Early Days diagnosis of LADA

In the summer of 2017 I went to my GP as I had no energy, felt tired, not right but couldn't put my finger on it. Id been travelling and hadn't the usual control of my whole food, low sugar diet. GP ran tests and said nothing to worry about by late January 2018, again staying with friends on holiday, no control of my diet. I realised that the thirst that had increased, dragging myself around, and sweet smelling urine must be something to do with Diabetes, brought myself a test kit and the truth hit home.

Dr put me on Metformin initially, but I had read about fasting and managed to get my Hb1AC from 106 to 42 in 6 weeks. Just by eating my normal meal pattern, and avoiding white carbs, returning to small amounts of wholegrain carbs.

The consultant then diagnosed LADA as two different antibodies were found. He has suggested stopping the Metformin and Switching to Sitaglipin 100mg mornings and use Levemir if blood glucose goes above 12.

I wondered what peoples thoughts were?
I feel well controlled, blood sugars range between 3.9 and 6.8 fasting and rise to around 10 after meals

My concern is that I'm an athlete and am concerned about managing the lows in particular whilst exercising.

I tried the insulin once only and found I woke in the night at 3.1 and had to get up and eat. Ate an apple initially but nothing happened so ate half a bar of dark chocolate, to bring it back to 5.2 before I went back to sleep. But the effect seemed to last to the following day as I again had a low of 3.2

Any thoughts greatly apprecaited

Antje77 said:

Have you talked about using only mealtime insulin instead of only long acting? How much insulin did you take, the one time you tried?

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply, yes it is a mealtime insulin and I took 1ml

Diakat said:

Could that have been one unit rather than 1ml?

Click to expand...

Yes thats right!

Diakat said:

Has anyone explained carb counting and insulin ratios to you?

Click to expand...

Its a good question. The consultant told me to take 0.5 unit for 10g of carbs consumed if I go over the 12 Blood Glucose reading, and that I should find the carb content by looking on Apps such as MyfitnessPal. But I tried this the one time I got over 12, but been nothing like it since

Wilko 2 said:

Its a good question. The consultant told me to take 0.5 unit for 10g of carbs consumed if I go over the 12 Blood Glucose reading, and that I should find the carb content by looking on Apps such as MyfitnessPal. But I tried this the one time I got over 12, but been nothing like it since

Click to expand...

but Im only to use it once my Blood glucose goes over 12. So when it did, it went to1.65 I took the 1 unit as I had 20g of carbs at dinner 90 minutes later I was 3.5 which it further dropped to 3.2 I ate 100g dark chocolate to try and bring it up. This took a further 90 minutes to get to 5 which by then was 2.30am and I went to bed.

I contacted my Gp the next day, who said don't take it again at night! Hence my confusion

Antje77 said:

Are you talking about the Levemir you mentioned in your post? That's a basal (long acting) insulin and the dose shouldn't be dependent on carbs.

Click to expand...

Sorry looking quickly I said the wrong one. It’s Novorapid

The Levenmir is to keep in the fridge for now

Diakat said:

Also dark chocolate will not effectively bring you out of a hypo quickly - you are better off with table sugar or glucose tabs or sweets like jelly babies for a quicker glucose release.

Click to expand...

Thank you. I have never eaten sugar or glucose, we don’t even have it at home. Chocolate was the only sweet thing I could think of. Looks like I have a lot to learn...