How do you feel on a daily basis with high bg?

[dingbat]

Hi all, I need a little help. I'm type 1 for a couple of years now but to be honest haven't taken it too seriously.i inject at night 20 lantus and used to use novarapid but got sick of mild hypos so stopped. When I check my bg it ranges from 8 to around 12/13.
Thing is I can feel completely drained ,sometimes for 3 or 4 days at a time.
There's a lot of talk about long term effects but how does it make everyone else feel on a daily basis ??
Sometimes I can't think straight. Not, oo I need a nap tired but world go away tired.
I'm also on thyroxine although tests are fine for that.
Am I ignoring the obvious ?
I really appreciate other peoples experiences.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Hellbunny]

Thankfully my levels have been fairy good since i was diagnosed but upon diagnosis my levels were 25mmol and my eyes were painfully tired, i felt dizzy, thirsty and generally rubbish!

 

[Neicy0412]

When my levels are high, I feel exhausted, as if I am wading through treacle! My vision blurs, I want the loo all the time, my mouth feels dry so I generally prefer not to feel that way, but I do struggle with control, when it's good I am thrilled and when it's bad. I feel rubbish.

 

[Sarah69]

I don't feel any different when my BG is high, I remember once after an appointment with my GP he rang later in the day asking if I was ok, I said yes why and my blood was 22! I only feel different with a hypo.

 

[noblehead]

Lethargic, low energy levels and reduced vision are just a few of the symptoms I feel when running high bg.

 

[liklejojo]

Usually when my sugars are high I go quite tired and sometimes dizzy. I tend to find I'm quite snappy with everyone too. Tend to have horrible headaches when my sugars do come back down as well.

 

[dingbat]

huge thanks for taking the time to respond. sounds like most people have similar experiences.
I thought I was going mad wondering why no one else felt this way.
I need to get back on track but hate fast acting insulin, spend all my time worrying about hypos. I'm not quite sure how to deal with this without using it though.
maybe I'm in denial.

 

[liklejojo]

dingbat i'd start with a low dose of fast acting first and then if it's not working you can slowly start to increase it until it works.

Are you unsure of dealing with the high sugar?

Again try a small about of insulin then test your sugars an hour later to see if it has decreased, if not give more insulin.

It might be worth you trying to figure out exactly how much 1 unit of insulin lowers your sugars by, might help you work the rest of it out then?, Eg. for me 1 unit of insulin lowers my sugars by 4mmols so if my sugars are say 12 i would give 1-1.5 units to get me back within my target range. Hope this helps...

 

[dingbat]

You've no idea how much that helps. The Doc told me to use 5 units for every meal and I did that for months and ended up eating to avoid the hypos. If we went for a meal I'd have something to eat before we went in case i didn't last.
I had no idea 1 unit could make that much difference !!! thats like a tiny drop !
So irrespective of what you eat 1 unit can drop your bs by a certain amount ?
I'll take your advice and test.
Thanks agian

 

[AMBrennan]

Again try a small about of insulin then test your sugars an hour later to see if it has decreased, if not give more insulin.

That's a bad idea; Novorapid/Humalog tend to peak at about 1h and last for 3-5h, so injecting every hour if it hasn't come down far enough is a pretty good way of causing a hypo.

So irrespective of what you eat 1 unit can drop your bs by a certain amount ?

Not sure what you mean by that; obviously, the net change in BG will depend on what you eat - you'll see a rise in BG if you have a bottle of lucozade with the 1u correction dose.

The Doc told me to use 5 units for every meal and I did that for months

Looks like you might benefit from a more flexible carb counting regime - e.g. DAFNE clone BDEC

I had no idea 1 unit could make that much difference !!! thats like a tiny drop !

Insulin pens tend to come in 3ml (300u at 100u/ml) size - so that's about 80 for a cup of tea. :lol:

 

[liklejojo]

" Again try a small about of insulin then test your sugars an hour later to see if it has decreased, if not give more insulin.
That's a bad idea; Novorapid/Humalog tend to peak at about 1h and last for 3-5h, so injecting every hour if it hasn't come down far enough is a pretty good way of causing a hypo."

Apologies I didn't explain myself properly: Yes Novorapid/Humalog do peak at the 1/2 hour mark however, I meant to try a small dose of insulin at first and not give a big bolus and then keep doing it every hour. This again depends on a person's sensitivity to insulin. Everyone will do this in a different way I just wanted to share the way I do it, I only ever deal with 1-2 units at a time depending on what my bs was. You can do your bolus and test 2 hours later. I personally can't do that as my sugars rise too quickly once i am in a high bs state. (hope that clarified what i meant a bit more)

 

[noblehead]

huge thanks for taking the time to respond. sounds like most people have similar experiences.
I thought I was going mad wondering why no one else felt this way.
I need to get back on track but hate fast acting insulin, spend all my time worrying about hypos. I'm not quite sure how to deal with this without using it though.
maybe I'm in denial.

Without QA insulin your always going to be running high bg Dingbat. The two carb counting courses that AMBrennan provided is a good place to begin, the BDEC one you can start straight away although you do need to register first, to enroll on the DAFNE course you need to speak with your diabetes team to put your name down......provided they run the course in your area.

 

[dingbat]

I've looked at the bedclothes course which looks great, not sure what the other one is though.
Thanks for everyone's helpful comments

 

[AMBrennan]

bedclothes

:think: :?: :lol:

 

[dingbat]

whoops, Ipad auto correction - honest,
BDEC course is what I meant.
I had a go today with Novarapid I ranged fron 5.5 to 14 but I'll get there - I think.

 

[ReginaldD]

When my levels are high, I feel exhausted, as if I am wading through treacle! My vision blurs, I want the loo all the time, my mouth feels dry so I generally prefer not to feel that way, but I do struggle with control, when it's good I am thrilled and when it's bad. I feel rubbish.

My feelings after dinner often until my Novorapid has had it's four hours to take full effect.