honeymoon??

[DaveDisco]

hi,
been diabetic 2 months 7 days now. have never really been on much insulin, 1U :20g CHO. 12 u of lantus

all of a sudden in last 10 days, I'm hypoing 3 times a day (not just after meals) or waking up hypo. taken my Lantus down from 12 to 6 still waking up at about 5.0ish.

tonight I had a huge bowl of stuffed pasta worth 80g CHO gave myself 2U (because hypoing so much is peeing me off) no exercise or anything and hypoing within 1 hour

is this honeymooning?

I just got my diabetes under control, learnt the rules of the game and how to play it now Bang! its a completely different game and dont understand the rules!! its really demoralising and depressing.

anyone found a similar thing when they first got the big D?
any idea how/if/when I might return back to the old levels on needing insulin again?

Dave

 

[fergus]

Hi Dave,

Sounds like the pancreas is giving it a right good go at the moment! Must be really difficult for you though.
Dr Richard Bernstein is interesting on the subject - he appears to have patients who have been able to maintain their honeymoon for many years, some apparently indefinitely. The catch is that they have to stick to a low carbohydrate diet in order to prevent the pancreas from flogging itself to death.
It's not easy. Could you live on eggs, steak, cheese, red wine, green veg., fish, nuts, roast chicken, leg of lamb, cream, butter, bacon and pork chops? Could you live without starchy stodge? Tough call.

All the best,

fergus

 

[LittleSue]

got my diabetes under control, learnt the rules of the game and how to play it now Bang! its a completely different game and dont understand the rules!!

Sorry to say, that's pretty much how it goes! Although you have one thing in your favour - being male, you don't have menstrual hormones interfering as well.

Does sound like you're honeymooning. Unlike with a post-marriage holiday, when you probably know when you'll be back home, a diabetic honeymoon varies considerably in both degree and duration. You may go down to just a few units of insulin, or even none for a while. Essential to keep testing frequently so you can spot changes as they happen.

 

[jopar]

Hi Dave

With your pasta meal, it is highly like that this is a timing issue rather than a insulin issue, the problem with Pasta it adsorbs very slowly into the system… What happens when you inject your insulin before you eat, the insulin adsorbs into the system quicker than the pasta carbs you’ve eaten.. So you get a low, followed by a high reading, if you checked at 2 and 3 hours, you would have likely found that your BG’s were still raising.. This is what they call the pizza effect…

There are several ways that this can be over-come to give a better BG result and prevent a hypo and high BG..

You can eat then inject your insulin after you’ve eaten… for some this works well

You can split the injection in to 2, inject part before you eat, then the rest around ½ to 1 ½ hours after you’ve eaten you meal, deciding what percentage, and the timing of the second injection does need experimenting with to fond what suits you best…

But it does sound as though you’re still in honeymoon period and as suzi has said, the length of time is different for each person… Some find that they can identify when it finishes and for others it’s difficult to identify when it’s come to an end…

 

[lilibet]

May well be

Any other symptoms along with it. Adrenal problems sometimes create significant drops in insulin amounts -buts its very rare so most likely honeymoon period

If its any consolation, Im nearly 7 months in and apparently still in honeymoon. I did however chuck the carbs somewhat from about week 2 or 3 so count mesel lucky I found forums early on

L

 

[DaveDisco]

hi guys thanks for your thoughts and sympathy

Jopar thanks for advice, regularly do the injecting after, but never tried the two part injection, might have a go. See what you mean about timing but often its not just pasta, any sort of carbs, pasta was just what I had that night


as far as other symptons, ever since my blood sugars started dropping, I've been getting seriously bad headaches unlike anything ever had before at the back of my head as it somebody is drilling into the crown of my head, might just be coincidence.

Done a bit of experimenting now, dropped lantus to 6 which stops me hypoing on waking and have dropped my novorapid to 1U:60g CHO lol which regularly means I go without

I now seem to be constantly running around 6.5-7.2 (according to meter)

seems silly but I either want to be off insulin or injecting a decent regular amount!


on another note I'm really panicking, going on hol to egypt next tues. is the heat gonna make me hypo constantly?? any tips to avoid this?

also will they let me through security with needles, insulin, hypostop etc?

 

[jopar]

Hi Dave

It isn’t unusual when in the honeymoon period to use a very minimum of insulin, this general in increase when you start to come out of the honeymoon period…

As for your holiday, well it sort of depends how your body reacts to the heat, it could stay the same or go either way, you really won’t know until you get there..

As for airport security, you will need a note from either your GP or diabetic clinic to say that you use insulin, other handy thing is to carry a prescription from your docs of the insulin etc that you use, also keep the insulin in the box’s (exception the one in the pens) so that these have the chemist labels on them…

Keep the insulin in your hand luggage, as if you put the insulin into your main language for the hull of the plane it could face freezing, as the hull is generally unheated unless the plane is carry livestock in the hull that requires the hull to be heated.. .

If you worried about heat damaging the insulin, and not 100% sure whether your hotel room has a fridge, then a good investment is a frilo pouch, these are very good indeed, they are activated by immersion in water and will keep your insulin cool, and when they dry out you just reactivate in water again and again…

And the most important thing of all… Is to relax and enjoy your holiday.. Have a real good time

 

[alexmaudite]

Hello,
I'm Alex, and started insulin in November last year.
Everything was quite fine, I used to do 12 U of Lantus each day and 1U for 10g of carbs.
But for the last 5 days, everything has been off.
Example : starting of @ 8.2 BG ate a teacake (75g) injected 4U, to be in the safe zone and wapbam ended up in the 17 BG... gutted. I was quite hungry as well...
And things of the sort all the time... so I rang up the diabetic nurse who I had told I wanted to be careful not to have too many carbs while my responses to insulin were off, and she ended up making me feel stupid about the way I manage my diabetes... I was quite furious.
Could it only be the end of my honeymoon period?
Or will there be many more changes in the way I react to insulin?
Should I be very concerned, or just try to readjust myself without the help of the doctor or nurses?
Thanks for your help.
Alex.

 

[jessie]

Hi Dave / Alex,

I feel for you both and am in a very similar, frustrating situation. I was hoping to resolve some issues at my last DN appointment, but because my HBA1c results are good, I was made to feel I was being paranoid and worrying about nothing. The answer to my 3 hypos a day was to "eat more"!

Like you guys I thought I'd finally 'got it' with my carb ratios, everything was going perfectly well for a while. I now worry about not taking enough insulin, I only take 6 units of Lantus a day and little or no Novo Rapid with my meals. Surely the body needs a certain amount to keep everything functioning as it should be? What is a safe amount to take / not take?

Just one other thing, how can I be sure that I am honeymooning, as I've been Type 1 for just over a year and I've not experienced this before now. Is there a test to see if the pancreas is still working a little?

Dave I hope you enjoy your holiday, try not to worry too much, maybe use your honeymooning as an excuse to treat yourself to the odd ice cream

Jessie.