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

What the hell is going on?

matthewwallis

matthewwallis

Member
Messages
22
Location
Coventry
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
So in the last week my blood sugar keeps dropping fast. On Tuesday I had something to eat and had a look at the carbs on the packet. It was 57g but I decided to round down to 50g so had 5U of NovoRapid within TEN minutes my blood sugar had dropped and I needed 3 X 330ml cans of Coke to get it up? I didn't even think it was possible for it to work that quickly? I thought it may have been that my Lantus (taken at night) that was too high but I left it at 36U which is what I've taken for about 2/3 years. On Thursday everything was fine in morning and lunch then at tea time i had food and looked at the packaging and did my insulin. Again it dropped within 30 minutes and needed 2 X 330ml cans of Coke to get it up. This was almost 24 hours since my last Lantus so I'd assume that it was pretty much out of my system so maybe it isn't that my Lantus is too high. Plus that morning it was okay?! Tonight it has done the same thing.

There is no activity involved in any of the day's previous or on the day and the food I have been eating is what I normally eat and not high in fat or anything?

Any one have any ideas as to what is happening or has experience similar?
 
Perhaps your basal needs have changed if your having a week of hypo's, I'd do some basal checks to see if this is the case.

Regards to Tuesday evening, did you test your bg prior to bolusing? I had something similar happen around 12-18 months, bg was fine prior to injecting then within 10-15 mins I was sweating profusely, never had a hypo come on so fast so had a small can of coke to bring my levels back up, it scared me at the time and to this day I'm at a loss to why it happened, like you @matthewwallis I didn't think Novo work that fast.

If this keeps happening then have a word with your DSN, it might also be a good idea to inject after you've eaten rather than before.
 
Any chance you injected into muscle accidentally? That's the only thing I can think of, unless what you were eating was super low GI but even so, I didn't think novorapid could act so quick
 
matthewwallis said:
So in the last week my blood sugar keeps dropping fast. On Tuesday I had something to eat and had a look at the carbs on the packet. It was 57g but I decided to round down to 50g so had 5U of NovoRapid within TEN minutes my blood sugar had dropped and I needed 3 X 330ml cans of Coke to get it up? I didn't even think it was possible for it to work that quickly? I thought it may have been that my Lantus (taken at night) that was too high but I left it at 36U which is what I've taken for about 2/3 years. On Thursday everything was fine in morning and lunch then at tea time i had food and looked at the packaging and did my insulin. Again it dropped within 30 minutes and needed 2 X 330ml cans of Coke to get it up. This was almost 24 hours since my last Lantus so I'd assume that it was pretty much out of my system so maybe it isn't that my Lantus is too high. Plus that morning it was okay?! Tonight it has done the same thing.

There is no activity involved in any of the day's previous or on the day and the food I have been eating is what I normally eat and not high in fat or anything?

Any one have any ideas as to what is happening or has experience similar?
Click to expand...

I do have a similar experience, it was when I was ill ( but didn't know I had Coeliac disease, but some people can have Ceoliac without any symptoms) my BS dropped dramatically in about 10 mins, same as you.
There could be some underlying cause that needs investigating by your GP or it's do your Insulin rates ? Just be very careful and maybe take a couple of units less to see what it does to your BS, but obviously I am not a medic, so keep testing.
Good luck RRB
 
maybe your ratio of carb to insulin needs changing, at the moment it looks like 10(carbs):1(unit), you could try 15:1 and work your way up
 
Thanks for your replies. I always inject after eating anyway, could of Injected into muscle I guess, but it was 3 different sites so I'd assume it was unlikely? I'm gonna have a word with my nurse/doctor it has happened in the past also but not so often in one week
 
Just a thought, could it be the carb info on the food packets? Sometimes the carb content is different from the cooked carb content, sometimes it reads carbs per portion, sometimes per 100g of package food. Just a guess cos obviously I don't know what the food is! :) Sue xxx
 
When you say three different sites do you mean 3 completely different sites (stomach / leg / arm) or three different bits of one body part eg your stomach? I've had a few fast drops like that and have found that splitting my quick acting between my stomach and leg (even had one right after another) helps to stop the quick drop and avoids a lot of the spike I get injecting into my leg alone (injecting into my stomach seems to cause the drop).

It takes a bit of trial and error as to what percentage to put where, I'd start at 3/4 leg and 1/4 stomach and work your way up.

I'm on apidra though so it may be a bit different, might be worth a go though...
 
Back
Top