help my bg is totally erratic

[sweep61]

hi i am new to this forum, but not, unfortunately, very new to diabetes! I was diagnosed type 1 about 7 years ago. all has been quite well ubtil the last 12 months. since then everything has gone completely haywire and i could do with a little help.
i take 27 lantus at 5in the afternoon, and carb count at mealtimes. most of the time i get it right, but i randamly seem to have bg of 17 and some 3 hour after eating.
also the other day i woke on 8.5 didnt eat al day, did some very energetic house work and had a bg of 18.5 four hour later!!!!!!!!!!!!!! how can this possible be right?

 

[angelasmcardle]

Re: help my bg is totally irratic

Hi I'm Angela new to the forum - I live in Adelaide, South Australia - 2 weeks ago I had really irratic BGLs - same as you - I was strict on diet, exercise and meds but whatever I did my levels just got higher and higher and got to19.9 and 20 - I was at my wits end so went to GP - guess what - I had an Acute Urinary Tract Infection but had absolutely no symptoms whatsoever - except high BGLs - so if you haven't been to see GP yet and your BGL us still irratic and high take a urine sample to your GP and good luck Cheers from down under.

 

[Tracey69]

Hi and Welcome
I am also a type 1 diabetic and on Novarapid 3 times a day and Lantus solar star at night.
You have mentioned your high BG levels have your tried upping your Novarapid and your Lantus. What sort of time do you take your Lantus. Going without food will not lower your sugars, unless you are only taking your insulin but then your risking HYpo.
If this high levels carry on go see your GP and if you have some Ketones test strips do one to see if you have ketones. If you have take a trip to the emergency doctors or A&E.
Hope all goes well
Tracey

 

[s230787]

Not eating for a whole day is really not good, as your blood sugar reduces your liver will release stores of glucose into your blood stream to keep you going, as a type 1 your body will use what it needs and then the rest of it will just flow around doing nothing as your pancreas cannot automatically reduce it via insulin naturally.

Do you low carb? I started a few months ago and it has been great for me, I have reduced the amount of insulin I take, even though I do still need it for no carb items such as eggs and cheese. I am losing weight and I generally feel really good.

 

[alaska]

Hi sweep

Housework involves upper body activity which can cause the body to release more sugar into the blood. Some people don't get very affected by this, whereas others can be very much affected by it.

If you didn't eat then your body would release sugar into your blood to help fuel your exercise (housework). As you would only have your background insulin in your system, this won't have been enough to combat the raise in blood sugar and it's likely that the body was desperately trying to provide energy for your muscles , by releasing glucose from your liver, which may have been the cause of your blood glucose going so high.

(so the same thing as s230787 was saying )

I had a small amount of pasta the other day and was shocked to see my blood glucose had gone into double figures 3 hours after eating when it had been near to perfect (low 6s) after one hour. I'd forgotten that pasta is sometimes broken down into sugar much more slowly in some people and can lead to late surges in blood sugar. Moral of the story, I'm avoiding pasta from here on, even small amounts.

I've no idea if this explains your high blood sugar after 23 hours but I thought I'd share it anyway.

Ed

 

[s230787]

Hey Alaska

I found pasta spiked me too, have you tried fresh pasta?? I can get my pasta fix from this with not too many problems...and its lower in carbs! Winner :thumbup:

 

[alaska]

I've not tried cooking fresh pasta. I expect it would be better for the sugar levels. Good tip

 

[noblehead]

I had a small amount of pasta the other day and was shocked to see my blood glucose had gone into double figures 3 hours after eating when it had been near to perfect (low 6s) after one hour. I'd forgotten that pasta is sometimes broken down into sugar much more slowly in some people and can lead to late surges in blood sugar. Moral of the story, I'm avoiding pasta from here on, even small amounts.

Eating pasta is like eating a meal with a high fat content, you would need to split your insulin dose to cover the slow absorption of the pasta.

Tonight we are having a home-made lasagna, I inject two-thirds up front then the remaining insulin around 90 mins later, took me a while to work this out but got there in the end!

 

[jopar]

Not eating for a whole day is really not good, as your blood sugar reduces your liver will release stores of glucose into your blood stream to keep you going, as a type 1 your body will use what it needs and then the rest of it will just flow around doing nothing as your pancreas cannot automatically reduce it via insulin naturally.

Do you low carb? I started a few months ago and it has been great for me, I have reduced the amount of insulin I take, even though I do still need it for no carb items such as eggs and cheese. I am losing weight and I generally feel really good.

Err you got that wrong, your background insulin should cover what is coming off your liver, so if you decide not to eat then you should maintain a BG +/- 2mmol/l of your starting point if you got your background dose correct and no dawn p's involved...

If your background isn't correct and you drop into an hypo, the liver can (normally take a long time) dump your glucose store into your blood stream and then you get a rebound high with not enough insulin left to deal with any excess glucose floating around..

You say that you've struggled over the last 12 months, it might be that you need to evaluate your control, double check whether your background is correct, you may have to change your insulin to carb ratio's etc... As life changes different factors change, such as environment, stress levels, activity levels and the good old change in hormone activity related to age, so has time goes on your insulin regime will change...

So you need to look for patterns, what foods you've eat not just for the last meal eaten, but back tract to past meals and what types of foods you eaten up to a day before, food items such as pasta or high fat meals can still be impacting on your blood glucose many hours after you've eaten them...

Does this meal you have to go low carbing, no it doesn't what it does mean you have to work out how to take control of your insulin to counter act them... I eat a normal foods and do perfectly fine on them and have an HbA1c top end of 5%...