Nighttime hypoglycaemia

cbooth5 said:

They will drop within 3 hours and I often get woken up at 3am, 6/7am or 9am but mostly just once per night by libre alarm, eat then go back to bed.

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Do you double check those Libre lows with a finger prick?

Not sure if this is suitable for you but I’m finding higher fat/protein I.e. meat plus oats or other carbs gave me a high value well into the next morning, however, I assume this encourages weight gain. However I think your proposal of changing to a pen that delivers 0.5 sounds a better idea.
Also have something low gi index plus sugar after your hypo, if you’re not. My DSN mentioned this to me when my basal was too high.

Hi C, I’m not on insulin but also have nighttime hypos - especially around 2-3am. I’ve found eating longer lasting carbs & protein later in the evening. I was eating a low sugar biscuit or snack before bed to get my BG above 7 but they just made me crash again later. I’ve found cheese & a couple of heavily seeded wholemeal crackers does the trick & not drinking any alcohol several hours before I go to bed. If my alarm does go off (set at 4.5) then offer just getting up & walking downstairs to get a drink of water does the trick -I guess my Liver starts pumping out the glucose. I wait 15 mins to make sure it’s still up & I don’t need a snack & if low again have a low sugar biscuit. It’s very annoying & exhausting so I hope you get it sorted!

cbooth5 said:

I've only just started doing this and most of the time they are reasonable, for example I've had 6.9, 7.9mmol/L which is really fustrating at the time the alarm goes off below 5.0 (it may read something like 4.3 or 4.5 when it actually recognises the level). Let me know if you have any advice, I would set my libre alarm lower but if I set it to 4.5 I find I wake up with a crashing headache and genuine hypoglycaemic symptoms which ruins the whole next day for me headache wise - because by the time I'll have registered maybe I am bordering on ~4.0 (ish) territory.

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Unfortunately the only solution here is to use something other than the libre app, which can apply fingerprick calibrations to correct the values that the libre is producing. Apparently some people get decent readings and can use the non-corrected libre app, I don't, I almost always have an offset, I therefore use the combination of Juggluco + XDrip+. There are other options, especially if you use an iPhone rather than an Android phone like me. Lots of threads about how to set things up if you decide to look at this.

However, stopping the overnight drop, even if it's not always actually to hypo level, would also remove the alarm issue. The question I'd try to answer is whether the early morning hypos are caused by your pancreas reacting to what you've eaten, or by the insulin you're injecting (i.e. too much).

How many carbs do you eat for supper and at what time? Can you post a graph showing your typical BG over this period through till you go low early morning?

I would certainly ask for a pen that can deliver 0.5U, I use one and it's very useful.

This won't last forever, eventually your pancreas will stop "helping" you, though from what I've read (as I don't remember it was so long ago), it can take quite a few months.