I have my first appointment with the dietitian on Friday. I have had so many hypos in the last two weeks that I'm anxious of what they will say. I was given very little information when I was diagnosed on how to control and treat hypos and I'm a little afraid that the dietitian will blame me for having so many
Anxious
- Thread starter EmmaJ99
- Start Date
If the dietitian blames you then she/he is a very bad dietitian. They are there to problem solve, and give helpful advice, not to blame. Balancing blood sugar is very hard, even people who have been doing it for years still have unexpected hypos. They will know that, so don't worry.
Thank you, I'm probably just thinking about it too much x
Hi, @EmmaJ99 , I agree with @Alison54321 .
You're recently dx'd so they'll not give you a row or anything like that.
It's their job to give you steers on how to adjust food and insulin.
They'll probably just say, ok, you're having hypos, lets think about ways of adjusting insulin amounts.
You're recently dx'd so there's probably a bit of honeymoon period going on - your beta cells in your pancreas which make insulin have had a bit of rest through you taking insulin, so they start making insulin again, but don't tell you, which throws calculations out. That'll wear off eventually.
Getting basal insulin amounts right is the main thing to look at. If your basal isn't right, it's a house built on sand. Basal is meant to keep you steady when not eating. Too high, you'll be snacking to keep levels up. Too low, you'll be doing fast acting to lower it. There's some tips on checking basal here:
https://mysugr.com/basal-rate-testing/
Don't know how much reading you've done, but a recommended book is Think Like a Pancreas by Gary Scheiner.
A mistake which health care professionals often make is looking at it just in terms of amount of carbs and amount of insulin. It's more complicated than that. There's the time aspect too. Fast acting insulin like novorapid takes about 20 mins to start working, fiasp is shorter, they reach a peak at about an hour or so, tail off after that for about 3 to 5 hours. The trick is being able to match those time patterns to the digestion rates of different types of food.
Scheiner's book will give you some tips on that, as will Sugar Surfing by Stephen Ponder.
You ask about treating hypos. Every one of us has overtreated hypos. It's probably the right thing to do in the early days to avoid any nasty situations. After a while, though, it's true that a modest 10 to 15 grams us enough to pull you out. Wait until you're having a mild, slow drop hypo and experiment with just 1 or 2 dextrotabs. You might be surprised by how much that tiny amount of glucose will raise you.
You're recently dx'd so they'll not give you a row or anything like that.
It's their job to give you steers on how to adjust food and insulin.
They'll probably just say, ok, you're having hypos, lets think about ways of adjusting insulin amounts.
You're recently dx'd so there's probably a bit of honeymoon period going on - your beta cells in your pancreas which make insulin have had a bit of rest through you taking insulin, so they start making insulin again, but don't tell you, which throws calculations out. That'll wear off eventually.
Getting basal insulin amounts right is the main thing to look at. If your basal isn't right, it's a house built on sand. Basal is meant to keep you steady when not eating. Too high, you'll be snacking to keep levels up. Too low, you'll be doing fast acting to lower it. There's some tips on checking basal here:
https://mysugr.com/basal-rate-testing/
Don't know how much reading you've done, but a recommended book is Think Like a Pancreas by Gary Scheiner.
A mistake which health care professionals often make is looking at it just in terms of amount of carbs and amount of insulin. It's more complicated than that. There's the time aspect too. Fast acting insulin like novorapid takes about 20 mins to start working, fiasp is shorter, they reach a peak at about an hour or so, tail off after that for about 3 to 5 hours. The trick is being able to match those time patterns to the digestion rates of different types of food.
Scheiner's book will give you some tips on that, as will Sugar Surfing by Stephen Ponder.
You ask about treating hypos. Every one of us has overtreated hypos. It's probably the right thing to do in the early days to avoid any nasty situations. After a while, though, it's true that a modest 10 to 15 grams us enough to pull you out. Wait until you're having a mild, slow drop hypo and experiment with just 1 or 2 dextrotabs. You might be surprised by how much that tiny amount of glucose will raise you.
No worries, Emma, happy to help a newbie.
Some medical conditions involve the doctor telling the patient, "take these 2 pills after a meal", and that's it.
T1 is different. Can't remember who said it, but a doc once said T1 is the ultimate self-treated condition.
What he meant was that they provide the insulin but we have to make the decisions about how much to take for each meal.
There's been a surprising number of posts on this site by people saying they're waiting for their dsn to approve a dosage change. F*ck that.
It's obviously early days for you just now, so discuss everything with your team, but the long term aim is being able to walk into any restaurant on the planet, skim over the menu, say, "I'm having that", and decide how much insulin is needed for it.
Ca' canny just now, but once you get to grips with the basic rules, there's a lot of flexibility in this.
Most of us end up knowing way more about the practical day to day management of T1 than any of our doctors, not a surprise really, seeing as they've just read about it in books.
Good luck!
