Am I imagining this ?

Hi @EllieM

No, have never been tested for allergies, and right now, I'd be very keen to see which ones I pass / fail. I think I might start lighting their system up right now with seriously flashing lights !

But I guess, that's one of the things I'm beginning to think - that maybe some of our recognised allergies might actually be connected back to this soup mix I'm talking about - e.g. maybe, just maybe, our understanding of pollen allergies, is more that pollen attaches to our clothing while out and about, which possibly hosts dust mites, and we will definitely bring in pollen and garden material underfoot onto the hall rug or carpet. Like I say, it's only theory, but lots of things have to start with a theory.

See, I've never had any specific problems with Lantus, and I was using it for quite a long time. It's just that right now, doing what I'm doing with trialling the Eucalyptus effect etc., basal could kick me, and I don't need any extra problems.

If I can't get any further with the investigations into this, and I'm stuck with this, then I'll have to consider other options, such as pump therapy, and I'm confident the Diabetic team would help all they could. If the modern pumps are capable of linking to the CGM and backing off the dosing when bloods drop, then that could be the perfect answer. But like I say, running on high dosage numbers at the moment.

I don't even see this as a simple insulin resistance - because it see-saws all the time. Sometimes there is no resistance as such, and I've long ago played with the possibility of injection sites etc., and found no correlations there.

For the moment, I'm focussing on the fact that utilising Eucalyptus oil seems to have significant effects, and Eucalyptus (& Lavender & Tea Tee) Essential oils are all known to halt dust mites. And the fact that nasal rhinitis and escalating bloods too often seem to be hand-in-hand.

And I'm pretty certain Demodex mites are part of the bigger equation as well !

Thanks @EllieM

Folks .......... I've got a bit of work to do here, to get through all these posts ! Don't you realise you're interrupting a very intensive cleaning routine !!!

OK, so I will try and get through each post, but if I don't manage to give you as full an answer as you feel it deserves, I apologise. As always, time is a limiting factor.

@Antje77 , now you realise why I said way back at the top, that I needed to take time to decide how best to put this 'stuff' together - there was no perfect way to do it, and I may have failed in my approach ........

But let me handle the basal thing first, coz it seems to be attracting the most attention, and I never posted looking for a solution on basal. I posted because I could see some interesting trends, and I felt it was time to share what I was seeing, and I also needed more eyes on the picture. There's simply too much stuff to analyse here, for one person in one house. It really needs lab work, where you can have e.g. 5 factors, but only altering one at a time, and keep the other 4 factors stable, to observe what changes. I am doing it, but it's very time consuming, very exhausting, and there's always the risk of misinterpreting, or being subjective instead of objective.

OK ........ the basal.

I have absolutely no problem with basal - if anybody had suggested not using basal to me years ago, I'd have thought that would be dangerous, possibly very dangerous ? And I'm not recommending my approach to anyone else - please don't anyone else follow this routine. This just happens to be what I'm doing, for very specific reasons.

Having background basal is as far as I understand, a fairly standard practice in diabetes - it keeps your levels nice and steady when you're not injecting bolus doses, it covers you during the sleeping hours when levels might slowly creep upwards, and to some extent, it sometimes is even enough to allow you to have a small nibble during the day, without absolutely requiring to take a faster bolus dose until later on. No problem.

Now, I'm getting through a fresh 300 unit refill every 1.5-2 days. So it's around 180-200 units per day, and I'm pretty certain I've been higher than 200 - no kidding. Every day is pretty horrendous, but some days are just more so. So I don't think I'm over stating anything when I declare I'm having to deal with a lot of insulin. If anybody thinks I should just leave the blood glucose levels high, and not worry about chasing with extra doses, then do please step forward now, and explain your rationale.

Now, basal isn't going to reduce my insulin requirement. Basal isn't some magic wand, it's just insulin, but slower. So if I'm currently needing 180-200 units, I'll still need that, except some of it will be bolus and some basal. But that's a large amount, so proportionately, if you want basal to perform its normal function, it will need to be a sizeable dose of basal.

Except that, in my situation, where I am doing this investigative test, and from time to time, finding periods (which includes sleep times) where I get much improved flatlines, not requiring so much insulin, that starts to become more dangerous, having a large dose of basal taking me even lower through the night. Now, I know someone will say ........ oh, but you could allow the Libre to alert you during sleep etc. etc. Yes, that is a possible option, except I preferred to stay on the initial version of the reader, as I found with the newer reader, because it was communicating so much, it seemed to keep needing recharged much more often. I'm sure that's what it was, so I have the newer reader, but preferred to stick with original reader. But that doesn't matter, that's my choice. And in any case, if I was too tired, and too deep in sleep, I could miss the alert of the new reader.

