Problems with QUICKLY dropping bloodglucose and weight loss

[Pota]

Hello,

I am 25 year old boy from Norway
I got diabetes type 1 4 years ago. Ive always been extremly active and currently one of Norways best sprinters 100/200m.
Was kinda shocking for me to get diabetes, I felt weak during my training but just kept on working hard... At one point, my brother, who is a doctor noticed my extremly thirst, urinating and weight loss. From 92kg to 66kg in matter of weeks, my height is 193cm.

The first two years went flawless, i had BG around 5 - 5.5. Everything was perfect. I ate everything i wanted, I took high doses of insulin (NovoRapid 3-6 for dinner) and (Levemir 20 before bed and 18 at morning).
Ive had a few low hypos. One time i woke up and was completley dizzy, and just colapsed. I was awake but couldent talk, so my brother injected me with Glucagon. I was up and running after 30min, but had a terrible headache.
Another time I sat 24units of fast acting NovoRapid instead of Levemir. It stressed me so much, and after that ive been EXTREMLY anxtious.
My bloodglucose drops extremly quick.
Ive noticed when im eating ALOT of fatty food, combined with alot of carbos, my stomach aint emptying itself fast enough (Cause of the fat in my tummy). So if I eat 500g carbo and 300g chese, and inject me with 3 units of NovoRapid... I drop EXTREMLY quick. I can go from 10 to 3 in matter of 5-10min. I then drink alot of sugar soda, but because of all the fat in my stomach it just take so long time for my BG to rise.

Today im affraid of setting more than 1-2 units of NovoRapid. Tho it should be said that when I eat less fatty food, it seems my bloodglucose rise pretty quickly, so i can set higher insulin dose withouth getting anxtious for BG to drop quickly.
So.... my question is. The last months my weight has dropped significant. From well maybe 86kg to 78kg. Im realy skinny. I belive its due to me injecting less insulin, could this be right?
If i eat for example 300g carbo i usualy sets 2 units, waits two hours and sets 1 units to get bellow 10. Cant this be one of the reasons for me to loose weight? Cause as i said earlier. I injected myself with more insulin before. Ive also reduced my Long-acting insulin (Levemir) to 9 before night and 5 at morning.

So to sum it up
-Im loosing weight, could this be because i inject less insulin, injects less long-acting insuling and use longer time after meal to control my BG?
-Could it be my insulin sensitivity is so extreme cause my weight is dropping?
-Got any good tips on weight increase which dont makes a mess out of my bloodglucose?

-Remember i train 2 hours daily during oktober to April

And btw... Even nuts makes my BG goes bananas. If i eat nuts 3 hours before night it spikes during the night. Seems like fat and nuts etc make BG spike after 5hours +. Pizza and fatty food like that is just NO NO NO!

Sorry for my weak english.

 

[pumppimp]

