Insulin sensitivity for type 1 diabetics

[michael-oreilly]

Hello everyone,

I have a question around insulin sensitivity and open to anyone’s experiences on how they help manage it or general ideas to what has helped? (Other than increased diet and exercise)

My experience as I am getting older and family/children take up a lot of my time (young children) my diet and exercise is not as great as I would like, let’s say. (Something I am working on..)

I find in the morning if I eat anything from porridge, cereal to anything as bland as a slice of toast and butter. I find I get a large spike in my sugar level where it will shoot up to 15 or so then come back down in a couple of hours time where the insulin has then worked. So I end up feeling a bit rubbish for a couple of hours.

I have tried having corrections and it’s not due to not enough insulin because I end up going low if I try correct. It’s not the background as I have tried carb free breakfasts and it’s fine. It’s not the timing of injections as I always have the insulin just before I eat my breakfast.

It’s definitely the mornings I struggle more with than any other part of the day and I find I don’t normalise until the afternoon.

I’m running out of ideas and I’m putting it down to insulin sensitivity.

I also drink coffee in the morning not sure if this effects it…?

P.S I have tried different injection sights.

Thank you!

 

[Antje77]

I find in the morning if I eat anything from porridge, cereal to anything as bland as a slice of toast and butter. I find I get a large spike in my sugar level where it will shoot up to 15 or so then come back down in a couple of hours time where the insulin has then worked. So I end up feeling a bit rubbish for a couple of hours.

There are a couple of different approaches you could take.

1. The insulin. What insulin are you on?
I found I do much better on Fiasp or Lyumjev than I did on the old NovoRapid. Those are newer and quicker acting insulins. Might be worth considering seeing if you can give it a try, considering your dose seems to be right but the food acts before the insulin.

2. Prebolusing.
How long before eating do you take your insulin?
Again, your dose seems to be correct but the insulin acts after your food.
Many people find that prebolusing by a longer time helps. By how long is something you'll have to very carefully work out on your own, it's wuite different between people what works best, and it also depends on what's in your meal.
Some do well on the recommended 15 minutes, for me it was 30 to 60 minutes to prevent high post meal numbers before dropping back down.
This approach needs a lot of testing or a CGM/Libre.

3. Adjusting your food.
For me, I never got it to work with high carb food in the morning, like you, it goes better later in the day.
So I don't eat those foods for a first meal. I keep the carbs lowish in general, but especially for my first meal. Makes a lot more sense to me than starting the day being frustrated about diabetes not playing fair.
If you'd like to give that a try, there are lots of threads with low carb breakfast ideas.

 

[Hopeful34]

I had the same problem with carbs at breakfast, so stopped having breakfast as I wasn't hungry then anyway.