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Is this the end !

Juicyj

Juicyj

Expert
Retired Moderator
Hi all,

I've been gradually increasing my levemir over the last few weeks from around 16 a day to 31 as of today due to blood sugars rising through the day, they are still rising. I was only diagnosed a year ago aged 39 and I have a feeling it's the pancreas ending its short life span - what does everyone here think ? Is it time to have a proper service and give it a good send ?!
 
How have you established that it is your levimir that needs increasing so much?

Bolus's and basals do 'generally' keep some sort of balance with their dosages...are your levels high all day? or 2-3 hours after a meal? Have you altered any of your bolus's?
 
Hi, I have in fact been lowering my carbs too, my ratio is 10g to 1 dose. My readings start ok because my nighttime basal is 16 and with a small correction of NR before bed I wake at between 6 and 9, then during the day it rises and is between 9 and 15 even with only about 20g of carb, so thought it was my morning basal which isn't giving me enough. I am also a mum and work in sales which according to my DSN makes my BS even harder to regulate although I think stress is good for my diabetes as it 'normally' keeps my bs down..

Back to the drawing board I think !

Thanks ;)
 
Hey JuicyJ!

How much rapid-acting are you actually taking each day roughly? I am asking because it is a common myth that your bolus:carb ratio is the only thing to take into account when working out how much bolus to use. If you are low-carbing (and at 20g per day you are very low-carbing) your body will turn some of the protein into glucose touse instead. Bernstein says this is about 36% if you are in ketosis (which you almost certainly will be). So, I strongly suspect you are not taking enough bolus to cover your meals.

I eat around 50g carb per day (so I stay just out of ketosis) but I still have to jab for low-carb and no-carb meals. For example, I take 1.5 units of Apidra for bacon and eggs. I take 1.5 units for a chicken salad (about 5 - 8g carb) but I take no extra if I have half an orange (about 9g carb) with the salad. My bolus:carb ratio is about 1:8, but this is not the case when my meal contains no or very little carb as you can see from my examples above.

Try adding in a few extra units of rapid-acting with your meals to cover the protein.

Smidge
 
Thanks Smidge, that makes a lot of sense, I thought that by lowering carbs I would gain better control but it seems to be doing the opposite,normally eat for breakfast courgette omelette with feta cheese, same again but with ham for lunch and then fish for supper. I have gone back to porridge this morning though and took 3 of novarapid and before lunch I came back to 6.2 which was fab. I know I need carbs for energy was just trying to stay away from the bad carbs like rice, potato, bread, etc.

It still doesn't explain the increase in my background though as I changed my diet when I was struggling to bring my daytime sugars down and have pretty much doubled my levemir so is taking around 31 a day for a 10 stone 10lb woman, height 5ft 6 - about normal ?

;)
 
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