Could someone help?

[Amina9191]

Hi guys,
I'm new, and have had type 1 diabetes for about 13 years now. I'm 24 years of age and my diabetes have always been uncontrollable and luckily I have got no complications. I'm really struggling with trying to keep my blood levels under control. For example this morning when I woke up my blood levels were 13.1, for breakfast I had 2 weetabix, a banana and a few slices of mangos. I checked my blood level 2 hours later and it had gone up to 24.5, I usually take 13 units of novorapid. I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong. Also even since I got diagnosed my hair have literally stopped growing, it's so short and thin.

 

[noblehead]

You need to start with some basal testing, once you get your basal dose right you can then look at your insulin-to-carb ratio's. Take a look at the following, it's an on-line carb counting course that should discuss this and more:

http://www.bdec-e-learning.com/

 

[TorqPenderloin]

A few thoughts:
-Prior to my diagnosis, my hair was extremely thin and I thought I was going bald. That was the result of uncontrolled blood sugar levels (my a1c was 13.2% at diagnosis). My hair is now as thick as it used by be and only took a few months after starting insulin.

-You mention that you usually take "13 units of Novorapid." Does that mean you're on a sliding scale and do not carb count? Many of us find that our control is tremendously better when we count carbs. That allows us to have some variation in what we eat without it necessarily affecting our blood sugar levels (in a perfect world).

-The breakfast you mentioned is almost entirely carbohydrates and contains very little fat or protein. I'm generally an advocate of eating something with protein which I consider to be crucial for "breaking a fast" (hence the name). Not only that, but eating that many carbohydrates at once makes it extremely difficult to properly measure your insulin.

I try to make it as easy on myself as possible. While you don't have to follow a low-carb diet like I do, it may be wise to consider limiting your carbohydrates at least until you learn to carb count and get your insulin doses figured out.

Think about it this way: if you were going to guess how many tennis balls could fit in a swimming pool, it's possible to make an educated guess, but that would be an extremely complicated math problem, right? One simple error could throw off your answer significantly. What if I handed you a shoe box and told you to guess how many tennis balls could fit inside it? You could technically guess wrong, but would probably only be off 1 or 2.

That's part of the value in limiting your carbs. It doesn't mean you'll always be right, but it's a heck of a lot easier to guess how much insulin you need for 100g a day rather than 1000g a day.

 

[kev1]

As a quick starting point until you get to grips with carb counting you might want to try cutting down on the amount of food for breakfast. Maybe try the only having weetabix and take the same insulin dose and see what your readings are, I'm pretty sure they will be lower. It's a bit of a game of trial and error, only changing one thing at a time. Both the above comments offer great advice and the bdec-e-learning is a good course. Once you get to grips with that you can match carb intake with insulin and get much better results. You will always get the odd poor result, there are so many variables that can affect glucose levels but once you get to understand all that you'll be on a roll. Good luck!