I have been a type 1 diabetic for over 30 years and in the past 5 my control has been getting steadily worse. a year ago my Diabetic Nurse Specialist and Dietician explained to me the concept of carb counting and more tightly controlling carbs with insuling. They told me of the 3mmol per unit and 3mmol per portion change (which are very approximate and individual I know).
To avoid hypos and get hypo awareness back I've set my target range at 10mmol/l (which I know is high) and counting carbs very closely. This initially had some promising results and I changed my ratios to fit the variations, breakfast was 4 portions and injection of 8 units which sometimes set me up well for the day. One thing I noticed (which my diabetes team seem to disregard) is that if I wake and test and my result is, lets say, 10, sometimes it's 20+ 2hrs later. But often it is 13-14 then comes back down to a reasonable level before lunch (it does seem to take the full time to come back down though).
I noticed that if I test my BM when I wake and then 30 min later before breakfast and it has risen, the rest of the day has the highs and is a fight to get it back down. I started doing tests during the night and noticed a dip... e.g. bed 10 3am 6.5 6:30am 9 7am 12 = nightmare day. I tried moving the night test and can't see a hypo occuring during the night.
I can kind of see a pattern, but wanted to check if there are reasons that I can do something about here. I was thinking of buying and self funding a continuous glucose monitor to save the 10+ tests I am doing every day but that would cost me a fortune (about £1000). The Doctors are getting quite anxious about prescribing me so many test strips.
Could anyone give me some more info on why this is happening and please be as technical as you like as I have a degree in Biochemistry from about 13 years ago so out of date with current thinking but understand some of it well.
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve
To avoid hypos and get hypo awareness back I've set my target range at 10mmol/l (which I know is high) and counting carbs very closely. This initially had some promising results and I changed my ratios to fit the variations, breakfast was 4 portions and injection of 8 units which sometimes set me up well for the day. One thing I noticed (which my diabetes team seem to disregard) is that if I wake and test and my result is, lets say, 10, sometimes it's 20+ 2hrs later. But often it is 13-14 then comes back down to a reasonable level before lunch (it does seem to take the full time to come back down though).
I noticed that if I test my BM when I wake and then 30 min later before breakfast and it has risen, the rest of the day has the highs and is a fight to get it back down. I started doing tests during the night and noticed a dip... e.g. bed 10 3am 6.5 6:30am 9 7am 12 = nightmare day. I tried moving the night test and can't see a hypo occuring during the night.
I can kind of see a pattern, but wanted to check if there are reasons that I can do something about here. I was thinking of buying and self funding a continuous glucose monitor to save the 10+ tests I am doing every day but that would cost me a fortune (about £1000). The Doctors are getting quite anxious about prescribing me so many test strips.
Could anyone give me some more info on why this is happening and please be as technical as you like as I have a degree in Biochemistry from about 13 years ago so out of date with current thinking but understand some of it well.
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve
