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Low carb or no carb - lessons learned...

Shannon27

Well-Known Member
Messages
292
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Good morning folks!
So i've been trying out a very low carb WOE (way of eating) and i have to ask - is it worth the risk of late night hypos?
Last night for tea we had a tagine/curry thing, homemade by the fella, with some cauliflower rice. Although we are trying to eat no carb teas so i dont have to inject, some rather excessive drinking followed due to some close family being over.
Well. At bedtime i tested and was shocked to find my readings at 2.9. I just felt drunk, not hypo at all. So of course, in the ensuing panic (because the house is mostly stripped of carby snacks) my boyfriend was running up and down bringing me anything carby/sugary he could find. I'd had about 40g fast acting glucose gel. Bless, he brought me the two shortbread biscuits we had left, an apple, breadsticks, and a pack of ginger biscuits we've had forever. I'd scarfed down half the pack before i thought "hold on, don't overdo it". In between him fumbling with my testing kit, literally disassembling and reassembling the pricker, and my munching, it took 90minutes for my bloods to raise to 5.4. At which point i remembered we had some cereal in the house.
Woke up this morning at a wonderful 21.6, and i have never been happier for a high reading in all my life.
Lesson learned - if i'm planning on drinking, eat some carbs with it. If no alcohol, then no carb is fine.
 
I drink wine with low carb meals without any ill effect. I wonder if it's your background insulin. If I'm drinking later on then I take less background insulin in the morning. I change my background often daily.
 
ert said:
I drink wine with low carb meals without any ill effect. I wonder if it's your background insulin. If I'm drinking later on then I take less background insulin in the morning. I change my background often daily.
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I'm on Tresiba so i can't adjust it daily, it takes 2-3 days for any dose changes to kick in for me I know i'm taking too much but i can manage it during the day and mostly during the night. What happened last night was a one off but it's really scared me, and i've noticed similar but less extreme trends on other low carb days. I know the alcohol just made it worse. So i'm just figuring out if evening carbs would be a better idea for me, for now at least. Even if its something like a pack of nuts or something at bedtime, as was suggested to me on another post
 
Reactions: ert
I'm glad you avoided a trip to hospital. We've all over-reacted to a hypo at times, but it looks as if you've struck lucky. If you're going to be drinking, now you can choose some carbs to go with it, rather going for glucose gel. Choose something you really like to keep in stock, just in case.
 
ert said:
I drink wine with low carb meals without any ill effect. I wonder if it's your background insulin. If I'm drinking later on then I take less background insulin in the morning. I change my background often daily.
Click to expand...

Your background insulin will take 2 or 3 days to work its way into your system and to see any noticeable differences? So changing it daily will not give you a clear sight into what effect those changes are having!??
 
porl69 said:
Your background insulin will take 2 or 3 days to work its way into your system and to see any noticeable differences? So changing it daily will not give you a clear sight into what effect those changes are having!??
Click to expand...
Depends on the insulin doesn't it? If you're on something like Levemir, does it not "kick in" a lot sooner?
 
porl69 said:
Your background insulin will take 2 or 3 days to work its way into your system and to see any noticeable differences? So changing it daily will not give you a clear sight into what effect those changes are having!??
Click to expand...

I've found with the split Levemir I'm on I can make adjustments in a morning or evening as its active life is roughly over the 12 hours. I tend to run my basal fairly 'to the wire' so I can try and avoid unnecessary snacking. It does occasionally mean I use more Fiasp adding minor corrections but I'm generally happy with it this way and keep an eye on it with Libre/Miaomiao.
 
Shannon27 said:
Depends on the insulin doesn't it? If you're on something like Levemir, does it not "kick in" a lot sooner?
Click to expand...

Ah ok....I was always told to wait for 3 days to see any effects with my long lasting insulin. Mind you I was never on Levemir. I stand corrected Thank you both
 
You and me both - i think my boyfriend was considering calling an ambulance for a while as my readings wouldn't budge over 3.5 for about an hour! I was almost delirious, looking back it would have been funny if i weren't so scared!
 
porl69 said:
Ah ok....I was always told to wait for 3 days to see any effects with my long lasting insulin. Mind you I was never on Levemir. I stand corrected Thank you both
Click to expand...

I was on Levemir before I went onto Tresiba.
 

I was never on a split dose, as I was on 10 units of Levemir and was advised by DSN, no need to split as I was on a low dose.
 
Robinredbreast said:
I was never on a split dose, as I was on 10 units of Levemir and was advised by DSN, no need to split as I was on a low dose.
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I'm not on big doses but I need more at night than through the day with my morning dose generally. I'm on a 60/40 split roughly on most days.
 
db89 said:
I'm not on big doses but I need more at night than through the day with my morning dose generally. I'm on a 60/40 split roughly on most days.
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I know many Levemir users did split their dose, but I was ok on just one before bed.
 
porl69 said:
Ah ok....I was always told to wait for 3 days to see any effects with my long lasting insulin. Mind you I was never on Levemir. I stand corrected Thank you both
Click to expand...
I'm also on Tresiba and a couple of HCPs have told me to wait 2-3 days to see any changes.
 
Shannon27 said:
You and me both - i think my boyfriend was considering calling an ambulance for a while as my readings wouldn't budge over 3.5 for about an hour! I was almost delirious, looking back it would have been funny if i weren't so scared!
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I was once told, many years ago by my Diabetes consultant, that the worse that will happen if you lose consciousness because your BS goes too low is that you will wake up with a severe headache. So nothing to be scared about! Mind you I have never tested this theory out.
 
That would depend on your liver and it's sugar stockpile that gets dumped in this kind of situation. But as i'd been drinking, i'm not sure it would dump anything as it would be too busy filtering the alcohol out of my system!
 
I’m T2 diet controlled so stand to be corrected but wouldn’t that be dependent on somebody being there to assist/boost your BS whilst you were unconscious?
 
porl69 said:
Your background insulin will take 2 or 3 days to work its way into your system and to see any noticeable differences? So changing it daily will not give you a clear sight into what effect those changes are having!??
Click to expand...
It depends what you're on. Levimeer starts working in 4 hours and is out of your system 12 to 18 hours, but less overnight. So changing your background does make a huge difference for me. If I'm planning a 90-minute run I cut my background insulin back in the morning. This was advice given by my Specialist and I've found it correct.
 
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