blood sugar levels hi

billbod50

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hi every bod
my blood sugar levels are 10 to 15 every day cant seem to get them down
i take 73 lantus and 18 novarapid is time to change insulin??
 

mo1905

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Depends, maybe time to change ratio's, diet, exercise ?
 
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Charles Robin

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Do you rotate your injection sites. It's amazing what a difference that can make. Be sure to only use needles once as well, a blunt needle can affect how much insulin is delivered.
 

T1Taz

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UOTE="billbod50, post: 528456, member: 48837"]hi every bod
my blood sugar levels are 10 to 15 every day cant seem to get them down
i take 73 lantus and 18 novarapid is time to change insulin??[/QUOTE]
I'm on Lantus & Novorapid too. I found out recently that injection sites are key. Never take these insulins at the same site, Lantus in your thighs it absorbs slower & Novorapid in your abdomen fastest absorption area. It made a huge difference to me. Also I heard using 4mm needles is better but I haven't switched yet. Good luck
 

ConradJ

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hi every bod
my blood sugar levels are 10 to 15 every day cant seem to get them down
i take 73 lantus and 18 novarapid is time to change insulin??

73 lantus and 18 novorapid ! ? ! ? !!!

Is your dosage correct? The medical profession generally say that your basal/bolus ratio should be around 50:50 whereas yours is around 70:30.

What's your insulin to carb ratio at mealtimes and how often do you inject both types?
 

Spiker

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hi every bod
my blood sugar levels are 10 to 15 every day cant seem to get them down
i take 73 lantus and 18 novarapid is time to change insulin??
Hi Bill

Let us know times of injection, ratios, body weight, carbs at each meal, BG at different times of day (eg morning, pre each meal, bed time) exercise and that will allow better advice to be given.

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Spiker

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Actually Bill an easier question is, have you ever changed either of those doses (Lantus or Novorapid) by yourself, and do you know how to do that? Or so far have you just had your doctor set your doses?

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billbod50

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hi every one and thanks
weight is about 18 stone as for carbs and bg not a clue
i take the lantus when i wake up i no it should be in the evening but i will forget to take it hence morning the novarapid with each meal
i have not changed the dose much only by a couple of units
blood levels this morning 20 at 8.00 and 25 at 10.00 tea time 6.00 13.7 not good i need to do some big changes but mite need some help by people that have bean there
thanks william
 

Spiker

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Hi Bill. You are off to an excellent start by recognising there is a problem there and that you could benefit from help from other people. A very smart move, I applaud your courage.

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Spiker

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Ok so that's 73 Lantus in the morning, and is that 18 Novorapid at each meal Bill, or 18 in total over the day (such as 4 for breakfast + 6 for lunch +8 for dinner).

When your blood sugar shows high, do you ever take a "correction dose" of Novorapid, to bring it down toward a target level of say 6 or 8 mmol/L on your meter?

If you do take correction doses, how much insulin do you take for every mmol/L on your meter that you are higher than your target blood sugar?

Lastly if you don't mind, what is your weight?

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billbod50

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hi
my weight is about 18 stone
i take 18units of novarapid at breakfast-lunch and dinner
i have taken more insulin when blood sugar is high between 5 and 10 units
as for a blood sugar level of between 6-8 i cant remember when it was that low
thanks william
 

donnellysdogs

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Do you carb count your food?

If you could gives more detailed breakdown of times of blood readings ie breakfast 13.6, 10am 15.6, lunch 13.9, people would be able to see what insulin needed to be adjusted to get your levels lower.




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Spiker

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Hi William

It's good that you know that you have taken 5 or 10 units of Novorapid in the past to get high blood sugars down.

What I would suggest is that first of all figure out how much one unit of insulin will bring your blood sugar down by. Are you OK with skipping one meal to figure this out? It needs you to not eat for about 4 hours. So for example could you skip breakfast tomorrow and instead do a correction dose?

As a starting point for you assume that one unit of Novorapid will drop your blood sugar 1 mmol/L on your meter. (For me 1 unit drops me 1.5. For other people who are not overweight 1 unit can drop by 2-3). As you are on around 108 total units of insulin a day and weigh 18st you will need more insulin than those people to drop your blood sugar.