I just don't want to have a large dose of basal running in the background when my bloods drop suddenly as they do when I eliminate the 'unknown issue'.

3 scenarios:

Diabetic on relatively low amounts of insulin (maybe not a heavy carb eater), and the diabetes is stable or even a little erratic, but not too much - yes, basal would be a normal part of the equation.

Diabetic on high amounts of insulin, but stable, BG readings are consistent and dependable - yes, basal would definitely be wanted, otherwise your in-between readings, and particularly your night time readings could climb to undesirable levels.

Diabetic on high amounts of insulin, but totally unstable, up and down all 24 hours long - I would suggest not upping basal too much, or you could cause more of a problem. Particularly if they can drop like a stone, the way mine do once I eliminate the source problem.

I do agree with all of you that basal is the norm, but I'm simply not running a 'norm' right now, and haven't been since March / April 2016. If I could get in a time capsule and go back, I would - I really don't want to be dealing with this.


(having some tech posting problems at the moment - not sure if I've included some kind of formatting error or something - but hopefully this one will post OK). OK, for some reason, it's not accepting my Smilies ???

OK, so on the basal thing, I don't want folks thinking .......... OK, that guy just won't listen etc. etc. And sometimes in life, you need to choose which battles to take on, and you also need to sometimes (not always, but sometimes) make a compromise, so .........

To those of you who are particularly basal focussed, I'll offer this, but I would ask something of you in return (I can't demand it, but I will ask it):

To keep you happy, I will re-commence using basal. Now, if I say I will, then I will. And if at a later stage for any reason, I change my mindset, then I will come back and report that. I used to use 16 units, and when my diabetes was stable, as it always was (relatively) pre March 2016, 16 was fine. But with the levels I'm now on, there is no way I intend to raise the basal. In fact I will lower it for my own safety, down to 12 - so half a unit per hour. Oh, wait a mo .......... maybe I should make it 11 units, as Lantus only lasts approx. 22 hours ! Little bit of 'bas(al) humour there !!!

So, I will go back on basal of 12 units, and if at a later posting, someone says "I don't think you're on enough basal James", could someone else jump in and point them at the post above here ?

So, now, in return, what I'm asking is this - for those who don't believe there's anything in this hypothesis (good term @urbanracer ), could you at least try and keep an open mind for now. I'm not by nature an obsessive type, I am with this at the moment, but purely because my eyes (and nose) have been awakened to something that appears to be going on, and I'd like to get to the root of it.

OK, run out of time, but will try and respond fuller tomorrow.

@EllieM - sorry, PM'd you there as my posts were failing - is OK now, but for some reason, I can't click / include the Smiley's option ? Not a problem.

Ahhhhhhh ........... so much work to do !!!!!!!!!!!!! Hope my Smilies are working OK tonight - sorry folks, I'm not fully up-to-date with all the latest emoticons, so most of the time, you'll probably get the same old-style ones !

Where do I begin ???????

My offer last night to go back on basal ........... in response to @In Response , yes, you are right - 12 units would be a drop in the ocean. I'll try and explain it again below. But, as I said last night, sometimes you have to compromise, and sometimes not. And I see now, that my compromise position was probably pointless, so I'm going to retract it, and stand firm. 12 units is not going to make a difference, and right now, injecting as much as I require to daily, one less injection will be welcome. Today, for example, has been one of the difficult days, where you are searching for where the problem lies, and hopefully, you eventually find it. But because you're using a vacuum cleaner and a lint roller, it's difficult to know when you remove the problem. 2 things help you - your nose (nasal rhinitis), and your CGM reading. But you can't see what's getting vacuumed up (not in the level of detail that I need), and although the lint rollering is better, it's not perfect. Why ? Because first of all, I still don't know which are the significant 'items' - I'll detail aspects of that shortly. Secondly, you see too many different things - a hair from your forearm, a hair from your head, an eyelash, an eyebrow hair, maybe an occasional nasal hair etc. etc. Maybe a tiny bit of skin, particularly if anyone in the household suffers from dry skin. Some sebum, although think more of that tends to be more attached to the hair follice, but not always. The list goes on - trust me, all households have it, but not everybody is having to do this dreaded routine I'm involved in, using a lint roller. Also, while the lint roller gives better visibility, it's not so good at getting e.g. smaller bits of skin that are more likely to drop down into the carpet a bit, so whereas the vacuum would suck it up, the lint roller might not even touch it. This is the nightmare I am living.

