Hypo Cycle Madness!

[bethhchapman]

Hi! I’ve had a rough couple of days and wondered if anyone could shed some light. Having a hypo as we know is pretty normal and happens from time
to time and sometimes fairly often. However over the last few days I have had constant hypos, waking up in the night, waking up low in the morning. Every time I eat it goes up as it should and shoots straight down. My first action was to obviously reduce my novorapid doses and then when it continued reduce my lantus evening dose but it is still happening and I wondered what could be going on in my body to cause me to be struggling to keep my sugars level.

 

[Fenn]

Hi, are you type one? Could you be in the “honeymoon period” where you still make some of your own natural insulin in unpredictable patterns?

Have you changed anything? Diet, exercise?

 

[Marie 2]

If you area type 1.
As @Fenn has said if you are in the honeymoon period, which can be for years, your pancreas can decide to try to make insulin sometimes until it finally stops altogether. It can really play havoc with your dosing. Besides weather changes, exercising, a change of diet can cause changes in dosing. Fasting will make you more insulin sensitive or really low fat can too. And then there are the random, no explanation times it can happen, usually for me it is just a day or two and then it stops.

I was tested and don't make any insulin, but one of the institutes tested long term type1's and several still make some very small amounts of insulin even 50 years later. That can explain the random for no reason few days off and on maybe our bodies try?

 

[Juicyj]

Hi @bethhchapman

Hypos during the night on a repeated pattern would indicate too much basal on board so your dose needs reviewing. In regards to further hypo events, I tend to find hypos run in cycles of 2, this is due to the way the body responds to a hypo, when you go low very often your liver can pump a bit of glucose into your system, so on top of your hypo treatment you get the added kick of glucose, then later on when the body has recovered the liver will want to claim that glucose back which is when bang the second event happens, it's best after a hypo to keep levels elevated at around 8/9 to compensate for the drop later on and to avoid 'over correcting a high', I tend to call days like this yo-yo's as it feels like being out of control, and just to take things easy.

 

[Ushthetaff]

I had similar experiences when I was on Lanctus, I was told by my consultant that it was somewhat unpredictable, I’m not saying this is the same for you but I was changed to Levimir and haven’t had problem since ,

 

[bethhchapman]

Hi, are you type one? Could you be in the “honeymoon period” where you still make some of your own natural insulin in unpredictable patterns?

Have you changed anything? Diet, exercise?

Hi I hadn’t heard of this honeymoon phase before and feel this could be the issue, although I have been diagnosed a year and half but I can see that it can go on for a long time. Thank you.

 

[bethhchapman]

If you area type 1.
As @Fenn has said if you are in the honeymoon period, which can be for years, your pancreas can decide to try to make insulin sometimes until it finally stops altogether. It can really play havoc with your dosing. Besides weather changes, exercising, a change of diet can cause changes in dosing. Fasting will make you more insulin sensitive or really low fat can too. And then there are the random, no explanation times it can happen, usually for me it is just a day or two and then it stops.

I was tested and don't make any insulin, but one of the institutes tested long term type1's and several still make some very small amounts of insulin even 50 years later. That can explain the random for no reason few days off and on maybe our bodies try?

I had never heard of this thank you for explaining it, after a few days and some further adjustments I feel back on top of it again so thank you.

 

[bethhchapman]

Hi @bethhchapman

Hypos during the night on a repeated pattern would indicate too much basal on board so your dose needs reviewing. In regards to further hypo events, I tend to find hypos run in cycles of 2, this is due to the way the body responds to a hypo, when you go low very often your liver can pump a bit of glucose into your system, so on top of your hypo treatment you get the added kick of glucose, then later on when the body has recovered the liver will want to claim that glucose back which is when bang the second event happens, it's best after a hypo to keep levels elevated at around 8/9 to compensate for the drop later on and to avoid 'over correcting a high', I tend to call days like this yo-yo's as it feels like being out of control, and just to take things easy.

I had adjusted my basal but it took a few days to take effect (which I knew anyway but I was becoming inpatient and frustrated), I always feel I get more hypos once I have had one but didn’t realise this made you more prone to others, thank you for the advice of trying to keep it around 9 after a hypo I had not heard that before. Yes I definitely felt like a yoyo and at a loss so thank you.

 

[bethhchapman]

I had similar experiences when I was on Lanctus, I was told by my consultant that it was somewhat unpredictable, I’m not saying this is the same for you but I was changed to Levimir and haven’t had problem since ,

That is something I hadn’t considered, I have adjusted my doses and seem to be doing better but it’s definitely something to consider.

 

[Smiler99]

Hi I hadn’t heard of this honeymoon phase before and feel this could be the issue, although I have been diagnosed a year and half but I can see that it can go on for a long time. Thank you.

Iam still in honeymoon period a year and a month it could be that
I'm on a low dose I'm at 25 grams to 1 unit

 

[david4503]

Hi! I’ve had a rough couple of days and wondered if anyone could shed some light. Having a hypo as we know is pretty normal and happens from time
to time and sometimes fairly often. However over the last few days I have had constant hypos, waking up in the night, waking up low in the morning. Every time I eat it goes up as it should and shoots straight down. My first action was to obviously reduce my novorapid doses and then when it continued reduce my lantus evening dose but it is still happening and I wondered what could be going on in my body to cause me to be struggling to keep my sugars level.

There are any number of reasons this would have happened. It’s often impossible to know why. There are even some metabolic processes affecting blood sugar that medical science doesn’t fully understand and can’t account for. Type 1 is unpredictable in many ways and see-sawing or yo-yoing, however you put it, is not exactly uncommon. You learn to deal with it.