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lower bloodsugars - great or concerning?

E

ellalla

Member
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12
Hi everyone!

First - I'm not a native speaker. I hope I'll be able to write comprehensibly.

In the last to weeks I have lowered my Insulin (Lantus once a day) gradually from 50 to 25 units.
That seemed advisable, due to my fasting glucose levels being around 3.6 to 5. (My advised range is 5.6 to 7.8)
Also during the day I was often quite low (typically around 4.4).

Now last night I checked before I went to sleep and I was at 3.8. Also feeling quite low. So I ate about 50g of carbs (I know, to much.) 90 minutes later I was only at 4.1. 30g more carbs got me to 5.6.
I fully expected a high fasting level after that binge, but I was only at 6.

Background information: I lost 5 stone in the last 7 month. But this was gradually. This decreased need for insulin only has only occured the last two weeks.
I'm eating quite high carb atm

Is this a case of 'hurray, it's working', or could there be something else going on?

Thank you so much for your input.

Ellalla
 
Welcome to the forum.
Can you confirm what type of diabetes you have please?
 
That's hard to pin down. I'm very disorganized with food. Also a lot more snacking in lock-down.
breakfast: (only if I have to because of low numbers) 40g oatmeal, 10g sugar, an apple
lunch: something like a breadroll plus vegetables or salad (no nasty dressing)
dinner: a lot of vegetables or salad, plus potatoes (about 200-300g) or couscous (50g)
snacks: popcorn with sugar, feta cheese, chocolate (20g per day), oranges, olives, vegetables, soup
Always under 2000cal, most times around 1600cal.
 
T2 is a metabolic disorder. We can't process carbohydrates.

You may want to try and cut back drastically. Fruit is not good for us either. Berries are ok. Eat with heavy cream or full fat yoghurt. We should not eat low fat anything.

These are trying times, we may not be able to get ingredients we would prefer.

There are lots of snacks you can make, Google keto snacks.

Tagging @JoKalsbeek for her intro with newbies, I can't link on my phone.

How are you calculating your insulin intake?

Get rid of that popcorn.
 
Oh my... Almost everything you eat is carb-heavy...! And practically all carbs turn to glucose once ingested. If you tackle the way you eat, you could be off insulin rather quick, I do believe... But that's the catch: if you start low carbing, your blood sugars will drop. There's more than a possibility you'd hypo if you don't carb-count for your insulin but use a fixed dose... So you'll need to be very careful if you make changes, and test very often. https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html can get you started, it's what @xfieldok was referring to, and if you're interested, you might want to delve deeper with Dr, Jason Fung's the Diabetes Code, dietdoctor.com and this forum's website, diabetes.co.uk (not .org!).

It's a lot to take in, but oh my... You eat more carbs in a day than I do in probably three months. Rough estimate, I am horrible at math.

Hope this helps!
Jo
 
My breakfast is bacon and egg and coffee with double cream. It's brunch really.

When I first started, I had a snack box, it contained cheese, walnuts, olives. Pork scratchings, you might call them pork rinds.

Always check the labels of any food you buy.
 
My Insulin intake is calculated as such:
fasting level above target range for a few days: raise intake by three units.
fasting level beneath target range: lower intake by three units.
Keep going until it's safely in range


I know about low carb, of course. Due to my eating disorder I am currently happy to be able to regulate my food at all. That's new for me. I know I'll have to switch to low carb eventually.

In my current situation going low carb would probably get me to even lower numbers, but also even things out?
 
Thank you so much for your input.

I only take Lantus once a day. How do I go about carb counting with that?

I live alone and nobody knows about me being diabetic. So hypos are scary.
 

Sounds lovely. I always shied away of going low carb as a vegetarian with very limited animal products at all. I guess I have to find some ressources.
 
Harder to do as a vegetarian, but not impossible. We have a vegetarian sub forum, take a look.

Cheese omelette for breakfast. Mushrooms, lots of low carb options.

