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Insulin isnt working

miss_lady_pink

miss_lady_pink

Active Member
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29
I have been a diabetic for 11 years now diagnosed in my teens i rebelled as all an imagine but i.soon realised what i was ignoring waa damaging me so i seeked helped got myself fixed and so on.. that was 4 years ago but it seems ive never managed to hild my blood sugars down ever... it seems my body is so used to having such high sugars ie 20.2 higher n higher i.nwver thought it would go down anyway i started seein new drs and nurses and i re learnt everything i needed to know re diabeyes n managin it all help by my hubby too so i started learning about how to control ur sugars and insulin take etc i was on lantus for slow release and nobo rapid for feed i fell pregnant and suffered a misscarriage i blamed my diabetes and insulin but it spurned me on to get it right i am now on Levemir and drs want me at 5.9 ready to.start a family but since being on it my sugats havent been lower than 20 !! i go to bed and they will have dropped to say 10 by the time i wake up their 26 27!! im not over weight have recently stopped smoking i dnt eat sugary foods just normal breakfast lunch and dinner!! i looking for some positive help into why i cant seem to get them down and will i ever have a baby???
 
I would advise you to get back to your Doctors, If my levels were that high I would be feeling dreadful. You really need to get this sorted

Lorna
 
I'd like to ask some questions :) Do you carb count? Have you done any fasting tests to check if your basal insulin dose is correct? Do you test 2 hours after eating to check if your carbohydrate to insulin ratio is correct? What is a normal breakfast, lunch and dinner for you, can you tell us what sort of food this might be? Some diabetics find that eating a lower carbohydrate diet helps if their blood glucose is being stubborn about coming into good figures. Has your diabetes team sent you for any training, for example a DAFNE course?
 
I dnt carb count no... should i be? i do have a book called carb and calorie countinf but dnt know how to use, i test my sugars 8 times a day the dr phoned last night told me to up my levemir to 50 units in morning to see how that goes well breakfast isnt too gd i eat 3 digestive biscuits at work as cant stomach anything when i wake up too early! lunch is a sandwhich brown bread maybe cheese marmite or pate etc packet of crisps and a cheap version of a kitkat chocolate, dinner like normal dinners ie tonight ill have cottage pie and i dont snack in between i seem to b having hypos by the time i get home bout half 5 they drop to 3 so i have a sugary thing and they go back up then drop by bedtime and soar again by time i wake up! my sugars were 22 this morning and have slowly dropped thru day but not hugely.
 
It's difficult to give an opinion without seeing all the info, but from what you have written above, it looks more like you should be increasing your evening levemir to get your morning readings down. If you increase your morning levemir you will be even more hypo in the afternoon.
 
I think you should ask your consultant to send you on a carb counting course, particularly something like DAFNE might be useful but often a dietician at the hospital/clinic can show you how to carb count if DAFNE is not an option. Your diabetes nurse may also be able to show you how to carb count. If you have a book and don't understand it then you might find that your learning style is better suited to being shown rather than reading, carb counting once you know how isn't very difficult although it can be a little time consuming at first. It does make it better if you can count the carbs you're eating and inject fast acting insulin according to what you're eating.

Do you inject your Levemir once a day or twice a day? If you're injecting once a day then that might be why your consultant is asking you to increase that morning injection, he's trying to give you enough basal insulin to cover you better in the early mornings before you wake up to avoid those high readings. Some people find that injecting Levemir twice a day works better and if you're not already doing that and if your consultant can't get your waking readings down then perhaps suggest that you'd like to split the dose into a morning and night injection to see if that suits you better.

Something else you may want to try is do some blood glucose tests through the night. Sometimes a high waking reading can happen because you've had a hypo in the middle of the night and not been aware of it. This can result in a high reading when you wake up. It may just be that your Levemir is not covering you well enough through the night and into the morning but I think it's worth testing (set your alarm for maybe 11.30pm, 2am and again at 4am) just to see what's happening with your readings and rule out the waking high readings being due to a nightime hypo.
 
