Is it possible to hypo on only lantus

[dingbat]

If I go fairly low carb, and only use my lantus, is it possible to hypo ? In other words if the amount of lantus I take works well for me (20units), and I'm careful with carbs and don't use my novarapid could I still hypo ?
The reason is that I'm completely sick of leaving the house then spending all the time worrying about Hypo''s
Ta

 

[Fallenstar]

Hi Dingbat
I was like that on Lantus, and have spoken to a number of other people who were just the same. Google side effects of it :sick: I think it is a good Insulin for folks who have a degree of insulin resistance but it had was very unpredictable for me, and I had the worse crashing Hypo's on it, especially at night.

Levemir has turned my control completely around, maybe a change could work for you. To be honest I think that would be better than not taking Bolus at all, as I'm sure it may work for a day or two, with low carb and heavy exercise but I think you will find that even with no carbs at all the protein will be converted to Glucose and you will need Bolus, and if you don't take Bolus you will get poorly.

Hope it works out for you.

 

[iHs]

Hi Dingbat

Yes, it is possible that if too much Lantus is injected in one go with very very low carb and no bolus, then it is possible to go hypo.. Back in 2007, my usual 200 bg teststrips was reduced to just 50 per month and out of despair I started to just use Lantus and eat very low or no carb for my meals. I was at the time stabbing about in the dark so to speak so I started to inject Lantus morning and evening and just used trial and error to sort myself out The first day wasn't too bad and my bg levels were only elevated a tiny bit so I knew I would have to adjust some of my food or Lantus a bit more, but by the time I got to the end of the second day..... I went very hypo before going to bed so decided that I would have to use another plan to control my bg and demanded to have more teststrips from my GP. I eventually changed to Levemir though and it knocked spots off Lantus. Even though Levemir is usually injected twice daily, its still a far better background insulin but that's just my opinion....

You could possibly try injecting your total daily dose of Lantus by splitting it into 3 injections to see how that effects your bg levels with no or low carb. It is all 'trial and error' though..... just make sure you have plenty of bg strips to test things out and be prepared to adjust the Lantus dose as well. You will probably find that you will need to eat to the action of the Lantus and not the other way around though..

Hopefully, sometime in the new year.... Novo should be launching their new background insulin Degludec which is meant to be very stable so might pay to wait until it becomes available....

 

[noblehead]

Difficult to say for sure and the only way of knowing is by trying it, you will find you still need to bolus despite eating a very low carb diet, have you carried out some fasting tests to see if your basal insulin isn't set to high?... although difficult to avoid altogether hypo's and the fear of hypo's shouldn't effect our everyday living.

 

[dingbat]

Thanks all for the useful replies.i might have a word with the doc next time I'm in.

 

[iHs]

If I go fairly low carb, and only use my lantus, is it possible to hypo ? In other words if the amount of lantus I take works well for me (20units), and I'm careful with carbs and don't use my novarapid could I still hypo ?
The reason is that I'm completely sick of leaving the house then spending all the time worrying about Hypo''s
Ta

This is a good enough reason to discuss with a consultant regarding getting a pump !! :wink: