Low carb or no carb - lessons learned...

[Shannon27]

The combination of Tresiba and alcohol will induce a hypo (for most people).

Very to the point explanation, thank you!!! so people who use Tresiba are generally more at risk of hypo when drinking alcohol?
Obviously for reasons dotted all over this forum, everyone is at risk.

 

[caius2x8]

Good morning folks!
So i've been trying out a very low carb WOE (way of eating) and i have to ask - is it worth the risk of late night hypos?
Last night for tea we had a tagine/curry thing, homemade by the fella, with some cauliflower rice. Although we are trying to eat no carb teas so i dont have to inject, some rather excessive drinking followed due to some close family being over.
Well. At bedtime i tested and was shocked to find my readings at 2.9. I just felt drunk, not hypo at all. So of course, in the ensuing panic (because the house is mostly stripped of carby snacks) my boyfriend was running up and down bringing me anything carby/sugary he could find. I'd had about 40g fast acting glucose gel. Bless, he brought me the two shortbread biscuits we had left, an apple, breadsticks, and a pack of ginger biscuits we've had forever. I'd scarfed down half the pack before i thought "hold on, don't overdo it". In between him fumbling with my testing kit, literally disassembling and reassembling the pricker, and my munching, it took 90minutes for my bloods to raise to 5.4. At which point i remembered we had some cereal in the house.
Woke up this morning at a wonderful 21.6, and i have never been happier for a high reading in all my life.
Lesson learned - if i'm planning on drinking, eat some carbs with it. If no alcohol, then no carb is fine.

I've gone ketog diet too, but still have a big bottle of full fat coke beside the bed. And one down stairs in case i cant make it upstairs. They've been helpful.

 

[caius2x8]

Depends on the insulin doesn't it? If you're on something like Levemir, does it not "kick in" a lot sooner?

I used be on leve and found it acted quickly enough. And faded out quickly too, which you could tell by the mid a.m. desert feeling on those a.m. when you fogot it or whacky hypo beginings mid morning if you double dolloped on the leve. It was from this i developed my rotate the pen lid to be on the rhs ( of a space on top of a chest of drawers at home after the a.m. injection + the lhs after the p.m injection, as a marker of what long acting i'd had that day. Or if out, with both injections. I'd put them into my trouser pocket the right way up and upside down after i'd used each one. And stuff the wallet( or a bit of kitchen roll) in to stop the injections sliding out until one got home.

 

[caius2x8]

I’m T2 diet controlled so stand to be corrected but wouldn’t that be dependent on somebody being there to assist/boost your BS whilst you were unconscious?

Precisely.
I used to live in Germany in a flat alone where i developed Addison's Disease on top of type 1 diabetes. The adrenal glands produce cortisone a steroid to handle low level every day stress. It also desensitizes you, physiologically to insulin's effects. Undiagnosed and with injected insulin acting at the equivalent treble strength, i spent about 6 months drifting in and out of hypos every night and clinics in Germany and Belgium to no avail. Now a walking skeleton, i gave up my job which i'd spent 10 years training for and came back to England. However, I am pleased to say, a young consultant at King's College, London diagnosed me. God bless that man, his lecturers and medical school and all in King's College and the NHS.

 

[caius2x8]

My sister in law's cousin died at the age of 32 from a night time hypo that he didn't wake up from. Never knowingly had problems before that - but he'd been out with friends that night so alcohol was the probable cause sadly.

I'm sorry to hear that.
Apparently 4 diabetics die from hypos a week in the UK. Its disturbing.
I suppose we dont really socialise especially with fellow diabetics so maybe we dont see bad hypos.

 

[caius2x8]

Thankyou Shannon .
I sort of ok now.
Addisons with T1D can leave one exhausted though when the dosing isnt right which can you make you either exhaustion and/ or low moody which i think has impacted my social and professional life cumulatively. Worst of all no research is being done on a cure for it as too few people have it.