Advice for going low carb

[Charles Robin]

Hi.I am a type one and have recently started a reduced carb diet (about 60g a day) but am having a lot of hypos. I posted about this in another thread and it was suggested that when doing lower carb, your basal needs reduce. I just wondered if there are any rules/ suggestions of how much your basal needs to be reduced by when lower carbing or is it just a case of testing and working it out? Thanks.

Hi Char, welcome to the thread. First off, I am not a doctor, and this advice is based purely on my own experiences. That said, here is my advice!
I found things very up and down for the first week or two. Your body is used to running on carbs, but it can run just as well on fat and protein. However, your cells need time to get used to this. This can lead to all sorts of temporary side effects, including wierd blood sugars, digestive discomfort and dehydration (this last one is really important to watch, make sure to massively up your plain water intake, I speak from personal experience here).
In terms of insulin, it is very likely you will need to reduce your dose, certainly of basal, and perhaps also of bolus. The key here is to test, test, test. I wanted as much info as I could possibly have, so 100 test strips is lasting me about 8-9 days at the moment. Experiment with reducing your dose a bit at a time, keeping your blood test meter and a source of glucose nearby at all times (I use dextrose tablets). In theory, your basal dose should keep your blood sugars constant, providing you are not eating or exercising. Therefore, if it has been more than 4 hours since you last ate and you are hypo, unless you have been exercising the chances are your basal dose is too high.
Make small rather than large adjustments at any given time. A quote taken from Dr Bernstein is 'small mistakes have small solutions.' If you are only a bit hypo, try taking just one or two dextrose and testing 15 minutes later, to make sure you don't overshoot and go high. That said, in the early weeks I have not worried about running into the 9s and 10s, so long as I knew what caused it and what I would do differently next time.
Hope that helps, and best of luck!

 

[Charles Robin]

Hi Charles,
If you want more info on LCHF, there is a website called Dietdoctor.com it is the largest health blogg in Sweden and is written by Andreas Eenfeldt who is a doctor, specialising in obesity and diabetes. If you are looking for recipes there is a thread on this website. I usually go to LCHF receipt.com but it is in Swedish. If you see a picture of something you like, you can pm me and I'll translate. Dietdoctor is in English as well as Swedish so might be useful. Totto pointed me in this direction and you can even email the good doctor (I did and got a super quick reply) . Glad it's going well!

Hi Scandi, thanks for that! Been struggling with highs this week due to a cold and sore throat, but I'm getting it back under control now! I'm always on the lookout for new recipes, so I will check that site out, cheers.

 

[char87]

Hi Char, welcome to the thread. First off, I am not a doctor, and this advice is based purely on my own experiences. That said, here is my advice!
I found things very up and down for the first week or two. Your body is used to running on carbs, but it can run just as well on fat and protein. However, your cells need time to get used to this. This can lead to all sorts of temporary side effects, including wierd blood sugars, digestive discomfort and dehydration (this last one is really important to watch, make sure to massively up your plain water intake, I speak from personal experience here).
In terms of insulin, it is very likely you will need to reduce your dose, certainly of basal, and perhaps also of bolus. The key here is to test, test, test. I wanted as much info as I could possibly have, so 100 test strips is lasting me about 8-9 days at the moment. Experiment with reducing your dose a bit at a time, keeping your blood test meter and a source of glucose nearby at all times (I use dextrose tablets). In theory, your basal dose should keep your blood sugars constant, providing you are not eating or exercising. Therefore, if it has been more than 4 hours since you last ate and you are hypo, unless you have been exercising the chances are your basal dose is too high.
Make small rather than large adjustments at any given time. A quote taken from Dr Bernstein is 'small mistakes have small solutions.' If you are only a bit hypo, try taking just one or two dextrose and testing 15 minutes later, to make sure you don't overshoot and go high. That said, in the early weeks I have not worried about running into the 9s and 10s, so long as I knew what caused it and what I would do differently next time.
Hope that helps, and best of luck!

Thanks very much for the advice. I have been doing it for 2 weeks now and seem to have settled into a pattern of hypos so am sure my basal needs reducing but am also exercising more, which is no doubt adding to the hypos. I will keep testing lots- it's good to hear that others have experienced similar things. I do have a copy of Dr Bernstein's book but haven't got around to reading it yet!