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Antibiotics and Insulin Sensitivity

AndyS

Well-Known Member
Messages
784
Location
Cambridge
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi assembled hive mind

Has anyone noticed any change to their insulin requirements when on antibiotics?
I am keen to know if anyone has noticed changes to their requirements / ratios when on antibiotics since I am seeing some odd results right now and would like to hear what other people have seen.

Cheers

Andy
 
Isn't it more likely to be the fact that you're got an infection that's doing it - infections make sugars more unpredictable (usually making them go up or have big spikes, from my experience). Personally I don't think the pills have got anything to do with it.
 

when you say 'odd'... what do you mean? Are you finding you had high bgs, adjusted insulin to that and then found yourself sudddenly going hypo? Or some other 'oddness' :wink: ?
 
I did consider the fact that I was slightly ill. I've had a long running sinus issue and am on the second course of antibiotics.
The thing I noticed is that before my levels were consistently high and didnt respond as you would expect to correction doses so I had to get very aggressive with correction.
I never had ketones above 0.4 on the Optium meter so there was never a huge issue there.

I would accept that my levels would come down and even out as I get better but I noticed the increased responsiveness to insulin after just the first dose or two of antibiotics.
Now I know they can be good but I doubt they will have that much effect after just a dose or two.
After a few days maybe, which is why I thought maybe there was some kind of effect on insulin sensitivity.

Think I may put the oddness down to just me

Cheers

/A
 

Hi snodger,

when I said odd, yes I meant that all of a sudden I was going hypo on relatively small doses that should have kept me level or in fact let my sugars climb a little.
I was intentionally vague on my original posting as I wanted to get a blind answer to see is people found they needed more or less.

I know that some drugs out there result in you needing to raise your insulin and others do the opposite. Reading the leaflet with the antibiotics (doxycycline in this case) there was nothing in there to indicate what I was seeing was expected.

So for now I am just monitoring much more closely.

/A
 
Its common to start feeling better within 12-24 hours of starting antibiotics. Infections/viruses often affect blood sugar well before you start feeling ill, so maybe the antibiotics are having an effect on the infection and your blood sugar before you start feeling better?
 
Oh right you know I just had doxycycline and was getting low sugars or nornal sugars most of the time then going whoosh in the evenings - but this was consistent in the main with what the infection had been doing to me previous to the pills. I was noticing however that I was having a lot more mild hypos for those 2wks and things have kind of settled now, but I had taken my BI down a bit too for a couple of days at the end of the course (just went back up again yesterday). Maybe you're right and they can increase sensitivity a bit but that could also just be a side-effect of the infection clearing rather than the pills per se. I think even when you don't think the pills have worked yet, they are actively working away killing the infection, and it is the infection that causes the high sugars even if you don't feel too ill. In fact if I had high sugars all the time and traces of ketones as you have had, I'd suspect an infection immediately - and that's exactly what happened, the doctor had told me for 2 months there was nothing wrong with me but the diabetes issues gave it away so I didn't let it lie. I've only ever made ketones a handful of times but I was having traces almost nightly and huge evening spikes in my sugars out of nowhere. So I went to a different doctor and got diagnosed with a savage infection and had three different types of antibiotics!!
 
Hi Moonstone,

I think I got pretty much the same as you. I didn't really notice the sinus issue that much. Was getting occasional mild headaches and my nose felt a little bunged up but didnt think much of it since I had had that for a while with no obvious effects.
A couple months ago my sugars started to spike a lot and I really had to treat highs quite hard for anything to happen. I figured that something was amiss so went and spoke to my Dr.

Lucky for my my Dr actually listened to me when I explained that I KNEW something was off since my sugars had been high.

I was just surprised that the antbiotics worked THAT fast. I noticed differences in BG within a couple of hours of the first dose (first one was with lunch) and I had always been given to think it took at least a day or so before they really got working.

I guess no one has ever done a blind trial on that one. I was curious how others were affected since I figured they may not actually test what it does to insulin sensitivity in diabetics when they do side effects hence nothing on the sheet with it.

One thing I am glad about is I am not dehydrating so much so am sleeping through the nights again within needing a drink and the loo.

Cheers

/A
 
I wouldn't say antibiotics had any adverse effect on diabetes, if you exclude the existing infection. I take Erythromycin TDS for an ongoing illness and I didn't notice any change.

Only thing I've found is to double check pills. Quite a few now come with a sugar casing. My ibuprofen was a prime example!
 
Hey guys, in the last 1 year I had to take antibiotics 3 times.
Different antibiotics for different reasons.
The moment I start taking it, my blood sugar rockets the sky. I have to almost double my insulin intake.
Basically I take 18 units Levemir every 12 hours and 6 units of Novorapid per meal.
With the same meal i had to hit 10 units and my sugar was 8.5 4 hours later.
So it turns out that to my body, antibiotics increase the insulin resistance.
Cheers,
 
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