• Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
  • We seem to be having technical difficulties with new user accounts. If you are trying to register please check your Spam or Junk folder for your confirmation email. If you still haven't received a confirmation email, please reach out to our support inbox: support.forum@diabetes.org.uk

Thoughts please, struggling to control.

Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
S

stew81

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hey,

So I'm a Newbie here, been T1 for 20 years and control has always been ok but not always brilliant. Trying pretty hard at the moment but over the last couple of days have had some very high readings, 16, 17,18 sort of things.

Most worrying I woke up at midnight last night and felt like I might be high, I was 18 and my bolus adviser told me to take a correction of 4 which I did.
Woke up again around 4am and was 17 which implies that the correction dose did nothing at all.

I've not had this problem before, correction dose usually sorts me out just fine. (correction is 1 unit to drop me 3)

Consultant recently changed my evening ratio from 1 for 10 to 1 for 8 but ever since I just seem to be high in the evenings.

I've had some fairly lazy evenings this week just sitting watching a movie, but that's not abnormal and my bloods are usually ok.

At the front end of the week it was the opposite way round, couldn't stop myself going hypo.

Has anyone ever had a period of wacky blood readings like this? Is there something obvious I'm not thinking about?

This is unusual for me, usually better controlled.

Many thanks.
 
Hi Stew, welcome to the forum 🙂 When you say 'bolus advisor' does that mean you are on a pump or do you have an 'Expert' meter and do injections? We've had a number of people lately reporting similar problems, and in some cases it appears to be the insulin that has become compromised in some way. If you are pumping, see if this might apply to you:

http://www.diabetessupport.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?t=39318

If you are on injections it still sounds like it might be the insulin, so I would use a fresh cartridge and see if it makes a difference.
 
Hi Stew,
do you think it would be a good idea to go right back to basics ad do some basal testing? Like Alan I'm not sure if you are on a pump or MDI, either way look in the pump section of the forum as there is a sticky regarding doing basal testing which is suitable for pumpers and MDI. Once you have your basal right then fine tune your carb ratio. Many find a different ratio is needed for each meal. As to using a correction of 1 unit to drop you down by 3mmol this doesn't work when you are over a certain threshold some find that 12 others find 14 after that level then you need to increase your correction a bit more.
Have you also done the basics of checking to make sure your insulin is ok and pens are working ok if you are using a pen?
Also going from active to couch potato tends to lead to more basal being needed.

Ps welcome to the forum 🙂
 
Last edited:
Hi stew welcome to the forum. Have you tested for ketones ?
 
Thanks for the advice all & the warm welcome, a few things to consider there. I've only just been told about Basal testing, literally 2 weeks ago. I'd never heard of it before so will give it a go. I think I might be a little on the low side in the evenings which might explain higher evening readings.

I'm on multiple injections and recently started using an expert meter. It seems useful but sometimes has instructed me to do things which have sent me hypo, so I guess I trust my own instinct over the machine sometimes! You have to get used to these things.

Using Humalog & Lantus so might change cartridge just to see.

Better levels today....maybe I just messed up the carb count ;-)
 
If your odd readings have followed a change from 1:10 to 1:8 the first obvious tweak to try would be 1:9

Also +1 for some 'back to basics' basal testing if you are currently finding it difficult to see the wood for the trees. Properly adjusted basal (or as close as you can get if on MDI) is absolutely vital for me when trying to get meal and correction doses to work properly.

Is page is a pretty good run down of basal testing for MDI http://www.diabetes-support.org.uk/info/?page_id=120 but the Gary Scheiner blog post in the pumping section has lots of detail too

Took me a good while to get the Expert set right for me - but in the end it gave excellent advice most of the time
 
Last edited:
I find that if my glucose is over about 13 or 14 then I need a lot more correction to drop me than if I was only slightly high, normally 1 unit will drop me about 2.5, if I'm very high then one unit only seems to drop me by 1 or 1.5. Not sure of the science behind it though!
Hopefully you're better today
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Back
Top