Newbie needs help

They call insulin "the fat building hormone." So the more insulin you take, the easier it is for you to put on weight. You may just need a little adjustment period to the new low carb lifestyle. Some people feel kind of off when they first start out. As for your question about higher readings in the morning- when your blood sugar goes too low, your liver will kick in some glucose to bring the blood sugar back up. Could be dawn phenomenon or Somogyi effect. You may need to see about a decrease in your meds or increase carbs a tad before bed. Just a thought.

Hi Albez

This sounds exactly like me for the past 6 years, and like you i decided enough is enough. i needed to get on track.
My sugars were erratic and i was eating and drinking anything without even checking my sugars. I am type 1

I now follow a low carb approach. I dont eat potatoes or rice, and ocassionally eat about 60g of fresh pasta on an evening with a meal. i love my new diet and miss out on nothing. I have lost 11lb so far and feeling great. i have started keeping a food diary, monitoring sugar readings all day and everything I eat and drink (unless sugar free). I have worked out what food suits me at different types of the day, what portions i should be eating and how many carbs do i need if I have a low moment. my sugars have never been as good and i feel amazing. I would firstly recommend keeping a food diary.

In regards to the headaches, i got one stinker in the first few days on low carb, dont know whether it was because i had done a long drive that day or down to low carbs but I was in bed in the dark for a whole day, but since then nothing, plenty energy and even training for a 10k run!! :crazy:

In terms of the night time situation this was tricky for me too. but i've worked it out so that whatever my sugar is at when i go to bed, i usually wake up around the same. found this was helped by injecting my lantus into my leg rather than tummy and the low carb diet. Basically your blood sugar is rising because during the night your energy is being used by your body, to power you whilst you are asleep, once this energy is used your liver will dump stores of glucose into your body which is rasing your blood sugar. you need to work out how you can stop "the dump" as i call it. this can be controlled by your evening meal (type of food - high GI carbs could be burnt out quick, therefore nothing to run at come 3am)

It is hard to get to grips with it all, but one step at a time. this forum will help massively!

Good Luck :thumbup:

Albez said:

Hi there, found this forum as I have been wanting to try a low carb diet to help control my diabetes as my readings have been kind of erratic. I was diagnosed diabetic about 12 years ago but to be honest i still dont know if Im a T1 or T2 diabetic.. even my GP is none too sure.
My pancreas has shrunk so therefore I'm not producing enough insulin and I also have to take digestive enzymes whenever I eat. But since been put on insulin I have put on about 3 stone (13 stone) but all the weight has gone to my stomach and nowhere else which had me thinking I might be suffering with peripheral insulin resistance. Would that mean I should be on something like metaformin as well as insulin?
I currently take a slow releasing insulin (novamix) and my levels have been hitting the 20's sometimes but mostly I can keep them under 13mmol.. I have been eating badly (anything) and just compensating by taking extra insulin.. hence why I wanna try this low carb dieting with more exercise thrown in.
The problem at the moment with this new diet though is my sugar levels are like 6.5 before bed and then at 8am in the morning they are at 12mmol... how can they jump so high if i havent eating anything through the night? Also Im getting lots of headaches and feeling very tired after evening meal on good sugar levels.. is that normal when starting out with a low carb diet?
Thanks for any help.

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Hi

The reason why your bg levels have been reaching the 20's is because you are eating too much carb at certain meal times for what twice daily insulins will allow. Usually people have to adjust their carb intake rather than adjust the insulin. Everything can be sorted out by testing your bg levels more frequently and altering the amount of carb that you eat so that your bg is all ok. Injecting more of the pre mixed insulin wont really help you to eat whatever you want whenever you want. You've got to eat to your meter I'm afraid.

If you want to use a low carb diet, then it might be better for you to change to bolus/basal regime.