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Type 1 diabetic week 3 with zero insulin injections

A

Alexx

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After years of experimenting with my diet and glucose levels I am now on week 3 and have not taken an insulin injection since January 9th.

My daily rituals.

7:00AM Egg white omelet with peppers and tomato and a 4 oz cut of lean steak.

8:00am 2 mile jog followed with a half cup of milk

9:00am work

12:00pm Salad for lunch, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, cucumbers, and light 0 carb dressing, with a small piece of grilled chicken.

2:30 4oz cut of grilled chicken breast

6:00pm 100 sit-ups, weight lifting, and 30 minutes on the exercise bike.

7:00pm 7oz lean rib eye Steak, Garden salad, diced marinated red pepers with a couple ounces of egg white cooked with no added butter or oil.

8:00 Celery and Carrots

9:30 Bedtime

My glucose levels have not exceeded 135 in 3 weeks. I have only had 4 low blood sugar incidents in which I was never below 65, and I remedied this with 6 ounces of orange juice and a few ounces of 1% milk to maintain.

Loving where this is going so far. I kept reading about how carbohydrates would require more insulin but couldn't find much information on how protein effects insulin needs. Through my own experimentation I discovered that with a diet consisting of basically 0 carbs I required basically 0 insulin. I have not had an insulin injection in 3 weeks and have not taken my slow acting lantus in 2 and 1/2 weeks. I have not had a low glucose reading since I quit taking lantus. My insulin supplies are piling up and I am testing my blood sugar barely 2-3 times a day now. This is the closest I have felt to "normal" in 10 years.

Just thought I would share this with you all. I will update whenever I can.

I should add that my diet has been the exact same for these 3 weeks. It gets bland especially after 2 weeks but I hope to add a broader selection to this diet so I can have some variety along the way.
 
Your profile says you were diagnosed one year ago so I assume you are experiencing the honeymoon period which once it ends you will need to inject to cover fats and proteins if thats all you are eating, you will also need to take various vitamins which will be lacking in your diet.

If I were you I would seek the help of your diabetes team, as if you are T1 you are playing with fire
IMHO.
 
yep, I agree with Sid. Either you're honeymooning, or possibly you've been misdiagnosed and you are actually Type 2 or similar. If you are Type 1, you can't make any insulin at all; and even if you never ate carbs your liver would still be tipping a bit of sugar into the bloodstream and you'd need your background insulin to handle it.
It sounds like you are careful to keep checking your blood though so congratulations. It might be worth asking your doc for blood tests to confirm your type. If you are not a Type 1 then you may be able to keep up your regime and stay injection free for a long time.
 
I'm sorry but my answer is going to be explicit since your post may influence other people.
If you are T1 this is an extremely dangerous and foolhardy experiment.

if you are T1 and you are still in your honeymoon then you may still have some insulin production of your own and indeed many people who are slightly older when diagnosed continue to retain a little. You might want to know that there is some evidence that using small amounts of insulin during this period may help preserve some of these cells.
Insulin has other purposes than 'reducing blood glucose' see physiological effects; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin
No insulin means these things don't take place so your body can't function properly.

Your diet (not 0 carb since it does contain a few from veg) appears quite similar to that used by Frederick Allen before the discovery of insulin.
http://centennial.rucares.org/index.php ... y_Diabetes

This sort of diet may keep you alive .....for a while but you will quickly become very thin. (search children before insulin for images and you will see some pictures of just how emaciated these children became). The life expectancy on Allen's diet , even for adults, numbered only a few years, It was most usually diabetic ketoacidosis but occasionally kidney failure that was the cause of death.

With no insulin fat will be broken down uncontrollably ( many people suffer from this before diagnosis) When body fat is broken down, ketones are created which if present in more than small amounts are extremely toxic. If you have a little insulin of your own , it may be sufficient to act to stop these ketones from rising at the moment, but as soon as you have any infection, illness, injury (even slight) or even suffer from stress, your body will require more insulin and you can quickly develop larger ketones. This can happen in a matter of hours.
Indeed I think that you should check for ketones now since these could already be higher than is good for you. (especially after exercise) A search on these forums will find at least one person who has had DKA with normal glucose levels.

Talk to your doctor, it may be that you are not T1, you could have MODY or T2 but if you are indeed a T1 and especially if you are out of the honeymoon period you are playing with fire.
 
