Missing a meal by mistake - dangerous?

[alf15]

Hi guys,
I'm a type 1 since Nov. I have a quick question that came to light today.

I was out on the road with work and had to get lunch. But i stupidly forgot my needle or it fell out somewhere before lunch! So i couldnt inject for my lunch. So i just aint a small bit of lunch so my b/s wouldnt rise to much.

Then I had a small late lunch and 2 shots of novarapid when I finally got back to the office at 4pm.

My question is, if i miss a meal or miss the injection for that meal, is this dangerous? I know my b/s wont drop because ive taking my insulin, but later that day will it effect me if this happened again?

 

[Stuboy]

It not dangerous if you skip a meal, in theory...

If youre basal insulin is correct, then missing a meal shouldn't matter... it's part of the freedom you get with MDI if it's well controlled.

I wouldn't advise eating a meal and missing the injection though as that will raise your BG. If you must eat and you dont have any insulin. Make sure the meal is next to no carbs, or less carbs than you would take 1 unit of insulin for (do you know your carb:insulin ratio?).

Hope that helps?

 

[Rach79]

Sometimes if you delay your meal by a long time or miss it, there may be a chance your b/s could drop due to you not having food. However this varies from person to person. I think it would be dangerous to miss an injection if you had a lunch with a lot of carbs in as your b/s would possibly rise considerably. You appear to have done the right thing, just having a little bit of lunch to keep you going until you got to the office, thus stopping your b/s from rising too much or dropping later in the day. You then went back and took your novarapid so you could finish the bigger part of your lunch later on, and so I think that was the best option. Some days I can miss breakfast but other days if I have breakfast, I can find my b/s drops in the afternoon if I don't have my lunch by 1pm. So if I think I might have a late lunch i.e. busy morning / board meeting etc. what I tend to do is take a small banana or a snack for the morning which is usually around 10 grams and this keeps my b/s stable until I am able to have my lunch later on at 3pm or whatever. This might help you too but of course your needs may differ from mine slightly. Overall though you didn't do anything dangerous really. It's a big learning curb and you will soon get to know when you can eat etc. or if you need snacks regularly or not. If your b/s are around the same 2 hours after your meal as what they were before you ate then you have your insulin dose spot on. That is something I didn't learn about until a few months ago. If they are a little bit lower than before you ate then you know you need to take less insulin next time, and if they are too high you possibly didn't take enough. However that day you forgot your needle - I wouldn't worry about it as your b/s were most probably fine because you ate a little and then more later when you had your insulin.

 

[hanadr]

Generally
I would say to anyone, Test and don't panic. If you feel ok, you have time to sort out pretty much anything