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Hba1c

S

Spongy

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I'm a type 1 diabetic that works night shifts, I have done for the last 6 years. My last Hba1c was 7.8 and has been creeping up every year. Over the last 8-9 months I've been getting spikes in my blood sugars late at night. I will have something to eat and my levels are ok but a few hours after they can reach 25! This has never happened before so I increased my slow acting insulin but this only made me low when I was sleeping and by upping my dosage when I ate brought me to low! I've been looking at pumps as this seems to take out the slow acting insulin and may give me better control. I'm seeing my diabetic doctor on Thursday regarding a pump and advise but I wanted to know what was the process to get a pump and how long would it take? I'm 39, 12.6 stone 6ft tall so bmi is good thanks paul


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Hi,

Sorry to hear that you are having trouble with your sugar levels. I was just wondering - what are you eating? If you are eating something that is high in protein then that may be why your sugar levels are spiking after a couple of hours. Protein is converted to glucose, but at a much slower rate. Also fat can slow the digestion of food. (hopefully someone with more knowledge or a better explanation can help when they come along and read this soon!)

To get an insulin pump you need to fill certain criteria - do a search online and it should come up with who qualifies to get an insulin pump from the NHS.
I got one due to constant low sugars (it was swinging between being high and low). I have found that the pump is helpful to keep my fasting blood sugar levels stable as I can adjust the amount (of short acting insulin) I am giving myself by the hour. However, this did take a LOT of testing to set up and was a bit frustrating, but it was worth it.

The other thing I can do on my pump is to give myself an extended or dual bolus when i have eaten. Extended bolus - give myself insulin to cover my meal over a number of hours. Dual bolus - give some insulin to cover my meal immediately and the rest over a set number of hours. This I have found helpful to cover a low carb, high protein meal or high fat meals. However, for me personally I found that the insulin pump did not solve all my worries and so I chose to go low carb.

I would look in the insulin pump forum on here to find out other people's experiences of using an insulin pump.
 
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