Let's take a target for your blood sugar of 8 mmol/L on your meter. As you say you have not seen that low for a while so that will be a good improvement.

In the morning take your blood sugar. For every mmol/L your meter is above 8, take 1 unit of Novorapid. So if your meter shows 15 again, take 7 units. If it shows 20 again, take 12 units. Don't eat anything. Do a blood sugar measurement every hour.

IMPORTANT - If your blood sugar goes below 8 any earlier than 3 hours, have a couple of biscuits to prevent a hypo. Hopefully that will not happen. If you feel weird do another blood test and if it is below 8 have another couple of biscuits. If that doesn't fix the feeling keep eating something sugary until the feeling goes away.

It may take a couple of days to get this right but once we know this value we can correct your daytime highs and then look at getting your Lantus right. After that we can get your carb ratios right and start carb counting. Won't be long before you are back into good blood sugars all day long.

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pearlzo

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hi every bod
my blood sugar levels are 10 to 15 every day cant seem to get them down
i take 73 lantus and 18 novarapid is time to change insulin??

try cutting down on fizzy drinks
 

Charles Robin

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It's possible that the insulin is not the problem, but your resistance to it. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, which means our bodies really don't like us having insulin. They not only destroy our insulin producing beta cells, but are also quite suspicious of insulin we inject. This means the more insulin we inject, the more resistant we become to it. Becoming more resistant to it means we need a bigger dose, which makes us more resistant to it, etc. The other problem is that insulin also has a big impact on our hunger levels. The more insulin you take, the hungrier it is likely to make you. Therefore you will be likely to eat more, requiring more insulin, and the cycle continues.

It may be that rather than continuing to increase your insulin dose you can improve your control with a change of diet. I have found my control has vastly improved since I started following a low carb diet at the beginning of this year. It's a big change, and not everyone on this forum agrees with this way of eating, but plenty of people have found great results from low carbing. I would suggest at least having a look into it, and then you can decide based on the evidence whether it is for you or not. This video answered loads of my questions about low carb.
Hope that helps, and best of luck!
 
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O'Connor97

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It depends. I carb count now, at first I found it difficult but I'm coping a lot better now. If you dont carb count I believe that you should start. My hospital gave me an Aviva Expert Meter you put how much carbs you are consuming, it works out how much insulin you need to have. It has helped me massively I would recommend it.
 

ConradJ

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It may be that rather than continuing to increase your insulin dose you can improve your control with a change of diet. I have found my control has vastly improved since I started following a low carb diet at the beginning of this year. It's a big change, and not everyone on this forum agrees with this way of eating, but plenty of people have found great results from low carbing. I would suggest at least having a look into it, and then you can decide based on the evidence whether it is for you or not. This video answered loads of my questions about low carb.
Hope that helps, and best of luck!

I've been reducing my carb-intake (very) gradually for the past six months, with great success in all areas (weight down, waist size <32" and reducing, BG's much better, with fewer excesses, BUT still having swings and lots of hypos - even with some reduction of insulin).

So, thank you Charles, this video really has excited me about this strategy - I'm going to do more work to reduce the carbs and insulin intake over the next few months. I'm doing an HbA1c test next week and do not expect anything great, so it will be very interesting to see how this affects the next one later this year! For the first time in years, I actually feel excited about something dietary!!! :D
C.
 
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Charles Robin

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I've been reducing my carb-intake (very) gradually for the past six months, with great success in all areas (weight down, waist size <32" and reducing, BG's much better, with fewer excesses, BUT still having swings and lots of hypos - even with some reduction of insulin).

So, thank you Charles, this video really has excited me about this strategy - I'm going to do more work to reduce the carbs and insulin intake over the next few months. I'm doing an HbA1c test next week and do not expect anything great, so it will be very interesting to see how this affects the next one later this year! For the first time in years, I actually feel excited about something dietary!!! :D
C.
No problem, very happy to help. It sounds like you are on the right track, keep up the good work and things will only improve!