Google is your friend. Google keto anything you fancy.

You can make keto muffins, sweet and savory. Google keto fat bombs.

Google fat head dough if you like pizza.

I could go on and on......
 
ellalla said:
Thank you so much for your input.

I only take Lantus once a day. How do I go about carb counting with that?

I live alone and nobody knows about me being diabetic. So hypos are scary.
Click to expand...
There's no carb counting with Lantus, it's a long acting insulin. Carb counting only works if you bolus (with short acting insulin) for your foods. And yes, hypo's are indeed scary, so something to avoid, especially as you live alone. You mention having trouble with food as it is? There's LOTS of different eating disorders, so it'd help to know what's going on. Say, for instance, if you're a binger, key is to only have stuff around that's no to low carb, so you won't spike your blood sugars with it. (Like cheeses, olives, eggs, that sort of thing. They're filling, and it won't up your blood glucose.). There's lots out there you can eat, and eat a lot of. Even if being a vegetarian restricts your options, there's still quite a bit you could dig into. There's always a work-around, just takes some time to figure it out. I have migraine and rheumatism food triggers, those make my meals a little harder to figure out too, but I did it, eventually. So whatever your issue with food is.... There's ways. Somehow. And you don't have to get it right overnight.
 
xfieldok said:
Harder to do as a vegetarian, but not impossible. We have a vegetarian sub forum, take a look.
Click to expand...

I'll definetely tackle that, thanks.


JoKalsbeek said:
There's no carb counting with Lantus, it's a long acting insulin. Carb counting only works if you bolus (with short acting insulin) for your foods.
Click to expand...
That's what I thought, thanks for the clarification.


JoKalsbeek said:
You mention having trouble with food as it is? There's LOTS of different eating disorders, so it'd help to know what's going on.
Click to expand...

I've been a binger for most of my life. The binging stopped years ago. But it was no healing, only a truce. Meaning, as long as I ate 'inutuitively' and put no restrictions on my food, my ED would stay calm. I wouldn't binge, wouldn't gain weight, wouldn't stress out. That was quite a achievement for me.
The only downside: It didn't agree with my diabetes. 80 units of Lantus and a1c of 103 last summer

Then - after years of therapy- I found out last summer, my eating and my emotions weren't as entangled as before. I now can reason with myself, I can decide 'that's enough'. Still, I had so many hard relapses due to me restricting myself in the past, that I'm treading very carefully.
The deal I made with myself is: I eat what I want, but only up to 2000cal (and no pasta, only one baked good a day) as long as I keep loosing weight and lowering my a1c (currently 5 stone lost and last a1c at 46).
I knew from the beginning, I would have to switch to low carb eventually. But not going full monty immediately made the road ahead much less daunting and probably also safer for me.

JoKalsbeek said:
There's ways. Somehow. And you don't have to get it right overnight.
Click to expand...

Thanks for understanding.
 
I have to tell you that switching to low carb or keto can be hard at first. You have to get through the carb addiction. It took me 4 weeks.

We all fall off the wagon when we first start.

I tell people that they should just treat it as part of your education and just climb back on the wagon.

Keeping a food diary will help. Record along with your readings. Download the mysugr app. It is free.
 
ellalla said:
Thanks for understanding.
Click to expand...

Naturally. It's not straightforward for the bulk of us, there's usually loopholes and workarounds and hurdles, emotionally, physically, practically... Just find what works for you. If you know what foods would agree with your blood sugars, you can make little adjustments here and there. I do agree that a complete overhaul would be too much in one go, if there's other issues to consider. But I do hope you'll feel better soon.
Jo
 
Hi. I suspect you have insulin resistance which means insulin may work erratically. Reducing your carb intake is essential to reduce any insulin resistance and hence have better BS control. Do move more towards fats and proteins and set yourself a carb target of at least below 200gm/day.
 
Yes, of course I have Insulin resistance.
Currently I am under 200gm/day about half of the time. I'll do that everyday now for a start.
 
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