Bringing down blood sugar levels

[Ansari]

Hello everyone,

I have a question. If you are running a post meal high what is the best way to bring down blood sugar level for a type 1. Simply take insulin or eat something and increase your insulin dose to account for the correction needed

Thanks

 

[Juicyj]

Hello @Ansari - how long after eating are you running high ? Generally your quick acting is in your system for around 4 hours, so if it's after this then just take a correction dose to bring your levels down, there is no need to eat something unless you are hungry. Also why are you running high ? Did you take the correct amount of insulin for your food ?

Personally I find a bit of exercise helps to bring my levels down if i'm running high, gardening is the best one for me personally however I then have to watch that I don't hypo

 

[BeccyB]

General advice is that it's fine to take a correction dose of insulin without having to eat anything.

However, the standard rule is not to 'correct' based on post-meal levels as there will still be carbs and insulin in your system that would be difficult to account for.

If you're problem is post-meal 'spikes' with your levels returning to ok afterwards then taking a correction would cause a hypo later. The best way to handle spikes is to experiment with how long before a meal you take your insulin - the idea being to try to match time the insulin gets to work with the time the carbs are taking affect too. Some people find injecting 10mins before works, while others need 30mins or more - it really depends on the individual and the type/amount of carbs eaten - like most things for us it's a case of experimenting a bit and seeing what happens.

 

[Ansari]

Hello @Ansari - how long after eating are you running high ? Generally your quick acting is in your system for around 4 hours, so if it's after this then just take a correction dose to bring your levels down, there is no need to eat something unless you are hungry. Also why are you running high ? Did you take the correct amount of insulin for your food ?

Personally I find a bit of exercise helps to bring my levels down if i'm running high, gardening is the best one for me personally however I then have to watch that I don't hypo

Thank you for your reply.

I would take the liberty of discussing it in a little detail to give a better picture.
I used to take humalog and lantus (recently switched to novo rapid and lantus) . I have been a diabetic for 4 years.

I used to take 17units of bolus for my breakfast and now i see that for the exact same breakfast when i take 17units i seem to run a high. I will quote this morning to explain better. I woke up with 96 mg/dl as fasting. I had my breakfast and was up to 176mg/dl (2 hours post meal).

This has been happening to me for weeks now. I am running a high a lot more often and i see no apparent reason for it. Switched to novo rapid from humalog but the same results. Tried changing my injection site but no improvement.

I repeatedly have to take correction dose hence my question on the same.

Thanks

 

[paulliljeros]

If you are taking a fixed insulin dose, then this suggests you just need to increase it moving forward. If you are dosing based on how many carbs you have eaten, then you need to alter your carb to insulin ratio as your insulin sensitivity may be lower in the morning. In this instance, going off history, you can safely assume its ok to take a small correction dose as you know there is insufficient insulin, but as @BeccyB states above, the general advice is to only correction dose with your next pre-meal bolus as otherwise there may be still IOB.

 

[Ansari]

If you are taking a fixed insulin dose, then this suggests you just need to increase it moving forward. If you are dosing based on how many carbs you have eaten, then you need to alter your carb to insulin ratio as your insulin sensitivity may be lower in the morning. In this instance, going off history, you can safely assume its ok to take a small correction dose as you know there is insufficient insulin, but as @BeccyB states above, the general advice is to only correction dose with your next pre-meal bolus as otherwise there may be still IOB.

I take insulin based on the carbs i am going to eat but i am now running a post meal high almost continuously. Can you guide me based on how to calculate my insulin sensitivity ? Is it the same as carb to insulin ratio like dividing 500 by units of insulin ?

Many thanks