Low carb and illness

[Aperolspritz]

Hi everyone!
I've been stalking this site for ages gathering loads and loads of helpful information to try and get a grip of my diabetes. I'm T2, been diagnosed for about 8 years and, after taking so many tablets I rattled, I was put on basal insulin about a year ago. For a needle phobe I'm managing quite well but since reading Michael Mosely's book (as recommended on this forum) I have decided to do the LCHF diet with the ultimate aim of getting off the insulin.
This was about a month ago.
I have managed to drop the Glimepiride I was taking and reduced my insulin dose from 30 down to 22 but still taking 2000mg metformin.

All going well so far. However this last week I have had a terrible cough and my BG readings are now reading too high. I had managed to reduce the FBG down to around 7 (from 10) with even a few 6s for good measure. I am now back to 10s, 11s and even 13 with some post meal spikes of 15. Yikes!

I phoned my DN (who is luckily very supportive - a rarity from reading this forum) and she tells me to up the insulin to get the FBGs back in line.

My question is: can anyone advise me how long it could take to get my sugars back down once I get over this bout of illness and could my low carbing have made me more vulnerable to illness in the first place? I'm not normally prone to illness despite the diabetes and it may just be coincidence that I've had this since giving up the amount of fruit I used to eat.

Any help and advice gratefully received!

PS: my HbA1c has gone down from 65 this time last year to 58 following 9 months on insulin. I would dearly love to get this down into the 40s and be able to gain control through diet with no needles!!

 

[Finsky]

Providing you carry on with your diet and feeling good with it, your blood sugars will eventually correct themselves. As you are on insulin...it gives you chance/flexibility to adjust your blood sugar levels..but if you have degree of insulin resistance, even giving some extra insulin for your system won't help you great deal during ilness. When you get ill you body's natural reaction results higher blood sugar levels.
In case of insulin resistance...for me much effective way of dealing will 'ill effect' is have teeny bit more insulin..but bring carb intake down slightly lower from normal and increase fat intake...then it is just case of waiting game. Once I notice numbers starting to come down, I then gently lower the insulin dozes again as excess insulin just encourages hunger. It is really the same response to my medication levels even without being ill. For me, depending of the severity of interruption to my readings, it can take couple of weeks or more to correct themselves and I don't try to force them down with radical change of medication intake..if they don't have much effect..then they just won't work! Gently, gently is my answer..
From past I can tell that sometimes my body can even 'stock pile' the insulin and when the 'cup is full', it will over flow and I will end up having hypos...and then the same circle starts again...correcting that...like a rollercoaster ride. I find being little high on sugar levels much gentle for the body than constantly going up and down....so I tend to just bare it for couple of weeks.