Good points.
phoenix said:
Your diet (not 0 carb since it does contain a few from veg) appears quite similar to that used by Frederick Allen before the discovery of insulin.
http://centennial.rucares.org/index.php ... y_Diabetes

This sort of diet may keep you alive .....for a while but you will quickly become very thin.
Click to expand...
also don't forget that in those days they didn't distinguish between T1 and T2 - I suspect that most of those who stayed alive for a while were not T1s, even then.
 
Phoenix, is 100% correct. If you are type 1 then you are putting yourself at serious risk of death. on days I do a lot of exercise I may not take any rapid insulin but you must always ensure you have an injected background insulin to allow you're body to function. If you can't because you hypo from the exercise then you need to eat carbs!
 
Well, isn't that exactly what Dr Bernstein (my favourite author ever) claims? Low-carb (30g/day) diet will allow the pancreas to recover and thus potentially allow (some) T1s to be insulin-free until they have another "autoimmune incident" [sic]?
 
Show me a medical journal and a range of test subjects where that's even remotely been demonstrated to work outside of an initial honeymoon period and I'll listen!

You can extend pancreas function certainly but at some point it will go **** up.. at that point if you are not injecting insulin and you are doing exercise then you are going to get DKA pretty quickly... Personally I wouldn't want to run that risk.. This is particularly risky if you aren't injecting insulin because insulin also regulates the release of glucose from your liver... so if you have no insulin then your liver just dumps glucose as it has no regulation.. so in the case where this failure occurs and you have not been injecting then DKA can become life threatening in hours.... personally I don;t think its worth the risk...
 
Hello Alexx.
This is a bit of an uh uh uh post...
:oops:
Couldnt agree more with sid, snodger, pheonix, pneu above.
IF you are type1 [profile states this] your body NEEDS insulin even if its just the backgrounding insulin to keep you covered.
Generally we wouldnt advise or suggest to any type1 to stop/not take their insulin at all.
Its far TOO risky to do so.
I would and am suggesting you talk this over with your GP/HCP first to be on the safe side before doing it as an experiment ...
As others quite rightly say you would be playing with fire!
Please post updates on this AFTER you have spoken with your GP/HCP .
Anna.
 
Hey guys!

If Alex really is Type 1, it's maybe the LADA form of it. I agree with everything you've all said if he is full Type 1, but with LADA I was producing quite a lot of basal insulin for over a year and with a very low-carb diet, could get away without the basal and with tiny doses of bolus to prevent serious spikes or with taking intermediate basal and no bolus. I'm currently recovering from a cold and am finding that my basal doesn't seem to be very strong now. I'm hoping that it might return in time, but I have a horrible feeling that my condition has progressed to the point where I need to switch to a longer acting insulin to supplement any basal I'm still producing. If Alex is still producing basal as I was, a very low-carb diet could easily mean you don't need insulin for quite a while. It will progress in time and he'll have to go back on it eventually. In the meantime, as long as he's testing frequently, he'll probably be OK. Not that I'm recommending this experiment, just pointing out that he's probably not full Type 1!

Oh, and Bernstein talks of reducing insulin to very small doses for Type 1s On a very low-carb diet - he doesn't advocate stopping it altogether.

Smidge
 
hi i know this is a old post but had to reply.

I was diagnosed march 2011 type 2 diabetes nothing seemed to work, i was put on metformin and gliclazide and cut out all sugar, every 2 weeks my tablets was put up till after 3 months i was on the highest dose and introduced a 3rd tablet sitagliptin, while they arranged for me to go in and go onto insulin, which still didn't help control it to well.

After a year from being diagnosed i went DKA and didn't realize it for two days and was very ill to the point i was being sick every hour and all the other symptoms that came with it, very scary experience i must say, they realized i was a slow burning type 1, so it just took a little longer for all the symptoms to come out properly.

But getting to the point! i would love to think there is a cure through what i eat like you, i know a load of foods i can eat with out having to have my short acting insulin, but i couldn't cope with out any insulin at all, i have to admit i found the change very hard to cope with and had miss my insulin at times thinking if i eat no carbs etc.. at all i could beat it, but the only effect it had was a quick trip to the hospital, Ive had to come to terms with the FACTS!!! I'm type 1 and have to inject daily for the rest of my Life :( there is no short cuts unless they produce a miracle cure, which in my books couldn't come sooner :thumbup:

I do agree with the other though, if your able to control with diet then a second opinion at the doctors to double check your type could be a good move.
 
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