bloods sugars locking at a lv and not changing for hours

[Angusc]

Hi I'm 56years type with a pump and sensor with chronic pain and cough that they don't know why and no pain meds help they just cause other problems with no effects on the pain, the main problems now is my blood sugars like locking at a lv mostly between 10-16 and food and insulin has no effects some times for 3-18 hours unless pain changes or sometimes for no reason as altering the basal mostly has no effect or bolusing 1-2 units, taking food with a bolus sometimes works but not always taking a large bolus with no food also works some times, up basal 2-5x but really not sure whats happening.
I don;t know what happening it looks like some thing other than the pump is working on the blood sugars but got no clue any ideas?

pain makes me massively resistant to insulin and when the pain drop my bloodsugars can go down 10+ points in less than 15 mins i found a drug trial for the pain (ivabradine) which works for me droped the pain 4+ points out of 10 except for the spikes when moving but it got such restricted NICE guidelines all doctors i asked to proscribe it refused. it's use to lower pulse rates for heart attack patients and my local chemist had it in stock so it can't be a uncommon drug

 

[paulus1]

have you tried metformin to see if you have some resistance as well as your type 1

 

[Angusc]

no but most of the drugs i've taken have messed up my stomach but i could ask

 

[catapillar]

I don;t know what happening it looks like some thing other than the pump is working on the blood sugars but got no clue any ideas?

It seems pretty obvious from what you've written that the pain is sending your blood sugars up and making you insulin resistant. So perhaps you need a different correction dose when you are in pain. But if the pain can turn off, then the correction insulin dose will still be in your system at a time when you are suddenly no longer insulin resistant and so will be likely to cause a bigger drop than you are aiming for.

High blood sugar levels can themselves cause insulin resistance. Think of it like this: when you blood sugar levels are high all the glucose is sat in your blood, instead of in your cells, you body wants to get the glucose into your cell, but can't without any insulin, so the glucose is herded to the cells and surrounds the cells in a thick, impenetrable layer of glucose, if you want to get glucose into the cells you have to give insulin and that insulin has to get to the wall of the cell through that thick impenetrable layer of glucose, that can be a bit of a battle and can take time. It's not uncommon for a corrective dose to take over 2hrs to have any impact on blood sugar if you are in double figures.

If you think insulin isn't working, it's always worth checking pump sites for hypolyphoedema, checking all the pump connections are working properly and checking the insulin in the cartridge is valid - might be worth filling a new cartridge from a fresh vial.

 

[Angusc]

sorry not made things clear the insulin seem to hang around and work very slowly if at all until pain drops the blood sugars drops massively and pump suspends this happens 3-12 times a weekhange minute by min but mostly is around 6-8 spiking to 10 sometimes when moving the (ivabradine) while on the 6week trial helped a lot insulin seems to be working better but seems theres no way to get hold of it. due to Nice restrictions

 

[johnny37]

are you on anti-depressants. I was told many years ago that stress is the most common cause of high bg. Pain=stress. Might be worth mentioning to your team.

 

[Angusc]

no other meds than insulin, as other's caused problems with out helping and doc's seem to have given up and only now tend to rely on me making suggestion, which luckily they they've agreed to except the new drug as it's not licenced for pain relief.