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Type 1 I am finding that I wake up during the night in a hot sweat but don't know why.

M

mikecu

Member
Messages
13
Location
Longleven Gloucester
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Why, when I have had no insulin for 6 hours and have a night time BG of 14 do I get these hot sweats at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. and again at about 6, or 7 0'clock in the morning On some occasions I have a BG of 3.5 but other times it is around 12. My morning BG is usually high as well arund 12 to 14. It happens almost every night regardless of whether, or not, I have high or low readings and nothing I have tried seems to change it.
Any help would be appreciated. I have been on Nova rapid and Lantus for some years now and have been type 1 from the beginning ,i.e. Feb 1983.
 
I found I woke up sweaty and thirsty in my early days as a T1, I think I found it was caused by the high BG. Try to get them below 8 before bed and let us know how it goes. 14 is a little high so its best its lower regardless.

Edit: completely missed a line, didn't see that 3.5 sneak in. That is tricky its so up and down. Is your basal stable? What sort of foods do you eat in the evening when its higher or lower. If I have my odd treat of a higher carb meal I find I will run just a touch higher overnight.

Weather seems to be a big one for me, muggy nights will see my levels lower overnight than a normal night.
 
mikecu said:
Any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

Without stating the obvious your night bg levels are really high and may be related to the sweating, especially if your going from 14 to 3.5 through the night.

I think you need to work with your DSN to get the levels down, if you do get your bg levels under control through the night and the sweating continues then see your gp, as we know not every symptom/ailment is diabetes related. Good luck.
 
Hi ElkBond,
Thanks for the reply but what I don't understand is how can I go low when I have had no insulin for more than 5-6 hours and am already high. It seems that somehow insulin is stored and then released during the early morning a lot of hours later. The same thing happens when I go to bed with a reading of 8. I thought it might have been alcohol related on some days but it happened even on my non alcohol days.
My consultant has said that I need to go to bed with a BG of 8. I have purposely gone to bed with high BG and not had my basal insulin, to see if that cured it but it didn't. My GP has said that there is nothing wrong with me other than my BG readings. I don't know of anything that causes hot night sweats other than a hypo. I don't normally go to bed with too high a BG reading.
I have been on Lantus and taking 28 units for a lot of years now and considered myself stabl.
Cheers,
 
Maybe try a different basal insulin?

I'm on a pump now, but my basal insulin before that could cause erratic sugars at night for no obvious reason.
 
azure said:
Maybe try a different basal insulin?

I'm on a pump now, but my basal insulin before that could cause erratic sugars at night for no obvious reason.
Click to expand...

Hi, thanks for the reply, but it happens on nights that I deliberately don't have my basal.
It's strange but I seem to go round in circles trying to prove/disprove various theories of mine.
What else can cause sweats besides hypos?
I am seeing my consultant this week and will try him again to see if he can come up with any other reasons.
C'est la vie.
 
Hi @mikecu Both highs and lows can cause sweats for me during the night (lows more than highs). Additionally, going from High to Low without insulin can be caused by a hypo up to 24 hours earlier.
During a hypo, your liver naturally dumps glucagon (especially if you don't treat it quick enough) to fix the hypo, and then many hours later, needs to recapture the spent glucagon, thereby causing the drop in BG (hypo).
 

I think the effects of basal insulin can persist for a couple of days so I don't know how relevant that would be.

I believe thyroid issues can cause sweating - have you had tests to ensure that's ok?

One sign of high sugars at night for me is feeling excessively hot. If I wake up and feeling like I'm being roasted, I always test my sugars and they're usually high.

All I can suggest is seeing your GP to rule out a non-diabetes cause like thyroid problems, etc

Edited to add that perhaps you could have your hormones checked too. I know hormonal related things are often considered 'women's problems' but men's hormones can cause effects too.
 
I used to suffer the same problem, i am now on Tresiba instead of Lantus and have only suffered night sweats once in the last 12 months. I never found the cause and tried my best with corrections before bed. Hope this helps your not alone
 
It might be helpful to do some exercise after your evening meal if you can. Eg a 10-15 minute walk or longer and keep doses the same to see if there is any difference. If your BG levels go down you can adjust exercise accordingly up or down to arrive at a good medium. Maybe also wise to look at your diet and see if you can go for foods that do not spike BG quickly ie lower Glycemic carb loads which have a lower glycaemic index and load. That way you can even out your BG levels. That applies well to foods at any meal time but evening is very important to get longer time stability through the night. A good nutritionist and books on nutrition should give you helpful ideas on finding suitable meal alternatives for your situation.
 
I also suffer these sweats. I use the Libre so can get a much better understanding of my own reactions. It seems very chicken and egg. When I get/feel hot my BG goes up. When I cool off it goes down. So when I have a night sweat BG goes up some 2mmol, I throw off the bed sheet, cool down and see that the BG has returned down. My guess is that liver is dumping and it is not entirely related to insulin. The great advantage of the Libre is that I can see on the graph what has been happening when I'm asleep or mostly asleep. It really does help with understanding and control.
Remember the stress levels are also probably going up when you now wake in a sweat!

I get the same with exercise early morning. Brisk walk and BG goes up as I warm up. After about an hour it comes down with the exercise but it is when I stop and cool off it comes down more. I do find that 20minutes walking an hour before bed does help with night sweats.
 
Sometimes, night sweats could be a symptom of the autonomic dysfunction, which is one of the long-term complications of diabetes. You said you were diagnosed in 1983; I seem to recall that the autonomic dysfunction ("neuropathy of autonomic nervous system") is more likely if there's peripheral neuropathy. But that's a textbook knowledge, not something I learned from "experts by experience", which is an NHS fanciful term for patients (and which *truly and fully* applicable to us, diabetics).
 
Also, do you have Libre/CGM? I'm just wondering if you might be catching hypos in different stages, if you don't have some means of continuous BG monitoring/recording. I.e., some nights you might catch a hypo in early stages (3.5), and others - later stages, *after* your liver has released glucose into bloodstream. What do you think?
 
Hi,
thanks to you all, I will try and run a series of BG tests during the night as catching hypos at different stages may just be part of the answer, but it doesn't explain how I could get low when I have had no insulin at all for 5-6 hours in the day/night before.
 
Low blood sugars can be caused by more than just insulin. Hormones, stress, exercise, and the liver reclaiming after a dump, to name just few off the top of my head, can also cause BG drops. Additionally, different insulins remain active for different lengths of time, for different people.
 
Hi All,
I have saw my consultant yesterday, Thursday, and he doesn't understand how this can happen, I am now getting a Libre and am going on the course next Tuesday.
It is expensive to buy the sensors so hopefully I will only need a couple. I have an Aviva Expert BG tester and have registered on diasend.com this means I will be able to upload the results to the site and my DSNurse will be able to log in and view them and then make a much more accurate diagnosis, fingers crossed.
I will post the results in 4-5 weeks time once I have had chance to use it.
 
Got my Libre today. It feels great and hopefully can help sort out my problem, but it is very expensive to run at nearly £100 a month for sensors and no discount for bulk purchases.
 
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