Re: Problems with QUICKLY dropping bloodglucose and weight l

Hi Pota,
Your English is pretty good, don't worry!
A few suggestions for you. Have you ever attended a carbohydrate counting course there are several in the UK the most common being DAFNE (dose adjustment for normal eating). A course like this can help you calculate for yourself how much insulin to give yourself for what ever you are eating and how much excercise you are doing. This doesn't just mean the carbohydrate it also means the fat, fiber and protein content of meals and snacks.
Next suggestion is have you ever considered the insulin pump? A pump may allow you more freedom in your training regime and help stop your constant hypos. A pump is like a little drip which goes into your body through a little plastic cannula under the skin in the tummy area or thighs or arms or bum. It's attached 24hrs a day and only provides short acting insulin (humalog or novarapid etc) You don't need to inject anything unless it breaks. So with this before you train you can turn down down the basal levels on the pump so that the amount of insulin drops but when you are resting you can have it running at normal levels. You can adjust the amount of insulin you can give yourself hour by hour so that it's tailored to your needs and is not just one or two big set lumps that work for 24hrs that once they are in you can't do anything about. Also with what you eat say for instance you had a fatty meal you could tell the pump to blous a small amount now and then put the rest of the insulin in gradually over set hours decided by you, so that you aren't going low then high latter on. Steve regrave the British olympic rower has one and he used it when he was training for the olympics. He also has a website I think it's called runsweet which is all about athletes and coping with type 1 diabetes.
Loosing weight, you could well be losing weight from not having the correct amount of insulin in your body. It all depends on what your blood sugar readings are? What are you when you wake up in the morning before you eat anything? If your body doesn't have enough insulin it will think that you are starving it(because it can't access the glucose in your blood stream), even though you are eating, so it will then start to break down any fat stores that your body has. Because you are quite slim already and I'm guessing don't have much fat stores, it will then move on to breaking down your muscle (I'm guessing this is the last thing you want). A way to check if this is happening is to test your ketone levels in your blood (you can do this via a ketone meter just like a blood glucose monitor or you can pee on a little stick).
To put weight back on if it is your diabetes that's the problem, get your blood glucose under control first, then try and build back up to your training regime by figuring out how much insulin you need to reduce by on days you'll be training hard and on rest days and on moderate training days. Usually quick acting carbohydrate is required before sports, so this can either be incorporated into your meal (reducing your bolus insulin and running slightly higher until you excercise) or taken on before you start (via sweet drinks, glucose gels etc). Depending on how much and what you are doing you may need a combination of both.
I hope that is a little start to help you out. Runsweet is definitely worth a read.
Laura

 

[Pota]

Re: Problems with QUICKLY dropping bloodglucose and weight l

Hi Pota,
Your English is pretty good, don't worry!
A few suggestions for you. Have you ever attended a carbohydrate counting course there are several in the UK the most common being DAFNE (dose adjustment for normal eating). A course like this can help you calculate for yourself how much insulin to give yourself for what ever you are eating and how much excercise you are doing. This doesn't just mean the carbohydrate it also means the fat, fiber and protein content of meals and snacks.
Next suggestion is have you ever considered the insulin pump? A pump may allow you more freedom in your training regime and help stop your constant hypos. A pump is like a little drip which goes into your body through a little plastic cannula under the skin in the tummy area or thighs or arms or bum. It's attached 24hrs a day and only provides short acting insulin (humalog or novarapid etc) You don't need to inject anything unless it breaks. So with this before you train you can turn down down the basal levels on the pump so that the amount of insulin drops but when you are resting you can have it running at normal levels. You can adjust the amount of insulin you can give yourself hour by hour so that it's tailored to your needs and is not just one or two big set lumps that work for 24hrs that once they are in you can't do anything about. Also with what you eat say for instance you had a fatty meal you could tell the pump to blous a small amount now and then put the rest of the insulin in gradually over set hours decided by you, so that you aren't going low then high latter on. Steve regrave the British olympic rower has one and he used it when he was training for the olympics. He also has a website I think it's called runsweet which is all about athletes and coping with type 1 diabetes.
Loosing weight, you could well be losing weight from not having the correct amount of insulin in your body. It all depends on what your blood sugar readings are? What are you when you wake up in the morning before you eat anything? If your body doesn't have enough insulin it will think that you are starving it(because it can't access the glucose in your blood stream), even though you are eating, so it will then start to break down any fat stores that your body has. Because you are quite slim already and I'm guessing don't have much fat stores, it will then move on to breaking down your muscle (I'm guessing this is the last thing you want). A way to check if this is happening is to test your ketone levels in your blood (you can do this via a ketone meter just like a blood glucose monitor or you can pee on a little stick).
To put weight back on if it is your diabetes that's the problem, get your blood glucose under control first, then try and build back up to your training regime by figuring out how much insulin you need to reduce by on days you'll be training hard and on rest days and on moderate training days. Usually quick acting carbohydrate is required before sports, so this can either be incorporated into your meal (reducing your bolus insulin and running slightly higher until you excercise) or taken on before you start (via sweet drinks, glucose gels etc). Depending on how much and what you are doing you may need a combination of both.
I hope that is a little start to help you out. Runsweet is definitely worth a read.
Laura

Thanks alot for superb answer Laura. And what a great page Runsweet is!