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Has waiting after insulin helped with your blood sugars?

A

ariaxo

Well-Known Member
Messages
194
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Other
Study shows that it works for type 2 usually but nothing about type 1.

I took it 10 minutes before my meal today and it didn't change anything. I eat food i
immediately after taking insulin.
 
I’ve never heard this, I’m not on insulin but my dad T2 was later in his life, the first one he was on fixed dose and had to eat within 20 minutes of taking it, he was changed to another one and he had to eat within 10 minutes of taking it. In the last year of his life when his dementia was bad he often refused to eat, the care home were fantastic with him and would give him his insulin immediately after eating so they could judge what he needed. He was a low carber but that last year it was more important he ate so it was back to whatever he would eat including potatoes, puddings etc he used loved puddings though never ate them. but I used to feel sad that he was now eating them and not enjoying them :(
 
Depends on the type of insulin you're on and also varies from person to person. I know I've seen some people in the T1 forum who have said they have to take their fast-acting insulin up to 30-45 minutes before a meal because otherwise, their sugars spike massively. I am one of those people but only at Lunch time, I have to take my Novorapid 30 minutes before my meal, and even then sometimes my sugars spike terribly but at Dinner time I can take it right before I eat and I am absolutely fine.
 
Pre-bolusing (how long you take insulin before eating) is pretty common with Type 1s and the time varies from person to person. Some stick to a fixed pre-bolus time across all meals and others vary the time meal to meal.

I'm Type 1 and I find a 30-minute pre-bolus for breakfast helps me avoid massive spikes. For lunch, I bolus right before eating and my blood sugar stays pretty steady. Any pre-bolus for dinner would send me low, so I inject 20 minutes after I start eating (a post-bolus, I guess).

I increase or decrease the time if my blood sugar is high or low.

I started off with a 30 minute pre-bolus for each meal and adjusted the time as I saw patterns (spikes and lows) forming.
 
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Finnlee said:
Pre-bolusing (how long you take insulin before eating) is pretty common with Type 1s and the time varies from person to person. Some stick to a fixed pre-bolus time across all meals and others vary the time meal to meal.

I'm Type 1 and I find a 30-minute pre-bolus for breakfast helps me avoid massive spikes. For lunch, I bolus right before eating and my blood sugar stays pretty steady. Any pre-bolus for dinner would send me low, so I inject 20 minutes after I start eating (and post-bolus, I guess).

I increase or decrease the time if my blood sugar is high or low.

I started off with a 30 minute pre-bolus for each meal and adjusted the time as I saw patterns (spikes and lows) forming.
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I'm a 15 minute pre-boluser normally, I tend to vary the time depending on my BS at that time.

This tends to work most of the time for me.
 
Hopeful34 said:
I do the same as @chrisbug, but also split the bolus when I eat pasta etc.
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I do the rapidly cool, then reheat pasta trick which takes the spike off of pasta (for me).
I split my doses (often 3 to 4 times) normally when I have a protein heavy meal.

And I'll also split my dose in a restaurant, this is simply because I don't know how long the food will be, or the portion size. So I'll take a couple of units when I guess the food will be 15 minutes or so, then when it arrives I'll take the rest of the dose, that way I've got the ball rolling by the time I eat, and if the food is a lot longer than 15 minutes I've only got a couple of units to worry about in my system.
 
I was prebolusing 15mins before. But during the summer have had to change to. Bolus and eat. As I was going low. Now carbs can sometimes build but still below 10 before insulin works
 
I prebolus for my "normal" meals half 30minutes before I eat and then the rest right after I finish. I don't always finish or sometimes I add on something,so the second dose allows me to make adjustments to what I ate.But I vary it to what I am eating. That just takes some experience with how you respond to foods. If it's pineapple I will prebolus even sooner because pineapple hits so fast. But if it's higher protein I might take the whole dose 20-30 minutes prior.

Prebolusing made a huge difference in control for me. Originally just changing to prebolusing allowed me to drop my A1c to the low 40's. A CGM with alerts allowed me to refine it more and me to drop it to the low 30's. I rarely go above 7.8. It will vary per the type of insulin you use, some are a little faster, Fiasp if it works for example can be. So timing has to change. I have been using Afrezza recently and can take that when I eat and I don't usually spike. And when I do it's very brief.

I say all that but I have found how heavily reliant I am on alerts of my CGM too. I was an idiot and updated the Dexcom ap and now it is annoying with a banner that comes up that interrupts anything on my phone that I am doing, so I turned off banners and they still came up so I had to turn off all alerts to stop them and have had some higher numbers now before I caught them. I had my alerts set pretty tight, but a banner coming up across the screen and not going away is extremely annoying. Now I am just really annoyed at Dexcom.
 
Maria - I am impressed with the work you have put in to watching your reaction to different foods and adjusting bolus times accordingly. It has been suggested that I do this at breakfast but personally I didn't notice a great difference but will try again. I was intrigued how you have access to different types of insulin as when I enquired about Fiasp the DSN dismissed it in a few words as not worth trying. Naturally I was disappointed. I have only ever been offered Novorapid but have been on a pump for a number of years so assume that limits insulin choice. Hope you sort your Dexcom banner problem!!
 
@zepherine Fiasp is loved by many people @Antje77 is one of them. It is Novorapid with an added ingredient to make it work faster. I would only assume someone dismissing it is not really familiar with it? People do use Fiasp in their pumps. I am in the US and we have a tendency to have more access to newer insulins sooner. Hence the Afrezza is almost only available here and it's a small company. Developed by the same guy that developed the Medtronic pump! But prebolusing for me with Humalog made a huge difference in not spiking. Timing means instead of waiting for the insulin to kick in, it's ready to go close to when your food hits your system. Plus I find not spiking in the first place is a lot easier than trying to get a high number to come down.