Thanks for ur suggestions i was told its not advisory to split levemir as i did do this and it did help but i thought its jus.the same as doing it in one?! im s having a hypo at around 5o clock ish but surely if the levemir is a 24hr releaae how can it be running out i inject it at around 8am mon-fri and abour 9am sat-sunday so by 4/5pm its running out surely thats worrying? i mean can u over dose on levemir im now up to 54 units in the morning, i do 7 or 8 units of novo rapid for breakkie 8or 9 for lunch and 8-10 for dinner??the only reason i changed from lantus to levemir was the start of planning for a family as lantus is poison to an unborn and this is why im struggling i just cant seem to get them down in morning :-(
 
You're injecting one dose of Levemir at 8am? If you're going hypo at 5pm your Levemir is not running out by 5pm, hypo means that you have too much insulin being active. However if you're having high readings on waking in the morning then this might be due to the Levemir running out by the next morning shortly before you're due for your next Levemir injection. Although "the book" says the profile of Levemir is to last 24 hours it doesn't always work that way for everyone and is the reason many people who use Levemir are splitting it into two injections a day. Your high waking reading may not be due to the Levemir running out, but it might be and if it is, then splitting the dose into two injections one morning and one evening might work better for you. I think you need to discuss this with your consultant to see if he/she recommends trying a split to see if it helps. I also feel if you want strict control of your bg due to wanting a baby then carb counting will definitely be of benefit.
 
It might be better to take the Levemir during the evening, so if it does taper off before 24 hours, you'll be awake when it drops and could probably cover the gap with your suppertime bolus. Obviously consult your DSN before making any changes.
 
:? I have been to see my dietition to day, she said that i should be takeing 50units of Levemir at night and 30units in the mornig[novarapid] Another30units of Novorapid Before midday meal, and 10 to20 units of novorapid at tea time.

I AM 74 YEARS OLD ( MALE) AND HAVE HAD DIABETES SINCE 203 Hope you find some something of interest.

God bless you all AN NISS
 
I agree with most of the advice on here. If you are willing then try fasting tests. These will help you work out the right rates for you. Start with the overnight one

This is how my Diabetes nurse told me to do the overnight test.

"Eat your dinner no later than 6PM. Test your bloods at ten pm. Unless you're hypo don't correct. Test again at midnight then 3AM followed by 6AM. If at any time you have hypo readings then treat the hypo and abort the test. "

Even if you're slightly high, what you're looking for is how your blood sugar rises and falls whilst not eating. It will tell you whether your insulin is covering your needs. This can be surprising as sometimes you can hypo in the night and not wake up. The body deals with the hypo and you wake up on a high.

The overnight one is the easiest to check and can have the best effect on the whole day once sorted.

Dom
 
miss_lady_pink said:
If any of u guys remember this thread would just like to share i am now a mummy:)
Click to expand...

Hey thats great, congratulations :)

ps. How is your control now? Did you get on the DAFNE course?
 
Hi sid, b4 i fell pregnant i focused purely on keepin sugars below 10 which was fine in my eyes n got my hbac down from 9 to 8 whilst i was pregnant i just religously checked my sugars about 15 times a day and i also made my own food diary similar to how we write our sugars out n just went by that, i didnt do the dafne course, like i said i did my own food diary n went by that, as i ate pretty much the same thing whilst pregnant so i kept adjusting my insulin levels to whatever my reading was n went by that which worked a treat.

Since having bubba bcos urs insulin levels dramatically drop ur back to square one on doing wat u did previously... in my case not a clue !! So back to learning wat i do for wat i eat etc, tho my last hbac was 7 :-) learning to get back on track again.... thank u

Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 
Hi Miss Lady Pink, firslty congratulations on being a mummy its a great feeling my son is not 28 but my grandson is 2 half full of beans. I have a simular problem to you, I go to bed and wake up with adnormaly high blood sugars. My Doctor told me we have a hormone that dictates if we are a morning person or evening person. This hormone releases more energy from the liver to get us going. Im a morning person so i have a high amount of sugar levels first thing then struggle to get them down all day just to start again the following day. I take 500mg slow release metformin, glucside twice a day, 60 untis of Novamis Insulin at night and 50 in the morning and another 10 at lunch time. My bloods average around 13 but i still dont feel right at that level. If I can keep them from yoyo'ing I can be ok. This morning bloods were 14.6 so gonna be a hard day today. Good luck with the baby and everything xxxxxx
 
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