Hi all, I was recently diagnosed type 1 in December and fortunate enough to have started the libre 2 process. I’m on MDI with lantus and novorapid, injecting for every main meal. However the libre has highlighted that my BG’s are up and down like crazy! I’ve worked hard to prevent lows and keep highs at bay so stay in range 99% of the time but my libre graph looks like a Rocky Mountain range. I’m not sure where I’m going wrong. Any advice?
Thought you may be interested to see the profile of a non-diabetic. I asked my brother to wear a freestyle libre for comparison of profiles. As you can see even non-diabetics have large spikes in blood glucose, the large spike here (image with black background) was after he had a jacket potato. For comparison I have also put my daily graph, I am a T1D too (image with white background).
Your control looks exceptional for a T1D, this could be due to the honeymoon effect (you're still producing some endogenous insulin) and your insulin regimen.
Initially after my diagnosis I was too hyper focused on keeping my blood sugars in the normal range and started taking too much background insulin everything was going fine until I started playing 5 a side football every Thursday and my background insulin requirements plummeted, but because I was a diabetes noob I didn't adjust my background before I started football and I ended up very unwell after multiple hypos. So if you suddenly become unwell having hypos, first thing you should consider is potentially lowering your background dose of insulin. I found that my pancreas still decides it wants to come back life and start producing insulin again which lowers my insulin needs, so that is something to look out for. I wasn't warned about this when I was initially diagnosed so thought I'd give you a heads up just in case.
After a lot of faffing I decided my best bet was to reduce the amount of insulin I need to take as much as possible because when I was eating carbs my margin for error was huge because I took larger insulin doses. Now I eat a low carbohydrate diet (approx 30g carbs per day) and I only need 0.5 units of background insulin per day and approx 4 units fast acting per meal. This makes management so much easier as I am using the law of small numbers. Less insulin injected and less of an effect on my blood sugars.
I would definitely read Dr Bernsteins Diabetes Solution, Dr Bernstein is an 87 year old type 1 diabetic who still practices as a physician in the US and is fitter than most people 10 years younger than him. He advocates a low carb diet for diabetes management and he really understands the disease on a level that most Dr's and Nurses do not. His advice might even contradict that of your own doctor on occasion but he knows what he is talking about and will give you a really good insight into how to manage your blood sugars.
Sorry to have to Welcome you to the T1D club!