Type 1 Not needing to take insulin all the time

[Luca Ellis]

Hello all, I have been a type 1 diabetic for 17 years now. Recently I have been doing some pretty drastic dieting to help lose weight (it is working very well at the moment). Because of my size and what i used to eat, I used to be taking between 26 - 32 units of novorapid insulin 3 times a day and then 120 units of levimir at night time.

Now that I am eating next to no carbs and far far less calories - I am finding that I do not really need to take my insulin all the time or even at all (novorapid that is) - most days I have been fine with my blood sugars all day long ~4.0 - 7.0.

Has anyone else had this? is not taking my novorapid ok even if my blood sugars are well within the healthy zone?

this may sound pretty obvious to some, but it is not to me because I have never known any different.

 

[Jaylee]

Hello all, I have been a type 1 diabetic for 17 years now. Recently I have been doing some pretty drastic dieting to help lose weight (it is working very well at the moment). Because of my size and what i used to eat, I used to be taking between 26 - 32 units of novorapid insulin 3 times a day and then 120 units of levimir at night time.

Now that I am eating next to no carbs and far far less calories - I am finding that I do not really need to take my insulin all the time or even at all (novorapid that is) - most days I have been fine with my blood sugars all day long ~4.0 - 7.0.

Has anyone else had this? is not taking my novorapid ok even if my blood sugars are well within the healthy zone?

this may sound pretty obvious to some, but it is not to me because I have never known any different.

Hi @Luca Ellis ,

Welcome to the forum.

The levimir. Are you still on the same dosage? Or have you needed to tweak that too?

Edited to add for clarity; when I was first put on MDI my basal dosage was way too high..

 

[maryrachel]

Hi Luca

Yes this is fine to not take your short acting if you are having no carbs especially if you are exercising too but you need to make sure you test regularly and especially monitor your sugars 2 hours after eating to make sure you dont get a rise from protein and any small amount of carbs you are eating. Also you will probably find you need some insulin at some times of day and not at others depending on activity etc. You need to also make sure your basal is right too as often when you eat a reasonably high about of carbs it disguises issues you might have with basal dose being too low or too high so when you stop eating carbs you could find yourself having hypo's or going too high just because your basal isn't right. I am currently on 20 - 30 grams CHO a day and I am constantly tweaking my basal as I am now finding that even the small amount I was having before (50 - 70 g) was hiding some minor issue with my basal. I think also reducing carbs to that sort of level causes your body to use fat as a primary source of fuel but before you get to that stage you will deplete your glycogen stores so your body wont have those stores to pull from if you go low. I am not a professional so this is only my own experience but I would advise very close monitoring.

 

[Luca Ellis]

Hi Luca

Yes this is fine to not take your short acting if you are having no carbs especially if you are exercising too but you need to make sure you test regularly and especially monitor your sugars 2 hours after eating to make sure you dont get a rise from protein and any small amount of carbs you are eating. Also you will probably find you need some insulin at some times of day and not at others depending on activity etc. You need to also make sure your basal is right too as often when you eat a reasonably high about of carbs it disguises issues you might have with basal dose being too low or too high so when you stop eating carbs you could find yourself having hypo's or going too high just because your basal isn't right. I am currently on 20 - 30 grams CHO a day and I am constantly tweaking my basal as I am now finding that even the small amount I was having before (50 - 70 g) was hiding some minor issue with my basal. I think also reducing carbs to that sort of level causes your body to use fat as a primary source of fuel but before you get to that stage you will deplete your glycogen stores so your body wont have those stores to pull from if you go low. I am not a professional so this is only my own experience but I would advise very close monitoring.

I agree with what you have said, I am checking my sugars every our pretty much just to make sure that it doesn't go out of the healthy range.

 

[Luca Ellis]

Hi @Luca Ellis ,

Welcome to the forum.

The levimir. Are you still on the same dosage? Or have you needed to tweak that too?

Edited to add for clarity; when I was first put on MDI my basal dosage was way too high..

Hi Jaylee, I have had to tweak my levimir ever so slightly but not by much tbh.

 

[Jaylee]

Hi Jaylee, I have had to tweak my levimir ever so slightly but not by much tbh.

Hi,

I'm just wondering with the new you with the weight loss, you might be finding you are feeding the basal? (Well done on that by the way!)
As opposed to just letting it do its "thing" as a foundation whilst fasting. Between meals.

To be fair weight wasn't my issue. But at the time I found myself eating more than I wanted to snacking & wot not to keep my basal "happy?"

I appreciate you low carb to achive this. I'm not much of a carb consumer myself..

But, whatever the diet. It's always a good idea to get the foundations right on an insulin regime, starting with a basal test.

 

[Luca Ellis]

Hi @Luca Ellis ,

Welcome to the forum.

The levimir. Are you still on the same dosage? Or have you needed to tweak that too?

Edited to add for clarity; when I was first put on MDI my basal dosage was way too high..

I have tweaked my levimir dosage slightly now as it was causing me to have low blood sugars by the morning, also thank you for the positive comments