One thing to add. Mornings can take more work. We have a tendency to have some hormones released in the am to get our body ready for the day, hence some people get DP or FOTF. Those hormones can cause an increase in glucose levels, but can also cause some insulin resistance for a few hours.

Lol........I have solved my Dexcom problem, I had turned off everything, but I really do rely on my early alerts to let me know if my BG levels are straying. I dug out an older phone and restarted my sensor on it and it's working like a champ. A banner that flashes and goes away, sounds when it's supposed to sound. I got rid of the ap on my new phone. So now I have one more thing to cart around....but what's one more thing lol! I am doing a happy dance....funny what can make us happy!
 
Marie 2 said:
@zepherine Fiasp is loved by many people @Antje77 is one of them. It is Novorapid with an added ingredient to make it work faster. I would only assume someone dismissing it is not really familiar with it? People do use Fiasp in their pumps. I am in the US and we have a tendency to have more access to newer insulins sooner. Hence the Afrezza is almost only available here and it's a small company. Developed by the same guy that developed the Medtronic pump! But prebolusing for me with Humalog made a huge difference in not spiking. Timing means instead of waiting for the insulin to kick in, it's ready to go close to when your food hits your system. Plus I find not spiking in the first place is a lot easier than trying to get a high number to come down.

One thing to add. Mornings can take more work. We have a tendency to have some hormones released in the am to get our body ready for the day, hence some people get DP or FOTF. Those hormones can cause an increase in glucose levels, but can also cause some insulin resistance for a few hours.
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What she said! ;)
 
I find it all depends on what I eat , I’ve been known to take fast acting two hours after I’ve eaten spag bog , it’s taken me quite awhile experimenting but I know think I’ve got it sussed , which will mean it’ll all go **** up tomorrow lol
 
Marie 2 said:
@zepherine Fiasp is loved by many people @Antje77 is one of them. It is Novorapid with an added ingredient to make it work faster. I would only assume someone dismissing it is not really familiar with it? People do use Fiasp in their pumps. I am in the US and we have a tendency to have more access to newer insulins sooner. Hence the Afrezza is almost only available here and it's a small company. Developed by the same guy that developed the Medtronic pump! But prebolusing for me with Humalog made a huge difference in not spiking. Timing means instead of waiting for the insulin to kick in, it's ready to go close to when your food hits your system. Plus I find not spiking in the first place is a lot easier than trying to get a high number to come down.

One thing to add. Mornings can take more work. We have a tendency to have some hormones released in the am to get our body ready for the day, hence some people get DP or FOTF. Those hormones can cause an increase in glucose levels, but can also cause some insulin resistance for a few hours.

Lol........I have solved my Dexcom problem, I had turned off everything, but I really do rely on my early alerts to let me know if my BG levels are straying. I dug out an older phone and restarted my sensor on it and it's working like a champ. A banner that flashes and goes away, sounds when it's supposed to sound. I got rid of the ap on my new phone. So now I have one more thing to cart around....but what's one more thing lol! I am doing a happy dance....funny what can make us happy!
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Thank you for your comments, very interesting.
 
chrisbug said:
I do the rapidly cool, then reheat pasta trick which takes the spike off of pasta (for me).
I split my doses (often 3 to 4 times) normally when I have a protein heavy meal.

And I'll also split my dose in a restaurant, this is simply because I don't know how long the food will be, or the portion size. So I'll take a couple of units when I guess the food will be 15 minutes or so, then when it arrives I'll take the rest of the dose, that way I've got the ball rolling by the time I eat, and if the food is a lot longer than 15 minutes I've only got a couple of units to worry about in my system.
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Hi chrisbug!
I am intrigued by your reference to "the rapidly cool, then reheat pasta trick".

I have had type 1 for over 50 yrs and I've not come across this before. Please would you tell me what you do and why? I use a CGM but I still have plenty of scope for improving my HbA1c which was 7.3% when last measured.

Also, I'm interested to learn more about why you split your doses for a protein heavy meal? Is this to avoid a hypo after your meal?

I look forward to hearing from you.
 
becca59 said:
@Ian zero re pasta. Just cook as normal, drain and rinse under tap then plunge into boiling water to reheat when needed. It definitely reduces carbs.
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Thanks becca59!
How much does it reduce carbs by?
10% ?
25% ?
50% ?
Does it make any difference if it is wholemeal pasta? or does it work better for any particular shape of pasta?
Thanks
 
Ian zero said:
Thanks becca59!
How much does it reduce carbs by?
10% ?
25% ?
50% ?
Does it make any difference if it is wholemeal pasta? or does it work better for any particular shape of pasta?
Thanks
Click to expand...
For what it's worth, it doesn't seem to make much of a difference to me, but others noticed this difference as well. So it might be a case of trial and error.
 
Hi @Ian zero,

Dr Michael Mosley did a program on the TV about this, a Google search should give some other information.

We now do this to the family meal, so hopefully we all benefit from it.
We use wholemeal pasta, cook as normal, then rapidly cool it, we usually drain the hot water, then fill the saucepan back up with cold tap water and drain (to get the pasta cold it takes about 3 refills of cold water and draining), then when the pasta is cold, we add boiled water from the kettle and reheat.
As far as I know this lowers the pasta on the glycemic index, I still calculate for exactly the same amount of carbs (the carbs are still there, but the long drawn out spike has gone). I'd be really interested to find out if it works for you also?

I have mentioned this to another T1 at work, who has reported the same results as me.

With regards to the protein,
If there is less carbs than protein in a meal, I notice a spike that happens many hours later.
So for me I split dose to try and flatten that spike, but also by splitting the dose it will lessen the possibility of a hypo.
 
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