- Messages
- 10,127
- Location
- New Zealand
- Type of diabetes
- Type 1
- Treatment type
- Pump
- Dislikes
- hypos and forum bugs
I take glucotabs (usually a couple is enough for me though others need more) but I have a history of losing hypo awareness if I have too many hypos so I have a cgm (dexcom in my case) which alerts me when I get to 4.4 so I am able to treat at 4,4 and rarely go lower than the high 3s. To be honest, if you have dodgy hypo awareness I'd strongly recommend a cgm. Depending on your location you should be able to get it funded by your clinic. (eg all T1s in UK qualify, I'm in NZ where no one does).Yes thats my next step but generally I seem to get better input from forum members than my medical team! If I may ask, what do you take to treat hypos and whats your general process in terms of how long before you recheck etc.
I cant thank you enough for your thoughtful, analytical and detailed response. I think you have found where I went wrong and something I simply didnt consider in that the inulin worked before my food and makes sense as I waited an hour after insluin to consume my meal. I probably overdid this!It comes down to the right timing and dosing of the particular food you ate. Not always the easiest to figure out.
I am going to hazard a guess that something you ate with the pasta had some fat content. Given that you have said you dropped to a 3 after an hour then shot up to a 12 later. The jelly bean at 2 carbs each/4 carbs is usually a good amount to treat a hypo. But it can depend on how much insulin is hitting etc.
This is a guess, since I don't know what you ate and we can all be different in how we react. In this case I would guess your prebolus timing and then dosing were off.
Since you had eaten, the jelly beans negated some of the insulin you took. Let's go with the assumption your insulin hit faster than your food. You dropped, ate the jelly beans, and then proceeded to climb as your food digested. But at that point you didn't have enough insulin. Some went to the jelly beans originally, but it sort of sounds like you might not have had enough insulin for your meal too. 2 jelly beans commonly would not make you go from 3-12. Some of the food did that, meaning at that point you hadn't had enough insulin.
Fat content slows down the absorption of the carbs. So you prebolused for that particular meal too soon for the food you ate to hit. So you dropped. If something has a higher fat content, I don't necessarily prebolus. In this case I would say you needed the jelly beans because you dropped, but you needed more insulin for your food. With a higher fat meal, I commonly do my insulin in stages. I don't always prebolus for it either. There are variables of course for all of us in digestion time, insulin need and timing.
Example for me, a vegan taro donut. High carb with fat content because it is deep fried. I dose a third when I eat it, a third a half hour later and another third an hour after........ and adjust with some later if needed.
Higher protein can also hit later. But even if it wasn't high fat.......... your insulin dose hit too early for your food. In that case you could be really insulin sensitive. Your insulin hit before your food. But you went too high, doubtful the jelly beans caused that increase. So then it comes down to... not prebolusing so early for that meal, and potentially needing more later because it wasn't enough.
And always keep in mind things can vary, we have usuals. But usuals can be influenced by say heavy exercise earlier or even the day before.
It's very unfortunate you don't feel hypo's. Some people just don't. Most of us can reset at what level we feel them by making sure we don't have any so you become sensitive to them again. If people drop too much all the time, they stop feeling them or don't feel them until they are really low. When I first started using insulin I felt anything under 100. Now they don't bother me until I am somewhere between 3.3-3.9 (60-70). It is unlikely since you just started insulin that you have had a lot of lows? Although I do remember a few people said they experience hypo's when they first were having issues with BG levels.
Hope this helps, just keep in mind we really can all vary in our response and our needs.
A 15 minute pre-bolus one day and a 1 hour pre-bolus the next is a big difference. I'd say start with a small pre-bolus time (10-15 minutes) for a few meals and see how it goes, keeping in mind that the pre-bolus time that works for you will probably vary between breakfast, lunch and dinner.2. I am also trying to figure out how long before my meal should I take insulin? I have tried 15 mins before and yesterday one hour before food and I still went down to 3. Logically I know I should probably take 2 or 1 units and see how I go, but I still need to know how I manage hypos without overshooting on the high end.
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