Recently diagnosed. Looking for advice

@xxNRJxx It depends what alcohol you'll be consuming. If it's beer/lager, you might find the carbs in it put your blood sugar up.

I drink wine and that doesn't put me up. I eat small amounts of carbs with it eg crisps, if I'm drinking on an empty stomach rather than with a meal.

Alcohol can cause delayed hypos, so I always test extra afterwards. If it's your first time drinking with diabetes, I'd limit it to one or two drinks and see how you go.

Welcome to the club.
I love your questions - great to see you are not letting diabetes get in the way of your usual life.

Alcohol is a complex one - many alcoholic drinks such as beer contain a lot of carbs. However, alcohol has a delayed reaction which results in a lower BG overnight.
My way of dealing with this depends on how much I drink. If I have a couple of drinks (for me, this is usually half pints), I will bolus insulin at the time for the carbs. However, if I have enough to drink that I expect to be able to know the next morning that I have been drinking, I will stop bolusing. For me this is any more than a pint and a half but may be more for other people.
In addition, I always make sure I check my BG before I go to bed and top up on carbs if necessary.
I know some people will have a snack before bed.

Regarding pre-bedtime snacks, if you feel you need something, the key is to have something that will be absorbed slowly into your bloodstream and not cause a short term spike. This could be something like a small bowl of porridge or a bar of chocolate (the fat will slow down the carb absorption). However, if you did not have a pre-bedtime snack before you had diabetes, it may be better to reduce your basal insulin to avoid the hypo. Otherwise, you risk putting on weight.

xxNRJxx said:

Brilliant. Thanks for the advice. I was only going to have a couple of drinks so not a blow out. I only tend to drink vodka & Diet Coke.. or vodka & soda..

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If you're drinking spirits with sugar free mixers; then it's best to test regularly and to nibble on snacks like crisps as @azure has suggested.

If you ever do have a good amount to drink, eating something like pizza or chips and cheese (around 30-40g carbs with no bolus insulin) is a good way to ensure you don't hypo bad overnight. BG can plummet when you've been drinking and it's often easy not to recognise the symptoms in a very deep sleep or with a substantial head on. I often eat some fatty carbs before bed after drinking spirits, beer not so much because I'm normally high-ish when I go to bed anyhow. Mixing insulin and alcohol can be a recipe for disaster so try to keep a half sensible head on

xxNRJxx said:

Brilliant. Thanks for the advice. I was only going to have a couple of drinks so not a blow out. I only tend to drink vodka & Diet Coke.. or vodka & soda..

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Ok - I'd eat some carbs with spirits pretty much as I described above.

I'd probably also set an alarm for a nighttime test just so you can see that everything's ok.

xxNRJxx said:

Hey, I've recently been Diagnosed with T1 diabetes. Currently on 2 different insulins for now.
I'm looking for some advice / tips ... when people go out and consume alcohol what's the best thing to do... e.g eat more carbs before? Increase insulin? Any snacks to have ideally when home to prevent hypo's in my sleep? Just looking for general tips on what other people do. Thanks

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Everyone's advice is great but I would also look out for the next day - sometimes nearly all the next day I have to watch for drops in blood sugar. I once got a nasty hypo exercising mid morning after a few glasses of red the night before. Alcohol can inhibit the natural function of glycogen release by the liver for a good while after. I don't want to panic you of course you can still have a bevvy just knowledge is power and you can make the necessary adjustments

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When drinking be aware that the liver can't dump emergency glucose if it's busy getting rid of alcohol so the risk of bad hypos is higher. Yes, adjust the insulin for the carbs in the drink beer and cider being quite high. If your insulin is balanced you shouldn't need to have any snacks before bed.

xxNRJxx said:

Hey, I've recently been Diagnosed with T1 diabetes. Currently on 2 different insulins for now.
I'm looking for some advice / tips ... when people go out and consume alcohol what's the best thing to do... e.g eat more carbs before? Increase insulin? Any snacks to have ideally when home to prevent hypo's in my sleep? Just looking for general tips on what other people do. Thanks

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When I was at uni I would always have a slice of toast before bed, after drinking. Now that I have changed what I drink (less beer, more red wine and spirits) I only have this snack if I see that my blood sugar is going down. I used to always think about what alcohol would still Be in my system as well, it takes approx an hour for your body to process a drink (this may be incorrect but what I used) so I always try and make sure that I haven't had a drink on the last hour before bed as well. Hope some of that is useful!

