Insulin and alcohol

[Maple]

How do you adjust your insulin for alcohol - namely beer. I know it has carbs in it and I'm not worried if I have one, but if I have more than that I notice the effect on my BG. However, it always make me nervous to add any insulin as I know that it will drop my BG later on (normal morning readings are in the 7's, when I have a 'couple' of beers the night before, wake up in the 5's).

So, guess my question is... should I count the carbs in beer as I do anything else and adjust as I do with other carbs or not?

Rgds, Andrew

 

[Rebecca..]

Hi Andrew,

I'm struggling with adjusting my insulin when i drink alcohol. I'm newly diagnosed and went out drinking last weekend for the first time. I had pasta before i went out and did not inject with this (as i was scared of dipping low later on) I started drinking at 8pm i was drinking vodka and normal coke. I tested before i went to bed and expected to be high, but was 5.1 i had a bowl of frosties before i went to bed and woke up at 7am with a 2.4 and felt dreadful.

The next day i didnt inject much at all as i seemed to be low all day and really struggled to bring my levels back up.

My DSN told me to reduce my insulin by half that i have with my meal before i drink, and said to drink a high sugar drink between each alcohol drink. I think if i had done all of this i would have had even lower levels, so i am clueless :crazy:

 

[nmr1991]

I don't know about beer, but I do know that in my experience very dry wine to medium dry lowers my blood sugar alot, where medium sweet would raise it a bit or more. The only situation was at a party where I had about half a small bottle of wine which was really dry and had a load of food with it and it stays around 5-7 mmol/l.

However I have the impression that if I don't give myself insulin my body would eventually release the Ketones as I am having a lesser blood sugar from drinking alcohol and my cells need the blood sugar.

(slight offtopic) I know it's strange but I am glad I have diabetes, whenever my blood sugar is in between 4 and 7, things are so much more clearer (not just vision but my learning has improved greatly) than when I wasn't diabetic.

 

[jopar]

Problem when drinking is that, while your liver is processing the alcohol out your system, it isn't replenishing your glycogen stores in your liver...

Your liver will continue to deliver the glucose into your blood stream until it runs out, as this point your background insulin becomes quick acting insulin, and starts lowering your blood glucose levels..

And it takes around an hour on average for the liver to process 1 unit of alcohol.... So until the liver has finished to process the alcohol, it can't start off making any glycogen/glucose to deliver into your bloods stream, so high risk of hypo's and no backup liver stores to bail you out until your liver store is fully replenished..

The best thing is to work out what best suits your control...

Not good on what makes the best tactic to deal with drinking, as I don't drink..