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Takeaway or basal?

Natalie1974

Well-Known Member
Messages
871
Location
Kent
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
So last night we had a takeaway curry for tea...not a normal occurrence...but a bit of a treat as we usually cook everything from scratch. However...2 hours after blood sugar was 5.4...feeling quite smug I gave myself a big pat on the back thinking I'd correctly guesstimated my bolus dose. Then...at around 1am I woke up feeling really dry...checked again and I was 12.3...took a correction dose and went back to sleep...woke up again at 4am again feeling really dry...10.9...took another correction dose and went back to sleep again. Finally my morning alarm went off and was 9.9...admitedly my libre shows that I did drop down to around 6 at around 5am but then went back up again. Today...I'm suffering again...I've taken several correction doses but it doesn't seem to matter how much I take...it's just having no effect. Idea's please...do you think this is a prolonged effect from last nights curry...maybe a problem with my basal insulin...or perhaps I'm not being as aggressive as I could be with my bolus injections???
 
So what did you have? spill the beans and tell us you went the whole hog................
 
Hey @Natalie1974

Curries can be a bit of a minefield due to the amount of fat and carbs in them, some people find taking a split bolus can help with the delayed ingestion of a curry due to the fat content, so taking say two thirds on eating the curry and then a third 2 hours later. I find the same rule applies to both curries and pizzas because of this, it's a bit of trial and error i'm afraid
 
I'm still following a fairly low carb diet for the majority of the time...I didn't have anything too dreadful...we had a tandoori mixed grill with salad...with a tiny drizzle of the green stuff as I call it but sure someone somewhere know's the real name for it...and dipped into my partners lamb jalfrezi...although even that was a very tiny amount...and that was it. I'm getting fairly good at guesstimating for protein and fat now but it's the fact that it's still effecting me today that is confusing me. I must confess though...usually I would do a split bolus but on this occasion I didn't but mostly because it I was sitting at 5.4 two hours later so figured it might be ok
 
If I eat more than usual and its heavy food (and there is massive amount of fat in all take aways) I suffer till next day. I had low carb meal yesterday evening but larger than usual and followed by some dark chocolate, wine and olives. Despite extended bolus yesterday I woke up 8.7
 

Doesn't appear to be carb heavy @Natalie1974, I know some very low-carbers can have an adverse effect from eating over and above their usual meal allowance which can effect them for days.

Maybe worth changing your pens if matters don't improve.
 
I always find one bad meal equals 3 bad days of random BS. especially if it has a lot of fat. It appears to make me much more insulin resistant. I can generally get it down but it pops back up. If it was more carbs it's a little easier. Your glycogen stores could be full as well and until you empty some of them the bs has no where to go.
It seems easier with homemade meals because I'm not eating nasty fats or grainy carbs as thickeners. I also find the quality of the fat marks almost as much difference as the amount. I had Indian once and tried to be very careful and it was still disasterous.

It will come down but it'll take a bit
 
Thanks for all your replies. I'm guessing then that it was the amount of fat in the curry...although I can't imagine that the mixed grill would be all that fatty...so perhaps the small amount of Jalfrezi that I had?? Finally back in range now and floating along quite nicely...which makes me think it was more likely the fat than my basal...although will change the cartridge anyway. Will keep the treats to a minimum from now on and will stick to low carb home cooking...having done it for so long now...it's really no drama and at least you know where you're at...I'd forgotten how it felt to be in those kind of figures for prolonged periods...I'm feeling absolutely shattered
 
Reminds me of my last eating out. Total disaster.
 
For me, if I previously had excessive anything.. I used to increase my basal dose...as well as possibly splitting the bolus.

Reason being: I used to eat average max of 50 carbs a day. If I then had a one off meal of say fish n chips or a curry etc it could be 2-3 times my normal bolus and carbs for a whole day. So, as we know basal and bolus normally have say a 50/50 ratio I would also have to increase my basal so it stayed in sync with my bolus.

I don't know about how internal organs but know most normal humans would have expelled food within 24 hours. So personally, I would give it 24 hours.
My stomach / colon is 5 day average so nothing normal for me.
 
You can't beat the good old curry (prefer korma myself) where I used to just inject a high amount of insulin because I didn't know what I was going to eat, but also I would be really hungry before I eat and furthermore the insulin would make that even more evident. I would usually hypo before each night out or before takeaways, which I can just barely wait the usual 45 minutes to an hour for delivery to dig in. Once done eating which usually ends on an empty plate, have insulin partially to thank for that, I usually wait a good 2 -3 hours after to see how my blood glucose is doing, which I then use as a guide for next nights out/takeaways.
 
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