Too many hypos that are difficult to shift

[CoolUserName]

Hello all, I've not posted on here for a while but I would really appreciate some advice. My son was diagnosed about 18 months ago at 18yrs. His control is very good >90% in range but recently he has been having a really difficult time going low and then getting his BS up again multiple times a day.

He isn't doing anything he doesn't usually do and it's not particularly hot here either.

He has reduced his basal to 1.5 units and is regularly giving 20% less bolus but some days he is exhausted from the lows and having to eat constantly. He is getting very fed up. When he goes low he has to eat handfuls of food to raise his BS and drink lots of orange juice and even then it only slowly creeps up to about 5-6mmols.

This started a few days ago but there have been similar times in the past, although not quite as bad. Then he continues on a lower dose until it happens again. It's like constant steps down in insulin dosage.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

 

[EllieM]

Any advice would be gratefully received.

If he isn't yet confident to reduce his insulin down as far as it needs to go then I would suggest he contacts his team urgently. Does he have a flash reader or cgm with alarms? Too many hypos can reduce your hypo awareness which is yet another reason to avoid them.

Contact that team. I'm pretty sure they won't like the hypos either.

 

[CoolUserName]

If he isn't yet confident to reduce his insulin down as far as it needs to go then I would suggest he contacts his team urgently. Does he have a flash reader or cgm with alarms? Too many hypos can reduce your hypo awareness which is yet another reason to avoid them.

Contact that team. I'm pretty sure they won't like the hypos either.

Hi and thanks for your reply.
Yes he does have a CGM and fortunately isn't unaware of hypos but I realise he could become unaware if this continues.

He is confident to reduce his insulin and has been reducing it by 20% (and his basal has reduced from about 14 at diagnosis to 1.5 now over 18 months) but is still going very low and feeling awful. He is now going to reduce it by 30% in an attempt to keep his BS in range.

I assume for whatever reason his pancreas has decided to work for a bit which is good, but discombobulating !

I was hoping that someone maybe had had a similar experience.......?

 

[Finnlee]

I was diagnosed just over a year ago and recently, my pancreas seems to have started working a bit more so I've had to adjust my insulin to avoid constant lows.

I've noticed I'm really sensitive to basal - a 10% reduction (which would be just one unit for me) can mean the difference between going low at night and holding steady.

 

[CoolUserName]

I was diagnosed just over a year ago and recently, my pancreas seems to have started working a bit more so I've had to adjust my insulin to avoid constant lows.

I've noticed I'm really sensitive to basal - a 10% reduction (which would be just one unit for me) can mean the difference between going low at night and holding steady.

Thank you, its good to hear he isn't yhe only one with this issue. He is now routinely giving 20-30% less insulin for each bolus and appears to be more stable.