Constant high sugar levels!

[Arkexo]

Hi everyone! I have joined this forum because l am looking for some help and advice. My little brother was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes 2 years ago. He is 10 years old and he is not overweight. We live in the UK.

For the past 4-5 months my brother has been having very high sugar levels. When l say high l mean above 12 and it lasts for hours. As a result we give him corrections but still the sugar levels keep going up or they remain the same with no change.

He has been having the same type of food as when his levels were stable. The same quantity and amount of carbs. However, with these high levels we try to give him as little carbs as possible but this does not work either (l know about slow and fast acting carbs and we have never had problems with this before).

When we tell the doctors they just say "give him more insulin units and it will be fine". But his sugars are still high, sometimes they are between 14 and 16 and they last for hours. We ask the doctors what it could be but they say they don't know and we should keep giving him more insulin and more corrections (so basically they do not help at all).

Since the doctors don't provide any help or explanations about the situation l started looking for solutions on the Internet and the only one that makes more sense is that maybe his body does not respond to the insulin as it used to. As if it has become resistent to it. I know there is different insulins and l have read that people have switched from one to another. However, when we asked the doctors if that was a possibility they said that there is no such thing and completely disregarded us.

So no matter what we do his sugar levels remain very high.

We use novo rapid insulin and just 3 weeks ago we switched to a pump. Well the situatin is still the same. Whether we use the injections or the pump, we cannot regulate his sugar levels.

I am just looking for some advice from people who have experienced something similar? Thank you so much for your help!

 

[EllieM]

Welcome to the forums.

Given your brother's age, have you considered that he is entering puberty and therefore just needs more insulin?

Has he had any hypos? If not, maybe you just need to increase his insulin more?

Your team really should be helping with the dosing amounts, but are you confident that you are rotating his injection sites enough, as overuse of one spot can lead to absorption issues?

That's my two ideas. Good luck.

 

[TypeZero.]

Instead of running around and constantly doing corrections with the bolus, you could try increasing the basal

Because he is young they are reluctant to change any medications, they’re more keen on keeping everything the same.

It might just be that his honeymoon is ending. It’s a period of time where less insulin is required and it is different duration for different people. I’m 8 months into diabetes and still using the same 14 units of Lantus for basal. His one might’ve ended recently hence the high blood sugars - in this case you would just have to increase the basal

 

[ert]

I'm sorry you're having some issue managing insulin. From my DAFNE course: Unlike a normal person's inulin, injected insulin follows a fixed cure so doesn't match the food you're eating. If his blood sugars are fine before eating, wait 4-5 hours until testing again and they should be back to where they started if the dosing was correct. Ignore the spike. Is this what has been happening?