Lantus/Novorapid doses...am curious

[ScotchKit]

Hello everyone,
Was diagnosed T1 one month ago (just after my 30th b'day - lucky me!) and found this site the other day - this is my first post, so please be gentle with me

I started off carb counting a week after diagnosis and that went well until my honeymoon kicked in - now I'm having problems managing my novorapid doses.

I went from taking about 3-5 units with a meal to taking no novorapid at all (just my lantus at only 6 units per day). This was ok apart from the fact that my evening readings were high (11-14) but I take the lantus in the evenings so it was probably running out then?

Now I seem to need novorapid again as my levels have been creeping up through the day but I'm having real problems judging levels. Does anyone know if the honeymoon period normally just stops, or does it sort of fizzle out with erratic levels of insulin being produced? I ask because the other night I had my (carefully weighed!) plate of pasta (spag bog) and went from 4.8 before dinner to 11.0 at bedtime (I took 1 unit of novo with it) then two nights later I had the same meal and took 3 units of novo thinking that I had underdosed previously - but my levels went from 9.1 before dinner to a hypo before bed!

I guess the obvious answer is that 2 units would have been enough, but has anyone got any tips on how to calculate this before I give myself hypos? I feel a bit cross with the honeymoon thing - I was managing pretty well before it came to visit

Any advice would be appreciated (and apologies for this long post!)
Kit

 

[jopar]

Hi Kit

I doubt whether you are out of the honeymoon period just yet, some of your problems could be because you are still in it, and the pancreas decided to add a tad of it's own insulin to the mix..

As to your pasta tea, the problem here, is that pasta is a slow burning carb, which can cause a couple of problems with how it effects blood glucose, and the interaction with insulin..

Because it's slow what can happen you inject the insulin to cover your meal, the insulin starts to do it's job, but the pasta hasn't started to adsorb until later and there isnt enough for the insulin to work on, you end up hypo but later 3-4 hours later you end up high.. This can happen when eating any foods that have an high fat content, such as pastry, pizza etc.. The term for this you will quite often see, is 'The Pizza Effect'

Sometimes to be able to eat these types of foods, spilting the quick acting insulin, so some before you eat, and the rest after over-comes this, but it does take a bit of trail and error to find the right split and timing of the injections, and of cause ends up with more injections needed in an day..

Another possiablity, is the difference between the meals could hae been, you had a difference exercise/physical acttivity earlier in the day, which could have made your insulin more effective..

Difficult to say which, and my best advise is to take notes, of physical acttivities you are doing durning the day, along side your carb counts, types of foods that you've eaten and of cause your blood glucose levels, hopefully with this indepth information you will be able to indentify, whats what and be able to adjust your insulin needs as required for god control

 

[ScotchKit]

Thank you very much for a speedy reply Jopar - it's nice to know there's help and support from other folk out there. I'm sure you're quite right - I'm going to start noting down what I eat and do much more carefully, and then try to make some sense out of it all.

I think my major problem is psychological as much as anything - I'm a bit of an 'in control' person and don't like feeling that my body's defeating me! But the more I find out about diabetes, the more I see that there are ways of getting the control back - at least partially - knowledge is power I suppose.

Thanks again
Kit