Can taking insulin make your sugars spike.

[Ryann1990]

I test and take a correction dose at 12.5 and two minutes later it reads 15.4 it literally jumps up like this quite often can’t figure it out. I wash my hands and check again and still it reads 15.4 seems that the insulin just makes it spike almost like it puts the body under more stress

 

[therower]

@Ryann1990 . Firstly if I was 12.5 and did a correction dose I wouldn’t contemplate checking my BS again for at least 30 mins.
There’s no way your insulin is going to be absorbed into your system any quicker, especially that small amount at the end of your fingers.
Unless you have some type of CGM it’s going to be very difficult for you to know if your12.5 reading is a steady reading, a rapidly rising reading or even a reading that is falling.
Only my guess but I suspect your blood sugar was rising at a steady rate hence the climb in such a short space of time.
Another thing to consider is that you have corrected for 12.5 but because that is probably rising at a fast rate the end result of the correction dose in 1 to 3 hours time may not be as good as what you was hoping for.
It’s always good to try and take into consideration why your sugars are where they are and the reasons behind it in circumstances like this.
Apologies if you know all this already.
Good luck and remember stress most definitely increases BS levels no matter what.

 

[Juicyj]

Hi @Ryann1990

Assuming your testing on a meter ? If so this provides a snapshot of what's happening at this point in time, so if your blood glucose levels are rising then yes you can test higher 2 minutes later, also bearing in mind that there is a 2 mmol/l variation on meter readings also. Insulin does not make your BG levels spike, food eaten, exercise, stress can all play a part in rising levels.

If you want to get more savvy about understanding this then get a flash reader such as the libre to track your food/insulin taken and see how long quick acting lasts in your system, also get a copy of 'think like a pancreas' as this is a useful read for understanding more about what causes your BG levels to rise/fall etc etc.