled by Libre which often shows your levels dropping fast when they are actually levelling out. I can get a 4.3 with a vertical downward arrow and 2 well chewed jelly babies (so that they absorb in the mouth as that is quicker than swallowing) can turn that around and whilst Libre will show me as continuing to drop, the jelly babies bring my levels up and I don't actually go hypo at all and the graph will later often not show me dipping into the red at all, whereas Libre actually gave me readings in the mid to low 3s (ie in the red) at the time, but then redraws the graph when it has more data and ignores those low readings that it "predicted" at the time. This is due to the algorithm extrapolating the current fast downward trend, because it is trying to make up the delay between interstitial fluid and blood. This works pretty well when you haven't taken insulin or fast acting carbs to make it change direction, but if you have, it will show levels continuing to drop for a good 15 mins after you have treated a hypo and can cause you to think the treatment hasn't worked and over treat if you don't double check with a finger prick. Similarly, if levels are rising sharply it will show them getting higher than they actually are and that can cause you to miscalculate a correction and take too much which will then make you drop faster than usual. So Libre might show you at 17 when you are actually only at 13mmols. This is why you are advised to double check high and low readings with a finger prick before taking action because Libre is most accurate in the 4-10 range and much less reliable outside that range.

 

[gillrogers]

That started happening to me on lyumjev. Eventually I worked out that I had developed a sensitivity to the lyumjev , probably something in its rocket fuel. So came off that and now on novo rapid. Thought I was having the same problem with that but persevered and worked out that the the lyumjev rocket fuel must have been hanging around n my system. Eventually after a few months it calmed down . I am still sensitive to rapid insulin as a whole and I just during a meal or just before but thankfully I don’t have the sporadic horrendously fast drops after about half an hour of injecting anymore.