If beer is your chosen poison then perhaps stick to Holsten Pils or Marstons Low C. Both of these have no sugar. Your blood sugars should not increase with these products. Having said that mine don't increase with regular beer either. The only beer I have ever found that sent my blood sugars into orbit was Stella Artois. This is ok though as it tastes vile in any case and I don't miss drinking it. Alcohol will of course dehydrate you and there is some risk of a sneaky hypo biting you on the rear end. With this in mind if you intend drinking for an extended session then glucose test more frequently and I have a fresh orange juice after every 5th or 6th drink. The thing to be ultimately careful of is that if you have a hypo and people smell alcohol on your breath they will probably think that you are just lagged and ignore it. With this in mind if drinking with friends then give them the SP about what to do should your blood sugars head west while you are heading east. I frequently go out and get probably a lot more drunk than I should. The thing is though I am only diabetic and not dead - at least not just yet!!!!!!!!! Enjoy yourself

I generally either drink light beer (Coors Light, Miller Light) or red wine (rarely chardonnay), and with those I take no insulin because there's virtually no carbs in them. Craft beers are about like a slice of bread each. A pint of Guinness is about 2 units. Fortunately few places where I live have it on tap!

I've had a few really bad experiences when drinking!
Always, always eat before drinking. I was once hospitalised for passing out drunk/hypoing and vomiting ect. This was a mix of (stupidly) drinking straight spirits plus barely eating- basically, you can't just be stupid when drinking if you have diabetes. Alcohol can 100% disguise a hypo and/or cause one to occur. I still find that if I am doing shots on a night out I almost always hypo while I'm out or just struggle to tolerate alcohol as well as I could before. Essentially, be wary when it comes to getting drunk drunk, if ya know what I mean.

When it comes to beer//cider/pre-mixed drinks always go for the least sugary option but if there isn't one just cover the drink with the insulin required. Be prepared to hypo after drinking though- either during the night or the day after.

Avoid cider! I was persuaded to neck down two pints of pear cider in short order at Glastonbury a few years ago (instead of lunch, LOL.) 30 minutes after drinking the cider my BG was 13; one hour later it was 1.9

Red wine I can drink like a thirsty Oliver Reed with few ill effects.

I have a chippy before I go out. Lots of carbs, not great but if you're drinking it prevents the sudden drop that sugar from the alcohol will give you. Avoid cider where you can, as it has a ton of sugar! Wine and beer aren't great either, so be wary. Best thing are mixers. Depending on BS levels alternate between diet and non diet coke, lemonade whatever. Sugar creates a spike if you've had no carbs, after that you plummet. Doesn't keep you level but it's the advice I've been given.

If you're going to use two insulins, there's lots of combos. I'm on Tresiba (long acting background insulin once per day) and Novorapid (fast acting with every meal or as correction). Tresiba is more flexible than Lantus, in that it is slightly longer lasting so you don't need to inject at the exact same time every day. I generally do mine at 7ish, although I'm ok doing it 2 hours earlier or later depending on what I'm up to.

The novorapid takes about 30 minutes to get into your system so make sure you bear this in mind when testing, eating and injecting. Apparently Fiask gets into your system faster, I'm debating going onto it.

DO NOT CORRECT FOR ALCOHOL INTAKE! Unless you're having carbs too, such as grabbing a pizza on the way home from a few drinks with friends. Insulin lasts longer than the sugar from alcohol, so you will have a hypo. Trust me. They not nice.

Hope this helps! Good luck

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