T1: Night time highs

[Daver]

Hi All,

I would be very grateful for any advice on the following...

I'm really struggling at the moment with high blood glucose readings in the night, usually around 3:30am. I don't eat heavy carbs and my blood is fine (4.5 - 6ish) before I go to sleep, then I wake up with the thirst symptoms as when I was first diagnosed and test with results ranging from 13 - 18 and even on one occasion where it was 25! The lack of sleep over the last week is draining.

I haven't been doing as much exercise as I used to due to moving house and consequently resigning from the gym - could it be as simple as this that's affecting my blood glucose in the night? I've tried adjusting my Levemir to compensate but without much success and will be joining the new gym this week (if I'm not too tired!).

If anyone can relate to this or offer another possible cause, I'd appreciate it very much.

I take Levemir and Novorapid and used to have excellent control.

Cheers

Dave

 

[tim2000s]

Hi @Daver, exercise and lack of it will be having an impact on your insulin sensitivity. If you used to go to the gym, then not doing so is likely to mean you need more levemir. I certainly found that to be the case in the past.

The other question is how do you take your levemir? It sounds like it is once daily and that it is running out overnight? Is that the case?

 

[Daver]

Hi @Daver, exercise and lack of it will be having an impact on your insulin sensitivity. If you used to go to the gym, then not doing so is likely to mean you need more levemir. I certainly found that to be the case in the past.

The other question is how do you take your levemir? It sounds like it is once daily and that it is running out overnight? Is that the case?

Thanks for such a quick response. I split my Levemir and do half at 9:30am then the other half at 9:30pm. I've upped the latter from 11 to 15 units but it's not doing anything and have then crashed in the morning as a result. I think you've confirmed my suspicions and need to get myself back to the exercise - I had no idea it was such a contributory factor. Thanks again

 

[novorapidboi26]

So the new dose of 15 resulted in a waking hypo?

 

[Daver]

So the new dose of 15 resulted in a waking hypo?

Not quite; I still wake/woke up high even by upping the Levemir level to 15 but then took a corrective shot of Novorapid to get my bg levels back down again; however, I assume that the Levemir still kicked in so when I got to the morning (7am-ish) I found myself to be a bit lower than normal and sometimes hypo, even though I'd not overdosed the Novorapid using the method of counting carbs/dosage etc... (hope that makes sense).

 

[novorapidboi26]

If it was me, I would continue to increase the Levemir until I woke with single figures....

testing during the night too to see if there is anything else happening, a basal test essentially...

trying to be on target before bed will help so as to eliminate the need for a correction in the small hours as it will skew your basal test..

 

[Daver]

If it was me, I would continue to increase the Levemir until I woke with single figures....

testing during the night too to see if there is anything else happening, a basal test essentially...

trying to be on target before bed will help so as to eliminate the need for a correction in the small hours as it will skew your basal test..

Thanks, mate. I'll see what happens after the gym-test but this makes sense too - I just feel reluctant to keep upping the insulin if I can get it down via exercise instead. Thanks again

 

[novorapidboi26]

Yeah, of course...........

to make life easier though you should be establishing some kind of base dose that works when not exercising, and then make adjustments [reductions] to accommodate the additional activity...

everyone has different approaches to suit them though....

good luck...