honeymoon? is it over :-(

5 and 1/2 years is a helluva honeymoon ! You must be exhausted
Is your insulin requirement been getting high for a while or just very recently ? Sometimes if you feel under the weather or perhaps a cold or something coming, insulin requirements can increase. If not, many people's ratio's change. Could it be that your basal needs adjusting rather than your QA ? Anyway, keep a detailed diary for a while to try and see what your new ration is. Perhaps it's now 1 unit for 5g of carbs.


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Mornings tend to need more insulin due to something called the dawn phenomenon. For reasons not entirely understood, blood sugars tend to rise of their own accord for 2-3 hours after waking. For instance, a few days ago I had half a bottle of white wine in the evening. This tends to lower my blood sugars. When I awoke I was 3.9. As I was close to normal, I decided not to have any glucose and see what my sugars were like half an hour later by the time I had cooked breakfast. Testing them then revealed a 5.9, and I had not consumed anything at that point.

lilymoon said:

Thanks mo and charles. Its a strange beast this diabetes. I have done some testing of ratios and it seems that I have gone from I unit of insulin for every 10g of carbs to 5 units of insulin for 10g. I have eaten very small meals as the increased insulin rerequirements are big and its not something I want to get wrong. Bloomin starving. Just out of interest, what do you eat for breakfast and how much insulin do you inject?

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I follow a low carb diet, which actually makes me far more satisfied with my meals. For breakfast I have omelettes 5 days a week, (2 eggs, one rasher of bacon and 1/4 of a bell or sweet pepper), and at weekends I have pancakes. These are made from eggs, cream cheese and sweetened with Stevia.

I usually give myself 6 units of short acting humalog.

I'm probably about 1 unit per 7g of carbs. For breakfast, I usually have peanut butter on toast. I inject 4 unit for this and seems to work OK. In some respects, coming to the end of the "honeymoon period" can be advantageous. At least you can avoid the uncertainty of BG levels. Will your body produce insulin or not ? Can be a pain.

mo1905 said:

I'm probably about 1 unit per 7g of carbs. For breakfast, I usually have peanut butter on toast. I inject 4 unit for this and seems to work OK. In some respects, coming to the end of the "honeymoon period" can be advantageous. At least you can avoid the uncertainty of BG levels. Will your body produce insulin or not ? Can be a pain.

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Too bloody right, I spent all last Wednesday bouncing along under 5.0 and close to 4.0 at times with a train journey to and from reading and an important meeting with a client, all the while wondering if I was about to go hypo.

Hi Lily

I've had a very similar experience as you recently. I used to be able to have treats and just have more insulin to cover, but over the past couple of weeks I've had readings in the high teens or twenties. It's like my body is getting resistant to the insulin. But I don't think it's honeymoon as I have been diabetic for 8 years.
I've been seeing my DSN as I am hopefully going on a pump if I get funding. But they are at a bit of a loss when they look at my readings.
Before Christmas I was constantly hypo, and they encouraged me to reduce insulin and run a bit high for a while as I have 2 kids to look after.
They have suggested the following to try and get things under control:

CGM monitor for a week, it showed I was dropping quite rapidly overnight, although not hypo as my readings were high before going to bed,

Split levemir dose instead of just once in the evening,

Just testing and testing and increasing novorapid until after meal readings improve,

Looking at results over the month and seeing if hormones have an effect on blood sugar.

Throw away this batch of insulin and start a new one.

I have done all of this and I am still having difficulty. The only thing which has made much of a difference is splitting my levemir. I have most of the days readings in sensible figures now, but the morning is still 17 or 18. Last night I tested at 2 am, I was 7.8, this morning at 6.30 am I was 17.6. I'm sure I didn't hypo so I'm guessing it must be dawn phenomenon. Hopefully the pump will help with this, but it will be months before I get it, and I don't fancy waking up to this every morning.

I hope you find out what this is because I know how ill it makes you feel.

Anyone else help with this?

Chloe



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Hi,

Having read your post one thing came to mind that I have had an experience of.
How are your injection sites? I had a spout where my insulin was less effective and was down to a store of insulin under the skin as a result of injecting in the same place too many times.

To make things worse, I found that if I had a hot bath I ended up having a hypo that night. My doctor informed me that the heat of the hot bath water was breaking down the fat/ insulin and releasing it all in one go.

Hope this helps and good luck in identifying the reason for your changes.

Adrian


I can't off guaranteed advice but I am certainly willing to share my 30 years T1 experience with others

chloe1 said:

The only thing which has made much of a difference is splitting my levemir.

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I really don't understand why T1s are ever advised to use Levemir just once a day. It just doesn't deliver evenly over 24 hours. Maybe some doctors are too willing to believe the manufacturer's claims. Sure it's better than NPH but nothing like Lantus, let alone degludec. (Did we ever have NPH in the UK or is it just US? I had Insulatard.)


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