Fasting in type 1 diabetes

Patch said:

For the T1's - can you fast safely? Providing you DON'T inject insulin, would you be alright? Hypo's usually happen when you inject too much insulin for what you've eaten, so if you're not eating at all, is it just a case of NOT injecting?

School me???

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To answer a question from another thread from Patch.

People with type 1 can fast and sometimes it may be advisable to fast to enable us to work out our basal (background) insulin doses. I know this has been used by pregnant women to get their basal insulin right early on in pregnancy.

We do need to make sure we have our basal insulin in our system as the liver will release glycogen. We might even find that a little short term insulin may be needed depending on how active the liver is.

The bottom line is, when fasting we would need to test our blood glucose regularly to make sure we don't go either on the high or low side.

Hope this helps

Benedict