• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Weather and Type 1 Diabetes

New2T1D

Well-Known Member
Messages
66
Location
Somerset
Type of diabetes
Don't have diabetes
Treatment type
I do not have diabetes
Dislikes
Things that are unfair.
Please can I ask those experienced people: does fluctuating temperature cause varying insulin needs? My son's insulin needs seem to change a lot. When the hot spell struck, his Lantus needs went down by 25% suddenly (to avoid hypo after hypo) and then slowly crept back up again. Humalog level was stable for months, but needs have also now increased by close to 20%, for all times of the day. He is less active at the moment - Xbox has a lot to answer for. Maybe this is nothing to do with weather, and all to do with activity levels, but I thought I'd ask. Maybe the honeymoon is ending. He undoubtedly has some of his own insulin production still, shown by C-peptide production in blood tests and relatively low insulin needs. Does that happen gradually, or overnight? Or does that vary too? Lots of questions.....Thank you.
 
There's a current thread in Type 1 about the effect of heat @New2T1D I can move your thread to Type 1 for you if you like.

I've had Type 1 for more than 20 years but, as I remember, my honeymoon ended gradually. I first noticed that I was higher after meals. Then I noticed my BS seemed generally higher over all. I couldn't put a figure on how long this all took but it was some months.
 
Hi, thank you for your help and I'd really like you to move the thread so more people might see it in the right place, please. Tonight I've watched a weird thing: return to pre-food good level after 4 hours then a sudden rise of 2 mmol half an hour later after evening Lantus and another 2 mmol half an hour later, but this time with the arrow level (Libre), so hopefully might stop going up. NO food eaten to explain this. Could Xbox be causing a stress response, to this extent?
 
Hell @New2T1D

I tend to find that I need more insulin in the winter months than I do in the summer months. I don't think this has so much to do with the weather, but more likely due to my activity levels increasing in the warmer days/nights.

Xbox could certainly cause a BG rise, just like any stress response (positive or negative). It could theoretically be no different to having an extremely busy day at work, exercising or feeling panicked. All of those factors can raise BG, so I'd imagine that a pretty engrossing/intense Xbox match could do the same.

Regarding the sound BG 4 hours post prandial and then the rise. That would probably be a slight lack of basal, or a more likely - the basal not lasting the full 24 hours. On my basal (Levemir) I split the dose into two injections, 12 hours apart, because one daily injection was causing me an evening BG rise. You may want to check with your son's DSN before contemplating splitting the dose though, as some people are for and against this approach for some reason...

Thanks for the tag @azure, hopefully this has helped some @New2T1D.
 
Last edited:
Thank you so much. That might explain why evenings are much higher than any other time of day too!
 

One word, "adrenaline!" It appears to be my bug bear! Do a swim fit session twice a week, do not need to eat extra but inject afterwards to accommodate a constant rise. An ordinary swim has the opposite affect. Also rise considerably between 4am and 6am as the adrenaline kicks in to wake me. Can rise from 6-12 in that short amount of time! Irritating. X boxing will create adrenaline I am sure.
 
Thanks, useful to know. Very kind of you to reply to me. I must admit, when I looked at his graph on the day of his first GCSE exam, as he sat in the room waiting for the paper to be handed out, the line went straight up and up and up - and then stayed like that all afternoon until he got home and we could sort it out. I put that down to stress/ adrenaline. Just shows how much stress our kids are under at times like this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…