Blood sugar spikes

[maz21]

I am slowly getting used to taking insulin (Humulin M3 twice daily). Can I ask how long after eating should any spikes in my sugars show on my Libre 2+ sensor. I find that it will rise within an hour and then start to fall. The exception is evenings. Yesterday evening I had my evening meal at 8pm and my sugars rose from 5.6 to 11.2 and then started falling again. It was down to 8 and then started to rise and ended up being 20.4! I had nothing else to eat. This was 5 hours after eating. Completely demoralised by this Any help or advice greatly appreciated.

 

[grantg]

nice that you have a libre2 sensor.
differing insulins will effect people differently, same as if 2 persons ate the same meal the spikes would be different.

in general 2 hours after meals should be around ~3 mmol difference. your on a mixed intermediate insulin which is fast acting and intermediate release heres a page showing the rough active times for various variants of insulin.
https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...7d/1717157929316/Insulin,devices+&+profilesV3 depending on what i ate would depend on the spikes ... and indeed how much.

something to bear in mind it can take several weeks for sugars to start to stabilize especially when newish to injecting.

might be worth asking if doesnt start showing signs of stabilizing within a few weeks to ask if you maybe more suited with a basal/bolus regime. the aim for multi injection type is that basal would keep your graph relatively flat. the other type would then take care of the foods consume. if changing to that would mean of course more injections, with a possible advantage of being able to use correctional dosing better if running high for hours.

i note you've said 20+ after several hours have you the ability to test keytones? if so use it. be careful of DKA. check: https://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes-complications/diabetic-ketoacidosis.html blood keytones if 1.5+ and high sugars drink plently sugar free fluids (water would be best). if blood keytones 3+ get yourself upto hospistal. speak to your dsn/endo about treatment for keytones with high sugar levels can't advise on dosages.

 

[sgm14]

Can I ask how long after eating should any spikes in my sugars show on my Libre 2+ sensor.

Unfortunately, this depends very much on what you eat and it also varies from person to person. I think the worst of the spikes for most meals for most people seem to be be over after two hours, but is not always true and certain foods, like pizza, have a reputation for causing spikes hours later. For example, see the thread here .

It was down to 8 and then started to rise and ended up being 20.4! I had nothing else to eat. This was 5 hours after eating.

You need to try changing what you eat to see if that is causing it.

A phrase that I heard a few times when I started was "Eat to your meter" - in other words, try to figure out what foods work for you. For more on that, see this article here, (although the article is written assuming you are doing finger-prick tests, and with CGM's like the libre this has become a lot easier).

As an example, before I got my libre, I used to occasionally have a meal and my blood sugars were in range two hours later and also in range when I went to bed, but I would wake up high in the morning. When I got my libre, I could see that my spike was over by the two hours, but then my levels starting rising again after four hours and continued rising and I was spending most of the night high!. Didn't happen for every meal, but I was quickly able to determine it only happened when I added a particular type of curry sauce to my meal! Also weirdly did not happen every time I had this sauce, so without the libre I'm not sure how long it would take for me to discover this.