HRT and BG readings

[sassycat]

A question for any Type 1 ladies of a certain age.

I recently started on HRT after much indecision, and overall feel a million times better. For the previous 3 weeks I'd been low carbing and had got fantastic results. Libre showed in target for over 90% of the time.

This continued for a while on HRT then the readings seemed to become less predictable. Gradually this became worse, and now I can really struggle to correct a higher figure - I'm almost always running higher, rather than lower, lows are usually caused by over correcting and rage bolusing!

Has anyone had a similar experience, and were they able to improve things?

I realise I'm going into my worse time of year, and I tend to fall off the low carb wagon more in the winter, but even for me this seems extreme.

Any suggestions would be most welcome

 

[JMoli]

Hi, I’ve also just started HRT! Are you on the patches? I take Evorel Sequi, oestrogen for the first two weeks then progesterone for the last two as I still have periods. That’s great you feel better, I can’t help with the higher readings I’m afraid? Is it progesterone that causes the higher bloods? I’m only just finishing week three of my patches but have noticed my bloods have been much kinder for this time of my cycle. I usually start to get very insulin resistant by now and need a higher basal but so far so good. I think it’s good to document how HRT helps our blood sugar (if it does) as there doesn’t seem to be much research out there. Hormones have been the hardest part of handling diabetes for me, I totally dread my period every month!! x

 

[JMK1954]

It might be worth trying a different form of HRT. When it was prescribed for me by a consultant, I was warned that as every individual is different, it might be necessary to try a number of different products to achieve the best possible result for me.
My real problem was wildly fluctuatng BS levels, eg 4.something mml to 22 mml in less than two hours after a normal meal and my usual insulin. I still had some spikes on the HRT prescribed, but it was too much bother to get back in touch with my consultant and then wait 3 weeks for a letter from the hospital to reach my GP. After that, I would have had to an miss work again for another doctor's appointment and then try another variety of HRT which might produce worse results so forcing me back into the same loop again.
Good luck with sorting something out.

 

[sassycat]

Thanks very much to both of you, very interesting to see just how much people's mileage varies! I'm 2 years into the menopause, I'm using Evorel and Utrogestan - felt an immediate improvement in mood (mainly taking it for brain fog and mood swings, I've been taking antidepressants for years anyway and wasn't going to mess with them).

I wasn't given much advice, my GPs practice wasn't overly keen to put me on HRT at all, plus with all the post lockdown malarkey ...... I'll try for another phone appointment and hopefully discuss a different type, not prepared to put up with these spikes, especially as I'd smoothed them out by low carbing ‍

 

[JMK1954]

Yes, my GP was dubious about prescribing HRT even after the letter from the consultant, particularly as it was to control BS levels, which she told me repeatedly was not why it was generally used ! Best wishes with getting an answer to your problem.

 

[JMoli]

Thanks very much to both of you, very interesting to see just how much people's mileage varies! I'm 2 years into the menopause, I'm using Evorel and Utrogestan - felt an immediate improvement in mood (mainly taking it for brain fog and mood swings, I've been taking antidepressants for years anyway and wasn't going to mess with them).

I wasn't given much advice, my GPs practice wasn't overly keen to put me on HRT at all, plus with all the post lockdown malarkey ...... I'll try for another phone appointment and hopefully discuss a different type, not prepared to put up with these spikes, especially as I'd smoothed them out by low carbing ‍

Spiking is so frustrating isn’t it, I’ve tried different boluses, different timing of boluses etc but nothing works and I end up having to walk for hours and reduce the carbs. There’s not much help out there for us diabetics with hormone issues and/or menopause is there. If I stumble upon something that works or make progress with the patches I’ll let you know! Funnily enough it was last night that I wrote saying my bloods were behaving then literally overnight I hit insulin resistance and was sitting at 9.9 all night and when I woke up! Hope you get some help and find something that helps x