Constant hunger and hunger breath?

[Mel98]

Hi all

*waves*

New to this forum lark and new to diabetes. Just diagonsed with Type 1. Felt like the symptoms came on quite suddenly, despite not feeling great all year. I must have been walking around with high suagr levels for quite some time. Was admitted to hospital with a reading of 18.5 :shock: Just got out of hospital 3 days ago (was in there for 3 days also) and am still trying to get my head around what kind of food I should be eating to keep my BGs at a consistent level? It's all so erratic at the moment. I had a carby lunch a few days ago and ended up with high readings all through the day. So I decided yesterday to have a carby breakfast and just a salad for lunch to tide me over till dinner but ending up hypo'ing a few hours later. I made sure to have a carby dinner to last me through the night but hypo'd at 3am in the morning. So today I changed tac, and decided to stick to my carby breakfast (which was fine since my reading a few hours later was 5.7) but have a carby lunch (pasta and salad) instead. I felt hungry after an hour or so and decided to eat a little more of the same lunch (with an apple as a snack) and my reading not surprisingly is at 9.9. Would it have been 9.9 had I not helped myself to more of the same an hour later? Maybe not. I didn't check my readings just before going in for seconds a while later, as I'm trying to give my poor fingers a break and stick to 3-4 test readings a day. I went overboard as soon as I came out of hosipital and was pricking myself 11 times a day. lol. For that reason I don't have a serious guage on how much my lunch today has affected my BGs.

The problem is I still feel peckish despite nearing double figure readings. Do I keep on trying to figure out what works for me carb wise as I go, and experiment with my foods? Is it expected for me to have erratic readings until my body adjusts to the insulin? Do I simply accept the fact that some hours will be high and others low? It's all really confusing at the mo.

But my main issue is constanly feeling hungry and always feeling like my breath stinks of hunger as a result. I always do the saliva across the back of the hand technique and find that it has that sweet smell which I presume is acetone. The problem is i can't tell if I have ketones in my system or not. I was only given a blood testing kit for glucouse and nothing else. My nurse said the hunger might simply be my body trying to get back to how it was before the weight loss etc but looking back, i've always been conscious of having hunger breath even after i've eaten. I used to be a really excessive dieter (almost bordering on anorexia) so I could relate to Ketone breath once in a while but I noted over time that the hunger feeling and breath wouldn't go away despite having food. Even going back to having regular carby meals didn't alleviate the problem. This has been going ongoing for about 5 years. Surprisingly, at the time of being diagnosed with Type 1, my breath wasn't smelling at all (even when hungry) I had been taking acidiophilus supplements twice a day leading up to my hosipitalisation and didn't have any issues. I thought the diagnosis would only help me further with this breath issue as I presumed that I would have been flushing out all the ketones during my constant urination and that being on the insulin would rectify the ketones in my blood. But being on insulin hasn't done much apart from giving me erractics BGs and still feeling like my body is in starvation mode despite eating 3 sqaure meals a day. Does anyone have any ideas what is going on? So sorry for long-winded post.

Mel x

 

[daisy1]

Hi Mel and welcome to the forum I am not a type 1 but perhaps I can make a couple of suggestions. Firstly, the hunger you experience could be caused by the carbs you are eating. This is what I have found for me. You may be eating too many and should perhaps try cutting down to see what that does. If you are worried about ketones it is quite simple to test them yourself. You can buy Ketostix quite cheaply from the pharmacy.

I think this information may be helpful to you too. It was written by our friends Sue and Ken, former monitors, for new members. Do go ahead and ask as many questions as you need to as someone will always know the answer. Hopefully some type 1s will be along soon to help you.

Here is the advice that Ken and I, as Forum Monitors, usually give to newly diagnosed Diabetics. We hope that these few ideas gained through experience help you to gain control and give you some understanding of Diabetes. This forum doesn't always follow the recommended dietary advice, you have to work out what works for you as we are all different.

It's not just 'sugars' you need to avoid, diabetes is an inability to process glucose properly. Carbohydrate converts, in the body, to glucose. So it makes sense to reduce the amount of carbohydrate that you eat which includes sugars.

For more information on CARBOHYDRATE see here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=20306

This is NOT a low carb diet suggestion, just a reduction in your intake of carbohydrate. You have to decide yourself how much of a reduction will keep your blood glucose levels in control.

