Overnight Fears

[Lynz84]

Hi All

Wondering if you can offer any advice. I have developed a fear of overnight hypos. I am up 2-3 times a night checking my sugars and am exhausted!! I wont go to sleep unless my sugars are in the 7s or 8s as im afraid they'll really drop and I wont wake up!
I have reduced my basal recently which has stabled me overnight but my weird fear is plagueing me. Can anyone offer any advice or share similar experience?

 

[azure]

I think that's not uncommon @Lynz84 When I was on MDI, I was often bervous about going to sleep due to erratic absorption of basal insulin and some nasty hypos.

Have you ever had a nighttime hypo? If so, you could just set the one alarm around the time you had it.

If your fear is really crippling, then maybe a chat with your DSN might help.

 

[GrantGam]

Overnight hypos are a concern for all insulin dependent diabetics. Regardless of how good your control is, there is always an element of risk wrt to BG levels dropping during sleep.

Reducing your basal is a sensible approach to combat this and you should notice improvements soon. If not, reductions of 10% at a time is the recommended course of action.

Once you have your overnight BG stable then your worries should subside. It should always be in the back of your mind, but not cause you to panic or become distressed.

If you haven't already read through this then it may be of help to you:

https://mysugr.com/basal-rate-testing/

Stick at it and you'll soon chill out

Grant

 

[Lynz84]

Thank you both very much! Very useful

 

[Kevlar87]

I posted a msg on these forums years ago (under an old name too) regarding nighttime hypos. I too get a little worried, especially as my nighttime/morning hypos end up with me sleepwalking and being completely unaware of anything that's happening.

As I inject levemir pretty much an hour before I go to bed, I've recently reduced my dose by around 4 units and I'm ok, only slightly higher than usual in the morning (around 7-8 mmol/l) but this has worked so well! It's strange though because as soon as I stop doing weights at the gym and exercising my levemir requirements shoot up over the course of around a week!

 

[tim2000s]

I posted a msg on these forums years ago (under an old name too) regarding nighttime hypos. I too get a little worried, especially as my nighttime/morning hypos end up with me sleepwalking and being completely unaware of anything that's happening.

As I inject levemir pretty much an hour before I go to bed, I've recently reduced my dose by around 4 units and I'm ok, only slightly higher than usual in the morning (around 7-8 mmol/l) but this has worked so well! It's strange though because as soon as I stop doing weights at the gym and exercising my levemir requirements shoot up over the course of around a week!

When on levemir, I noticed a big difference between gym and non-gym needs. Seems to be the way it works!