Unexplained Highs

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Lozzeh13

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Hi all!
Im new here, but have been Type 1 for 8 years ish. Im on Levemir and Novorapid and recently I've noticed some crazy high sugar levels that I cant explain. Im usually around 6 when I leave work but by the time ive walked maybe 5 mins and got on the tube for an hour my levels are at 18!! I havent done any strenuous exercise or eaten anything and its driving me nuts. My levels are swinging all over the place and it SUCKS.

Any ideas?

Lauren
 
Hi Lauren, welcome to the forum 🙂 How long has this been happening? Have you checked your pens and changed your insulin to make sure it's not a problem there? Are you having breakfast before leaving for work? Do things improve before lunch or do you remain high?
 
Hi!
Sorry I meant it usually happens when im coming home from work. I'm usually alright at breakfast and lunch which I have at 12 then i usually check before coming home and its ok its that hour between leaving work and getting home. My insulins all in date and seems to be fine - i just dont know what it is! Its happened 3 times this week..
 
Can you either, delay lunch a bit or perhaps have a little snack before you leave work? It sounds to me as though your liver is panicking and dumping glucose to cover the exercise to ensure you have enough energy to get through... Possibly.
 
How many levemir injections do you have, and when do you inject? A lot of people split levemir over two injections as it doesn't always last the full 24 hours. Are you eating anything different for lunch? Has it happened on 3 consecutive days i.e Monday, Tuesday Wednesday this week? Sorry for all the questions! What are your levels like generally?
 
Haha no problem im used to all the questions about my levels and stuff! I take my Levemir at night just once so I could split it Im just so used to doing it then and for convenience on the weekends mainly. Its not consecutive days and ive been a bit lapse recently with checking my levels so theyre probably swinging towards the higher end if im honest. Ive told myself this year i need to start to check much more frequently and im also eating slightly lighter lunches which has helped with my lunch levels keeping them around 6. Its frustrating cause I want to start exercising properly but im wary about doing it when i come home and find my levels so high!
 
Tell you what I'd do - test to see if the Levemir you are actually taking is keeping you fairly level all day and all night, like it's supposed to do. You'll get a surprise I think - since Levemir was never designed to take once a day - hence the newer T1 NICE Guidelines only published last year - say the first Basal insulin of choice is 'Twice daily Levemir'.

You clearly need more around late afternoon though and you wouldn't get that, unless you are currently having it last thing before bed at night. In which case you probably could swap that to before breakfast and early evening, and do a bit better.

Anyway - test your basal level see http://www.diabetes-support.org.uk/info/?page_id=120 - and see what that shows!
 
Thats a super interesting article thank you. Not sure how id feel about missing lunch/dinner for 3 days though hehe! Might look into splitting my Levemir a bit more and see if it helps. Im surprised I was told by the Doctors to take it only once when it works better taken twice!
 
Did you look at the graph for the Levemir profile? - that was originally taken straight off Novo Nordisk's own website in the first place when TerryG built the website in 2007 - and it's quite clear that depending on your weight and what your dose coverts to, in units per kilo - it very often is not still effective after 12 hours.

Fascinating as to why they did it BUT it appears from what we've seen and heard on the forums over the intervening years, that it can work well once a day for TYPE 2 diabetics. As one who went on it fairly early on in its career - it was always twice a day. Sometimes they used not to offer it you - for some reason they stupidly thought that having 5 jabs a day instead of 4 would turn you right off and you would automatically hate it.

Whereas in the real world that WE live in - what's another One, when you're already having Four - and it ain't working very well it seems! Hardly a deal breaker - esp when it to my amazement it actually did work, from Day One !

Well anyway - you don't have to do the days in succession, and it's a bit gung-ho to suddenly change your daily dose on the evidence of only one such test - you might have different results every day for all anyone knows, so you'd want to see the evidence for it at least twice, wouldn't you?

I mean - say you had a spike after eating something - would you instantly change your bolus ratio for that partic thing if you have it again, straight away? I don't think that would be wise. You'd have to have the thing at least another once and see if the same thing happened again, wouldn't you? - cos it might have been just a one-off.
 
Lozzeh13 said:
Hi all!
Im new here, but have been Type 1 for 8 years ish. Im on Levemir and Novorapid and recently I've noticed some crazy high sugar levels that I cant explain. Im usually around 6 when I leave work but by the time ive walked maybe 5 mins and got on the tube for an hour my levels are at 18!! I havent done any strenuous exercise or eaten anything and its driving me nuts. My levels are swinging all over the place and it SUCKS.

Any ideas?

Lauren
Click to expand...

I'm on exactly the same type of insulin and EXACTLY the same is happening to me, it is so frustrating and annoying. I'm not sure if it's because my dad has had a major op and I'm stressed or what it is and what to do to fix it.
 
Well are you both on 2 jabs daily of Levemir, for starters? cos you should be.

If you are it could be either a timing issue or a dosage one.

You need to test to see whether those amount of insulin at those times are actually keeping your BG steady when you don't eat. Explanation here - http://www.diabetes-support.org.uk/info/?page_id=120

PITA I'm afraid, but as they say 'no pain, no gain' LOL
 
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