The main carbs to avoid OR reduce are the complex or starchy carbohydrates such as bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, starchy root veg and also any flour based products. The starchy carbs all convert 100% to glucose in the body and raise the blood sugar levels significantly.

If you are on Insulin you may find that reducing the carb intake also means that you can reduce your dose of insulin. This can help you to keep weight gain down as Insulin tends to make you put on weight and eventually cause insulin resistance. This should be done slowly so as not to cause hypos.

The way to find out how different foods affect you is to do regular daily testing and keep a food diary for a couple of weeks. If you test just before eating, then two hours after eating, you will see the effect of certain foods on your blood glucose levels. Some foods, which are slow acting carbohydrates, are absorbed more slowly so you may need to test three or even four hours later to see the effect that these have on your blood glucose levels.

Buy yourself a carb counter book (you can get these on-line) and you will be able to work out how much carbs you are eating, when you test, the reading two hours after should be roughly the same as the before eating reading, if it is then that meal was fine, if it isn’t then you need to check what you have eaten and think about reducing the portion size of carbs.

When you are buying products check the total carbohydrate content, this includes the sugar content. Do not just go by the amount of sugar on the packaging as this is misleading to a diabetic.


As for a tester, try asking the nurse/doctor and explain that you want to be proactive in managing your own diabetes and therefore need to test so that you can see just how foods affect your blood sugar levels. Hopefully this will work ! Sometimes they are not keen to give Type 2’s the strips on prescription, (in the UK) but you can but try!!

For TIPS FOR STRIPS see here:

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=19002#p173253

If you are an Insulin user in theory you should have no problem getting test strips.

The latest 2011 NICE guidelines for Bg levels are as follows:
Fasting (waking and before meals).......between 4 - 7 mmol/l...(Type 1 & 2)
2 hrs after meals........................no more than 8.5 mmol/l.....( Type 2)

2hrs after meals......................... no more than 9 mmol/l ......(Type 1)

If you are able to keep the post meal numbers lower, so much the better.

It also helps if you can do at least 30 minutes moderate exercise a day, it can be split into 10 min sessions to start with. It doesn't have to be strenuous.

The above is just general advice and it is recommended that you discuss with your HCP before making any changes. You can also ask questions on the forum on anything that is not clear.

Finally a few QUESTIONS TO ASK AT DIABETES CLINIC.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=17091



Sue/Ken.

 

[Dragonflye]

wow, your ok with just testing 3 or 4 times a day? ive been diabetic for 23 years now and even before i went on pump i was testing 6+ times a day! i wish i was so lucky to be able to do it so little so soon after diagnosis!!! Apologies i cant be of any help towards your issue but im sure someone will be along soon, just wanted to say welcome to the forum

 

[jopar]

It does take time to get used to being a diabetic, and I know that you may think that 3-4 times stabbing your fingers every day is a lot, but alas to maintain control it will mean stabing them a lot more,,,

Some of you hunger is due to your body at the moment not using the glucose probably to feed your cells, so it asking for more carbs to create more glucose it thinks it need to provide engery.. So had your blood glucose levels improve and you learn to use your insulin correctly this will improve...

The only real way of maintaing control is learning to carb count so that you can adjust your insulin to what you eat, but along side adjusting insulin for the amount of exercise, stress and/or illness..

So you need to keep a diary, of carbs/types of you eat, insulin you've injected, any exercise you've done, whether you feel stressed unwell ect.. If does take a lot of work to start off with but the better the picture you can build woth your blood glucose data, the easy you are going to find it to see patterns, or where you need to make adjustments to your insulin to avoid hypo's and high's etc... Once you have got your self pretty well sorted, you can ease off with the intense diary once you've got used to what to do and when, just picking up again when you changing routines or doing something different..


A good book to get is Using Insulin by John Walsh, very good at explaining the Basal/Regime and how to work out corrections etc...

Also as you've just been diagnosed you will be in honneymoon period, where you pancrease is able to spurt out some insulin so you injecting insulin needs may drop and you get stable control, but the it all seems to go to pot as you come out of the honeymoon period and you have to rethink and adjust your control.. The honeymoon period can lasts in general 6-12 months...

But the best thing to keep in mind with carbs, is that large amounts will be a lot harder to maintain control... So everything in moderation tends to work better..