I have been dragged in (kicking and screaming) to this obsessive routine, because my eyes have been opened, and I now realise that the answer to some aspects of my out-of-control T1 are in here somewhere. And when I go through the whole exhausting routine, I get results, and my so-called 'insulin resistance' stops happening.

So, IMHO, maybe insulin resistance is not simply insulin resistance - it's maybe this ! My question, pushed straight back out there would be, if I really had insulin resistance, why would it switch off and on ? Whereas, my suggestion above, starts to explain it with some logic.

As I said way back in the thread, if dust mites and / or demodex mites are in the equation, every household will be different, with different population numbers, so just because one person never sees any of this, or doesn't see it quite as dramatically as I do, probably just means you have a smaller population number. You want mine ? Hey - just send me a section of carpet, and I'll see if I can encourage them to move house !

Incidentally .......... they're not the same as 'Bed Bugs'. Paris (France) was suffering bed bug infestations within the last few weeks, so they could tell you all about those critters ! Bed bugs aim straight for us, and are almost vampire like - wanting blood. But bed bugs are at least visible, whereas dust mites are outside our vision - too small, and opaque. There are plenty of sources about them on the net. I think if we could see them, and the numbers there are, it could mentally scar us !

Have to say, this always had the risk of becoming a bit of a 'gross' subject matter, but sometimes you have to dig deeper (into nasty subject matters) to get some of the answers to certain things. I am not here by choice.

I'll try and put some more detail down below if I get time, but first of all, let me try again to explain my basal reasoning.

I have no problem with basal, and if I can resolve this issue, which I am in the process of trying to do, and I can get back to stable readings again, I'll be straight back on basal. No question. Absolutely no question.

But, I'm on approx. 200 units of insulin per day. Don't want to be, but am. And I actually need more than that most days, but I have to err on the side of caution when playing with these amounts.

So, say I played the 50/50 suggestion that was made earlier, and aimed for 100 units of basal. Let's for now ignore the Lantus shortcomings of 22 hours, and calculate based on one of your preferred 24 hour basals, so that would be 4.16667 units per hour, and over 7 hours, that would be approx. 29 units of basal.

Now, me being (for now anyway !) Mr Clean, I 'stumble' upon the source problem by doing a quick lint rollering just before bed, or I spray some Eucalyptus on just the right bit of furniture, or the right section of carpet (it's a lotto when you can't actually see the critters), so now the so-called insulin resistance is no longer there, so off I go to sleep, with 29 units heading my way.

Any suggestions where that scenario might be heading ??? ;-)

I hope, I really do hope, I have explained why, just until I get stability in some form, I'm safer off the basal for now. If I haven't, try me again, and I will try and think of another way to explain it.

OK, will break this for now, I do have more to add, and will see if I need to answer any specific points from last 2 days ........

lovinglife said:

Be careful with the essential oils - they may be natural doesn’t mean they are innocuous , they can still cause problems with overuse, some quite nasty - including breathing problems. Essential oils are not regulated like medicines are.

Just an example from personal experience, I have psoriasis and evening primrose oil is recommended by my dermatologist to help control it, but I can’t use it as hubby has epilepsy and Evening Primrose Oil can bring on seizure’s

Essential oils – Health warning

Essential oils are any plant-based, volatile oil that contains a mixture of chemical compounds and have an aroma characteristic of the plant. Commonly used essential oils are eucalyptus oil, clove oil, tea tree oil and aromatherapy oils.

www.healthywa.wa.gov.au

Click to expand...

Hi @lovinglife ,

Yes, thanks for that. I confess I am not an expert on them. I was forced into finding about them because of all this, and noted what I needed. I know you should not be applying directly onto skin etc., you need to dilute them. But I am sure there will be other aspects to be aware of. Also, I'm not spraying all the time, I'm still in the process of trying to find if it's a particular area of the house that works best. And if I spray, I try and keep it at floor level, or seating level, and leave overnight. And sometimes, it just works so well, and I wish I could pin down exactly what the formula for success is, but there is so much going on, it's quite exhausting.

I found that one of the supermarkets sells a Eucalyptus Honey, and thought ........ mmmmm, might be worth seeing if that helps, i.e. getting some Euc effect from inside out, but I never managed to see any significant improvements.