Swings and bloody roundabouts!

[Seriously_Sax1989]

Hi guys, had my appointment at the hospital last Tuesday and as I've posted before my sugar levels have been consistently high, however on the plus my hba1c had dropped from 95 to 72 end of last year so I was pleased with that!

However my levemir has been increased by 4 units so now I take 28 in morning and 40 at night and my correction ratio is now 1:1.

Since last Tuesday I've been low all week from morning til night and as you can imagine I feel like ****, tired, grumpy etc etc etc... As I can't decide which is the problem, as of tonight I've dropped my evening levemir by 2 units so I'm now taking 38. Going to try this out for a week and see how I get on!

Just needed to get this written down and have a bit of a moan!

Take care xx

 

[noblehead]

Understand your feeling rotten and fed-up, have you tried another basal insulin before (sorry if this has been discussed before) as it might be worth changing to lantus or the new insulin Tresiba.

 

[Seriously_Sax1989]

Been advised not to go with Lantus as I'm very active and its not flexible when it comes to activity or something like that, not heard of the other although I may suggest it at my next appointment!

No hypos within the last 2-3 hours after reducing my levemir at 6pm so I'm hoping I have solved the issue, although time will tell so I'll persevere for a week

 

[robert72]

Tresiba lasts up to 42 hours although you take it once a day. Very flat profile, but not sure it would be as adjustable as Levemir when you're active.

 

[Seriously_Sax1989]

Ok so only 3 hypos today so far, think reducing levemir has helped

 

[Fairygodmother]

Hello Seriously Sax, love the handle! Have you been on a Dafne course at all (you may have covered this in a previous post, so apologies if you have). It sounds as though you need to rethink the basal/bolus balance to give yourself more control, you seem to be taking a large amount of basal insulin - but get consultant advice? Feeling really sympathetic, lots of hypos take so much time out of life! Good luck getting it sorted.

 

[Spiker]

Sure it's not your carb ratio causing the hypos? Do you hypo before breakfast, or only after meals?

 

[pinewood]

I'm very active (run 3-5 times a week and do HIIT and weights) and have not had any problems with Lantus.

 

[tim2000s]

Have you undertaken a basal test at all @Seriously_Sax1989 ? This advice is for pumps, but the principle is the same. You fast over a meal period and check whether your basal insulin is inducing a bg drop. If this is more than 1.7mmol/l over the period of the test, your basal insulin level is too high.

Having done the basal testing and confirmed that my basal level is okay, I have found that lower blood sugars tend to occur from over dosing for carbs, where either I haven't taken the food mix properly into account, or I've simply used too much insulin.

I recently moved from Lantus to Levemir for other reasons - my experience of doing so is here: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/thr...pefully-providing-some-lessons-learned.70039/

I don't know whether it will provide any help to your situation, but it does sound as though the basal test approach would be useful for you to start from.

 

[Seriously_Sax1989]

Hey so far I've settled for taking 28 units levemir in the morning and now 38 in the evening but as of tomorrow (Tuesday) I'll be increasing either back to 40 units or may meet in the middle and try 39. I've also changed my correction dose ratio from 1:1 to 1:1/2, all seems to be improving, maybe the odd hypo but that's down to days where I'm more active at work. I test all my new changes out for a week, just so I include weekends as these are often when any routine I may have falls apart. Am confident that I will be successful even tho it's taking a long time!