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URGENT! Sugars dropping with no insulin!!!

C

conormurphy8991

Member
Messages
10
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi all. I am 25years old and have been diagnosed with T1 for 13months now. I went through a long honey moon phase needing no insulin, but now I take 12units of lantus per day and 2-3units of novorapid per meal usually.

I use a dexcom g7 and Freestyle meters.

I travelled to Zimbabwe to volunteer on a farm/safari on Monday (26/06/23).

Yesterday (27/06/23), I started doing very moderate work. I only took 12units of lantus first thing in the morning and couldn't keep my sugars up all day. I was eating and drinking everything throughout the day! I had loads of bread, rice, glucose shots, miwadi, biscuits, scones, chocolate cake, lemon curd, etc etc. However, my sugar never went above 9mmol but always after this it would drop off sharply. I finger pricked as well so it's not just my dexcom. I couldn't think of anything I might have done to have caused this.

I ate lots before bed because I was worried about quick drops and I set an alarm every hour. My sugars went high and stayed high around 13mmol for the entire night. However they started dropping as soon as I woke up this morning...

This morning (28/06/23) I took no lantus or novorapid. I hoped I would be fine today and there would be no lantus or anything left in my system. I was expecting to go high and I would go back to normal today. However, it's the same again today. I have eaten toast, biscuits, chocolate, straight miwadi and my sugars raced up to 10.0mmol but started dropping quickly soon afterwards. My ketones are still 0.0mmol. I have no idea what could be causing these sharp sugar drops. They can drop very quickly.

Any advice is appreciated. Please share around if you know anyone that can help because I'm a bit stranded at the moment!!!

Thank you!!!
 
Not a T1 here, but the first thing I'm thinking is the heat, especially since it doesn't occur at night (when it is cooler, presumably). It can make you more sensitive to insulin, so you might need to adjust your dosage down a little. Again, I am just a T2 and I'm not on insulin, but that's my first thought.
 
Thanks for getting back to me Jo!

Don't think it's the heat! It's winter here so is only around 25°C and days are short. I played a weekend rugby tornament in Belgium a few weeks ago where it 30° and I was fine.

I had such little insulin in my system that the amount I was eating my sugars have been through the roof! I have no idea why they're dropping.

They are actually starting to level off a little now so hopefully they become more manageable in next few hours!

Thanks for your suggestions!
 
It sounds to me as if your honeymoon is not over.
My understanding is that the honeymoon period is the time when our body is able to produce "some" insulin. The beta cells will slowly die off. It is usual to start taking insulin whilst some of them are still alive. It sounds as if your body was able to keep going alone for a while before you needed to start injecting.
When we give ourselves insulin, this gives the stressed beta cells a bit of a chance to recover and they may temporarily come back to life.

This "stuttering" is frustrating but not that unusual.
 
I have to be careful what I say because we can't diagnose or advise on specific insulin doses but I agree with @In Response that a honeymoon period seems like a possibility.

But are you saying that you are going hypo even with no injected insulin left in your system ?

Any chance you can contact your diabetic team by email for advice?

I'm tagging in @Jaylee who has had some interesting experiences with lantus. (I have too, but my experiences are short term lantus lows so not relevant to your situation.)
 
Hello Colin, unfortunately with the pancreas still doing it's own thing it is literally guess work with insulin, as your doing an active role currently i'd adjust the target range on Dexcom to run higher for hypos, say 5.5-6mmol/l so your alarm is alerting you at this point and to allow a good buffer and time frame to get glucose on board, your doing everything right, but do take time out to just rest to allow for the glucose to take effect and try not to push yourself too hard.
 
Is there any chance it's honeymoon phase as it can last upto 13 years, can you contact your diabetes team. I am still honeymooning 2 years
 
I had this same problem on monday through wednesday last week!! I took off my insulin pump all day and my sugar woudn't stay up, I don't know what the problem is but the fact that we had this happen at the same time is weird..
 
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