Why do hypos happen?

Hi @kellie lees
to start with you did nothing wrong !!

as you are newly diagnosed your body could still be producing a bit of its own insulin which could contribute to a low blood sugar.

also ( and in my opinion the most crucial )
you have been given instruction from your care team on what doses of insulin to take with your food along with a dose of background insulin each day.

Think of it as a learning exercise on your own body and over time you will begin to see patterns in what happens when you take xx amount of insulin , that is why keeping records is really important , because then your Diabetic nurse can help you to make adjustments to your regime.
And as you become more experienced you will get more confidence in making adjustments yourself ( with the help of an education course DAFNE ) -- ask your nurse when you can go on this course.

It can only happen in real time so it is important to try and not be too impatient and want it all to happen immediately-- I always say that living with D is like a marathon race.

all the best !!!

kellie lees said:

Thank you. Although the DN said that really I should try to avoid hypos in these first few months when coming to terms with everything!!

So I was on a set fast acting of 8 units because I had a go at the 1:10 ratio which I know may not be right for me and so far my breakfast I only took 6 units and actually took 1 unit to self correct as I was at 8? So 6 units of insulin instead of 8? Is this what's caused me to hypo?

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what exactly did your breakfast consist of ? was it a work day ? do you have a stressful job ? do you exercise on the way to work ( walk or cycle for example ). lots of factors to look at to even begin wondering what caused the hypo

( in simple terms -- too much insulin , or not enough carbs) but this does not help solve the issue

kellie lees said:

Thank you. Although the DN said that really I should try to avoid hypos in these first few months when coming to terms with everything!!

So I was on a set fast acting of 8 units because I had a go at the 1:10 ratio which I know may not be right for me and so far my breakfast I only took 6 units and actually took 1 unit to self correct as I was at 8? So 6 units of insulin instead of 8? Is this what's caused me to hypo?

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It's pretty much impossible to avoid hypos at some time or other. The important thing is to watch out for your blood sugar dropping and treat it. A hypo doesn't necessarily mean you made a mistake.

It can help to eat exactly the same breakfast - ie a weighed amount of the same thing - a few days in a row so you can find what dose works for you usually.

Edited to add, but even then, your blood sugar may vary. That's the important thing to understand about Type 1 - there is no magic formula. We're not machines and many things can affect our blood sugar. That was the hardest thing for me to get my head round when I was diagnosed.

Hi @kellie lees . Has @himtoo so rightly pointed out, you haven't done anything wrong.
You may never quite figure out what caused today's hypo. It could be so many reasons, insulin amounts and timing, food type and absorption rate, honeymoon period, exercise and maybe even stress.
The best thing to do is list down everything that happened this morning that way if it happens again in a few days time or even this time next weekend you may be able to see a trend.
Remember though it's no use worrying about what's happened just try to avoid it happening again.
Even hardened veterans like a lot of us are can't explain the reason for hypos sometimes.
Good luck and don't let your hypo ruin the rest of your day.

kellie lees said:

Thank you. Although the DN said that really I should try to avoid hypos in these first few months when coming to terms with everything!!

So I was on a set fast acting of 8 units because I had a go at the 1:10 ratio which I know may not be right for me and so far my breakfast I only took 6 units and actually took 1 unit to self correct as I was at 8? So 6 units of insulin instead of 8? Is this what's caused me to hypo?

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Hypos happen because of too much insulin.

Do you know how many carbs were in your breakfast? If you are trying to adjust yous dose of fast acting based on what you are earring using a 1:10 ratio the first step is knowing how many grams of carbs you are taking in. That should help you work out if 1:10 is the right ratio for you.

Everyone is alway trying to avoid hypos. That doesn't mean no one has hypos. It's easy to miscalculate or just find you are more insulin sensitive.

kellie lees said:

30g of carbs roughly in the breakfast.

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that means you gave yourself a dose of insulin based on 1unit per 5 carbs and is probably a bit too much
as has been said

-- eat the same breakfast tomorrow and try a smaller dose--- but do remember to talk to your Diabetic nurse in these early months to feed back to her what you are doing.

kellie lees said:

Thank you. Although the DN said that really I should try to avoid hypos in these first few months when coming to terms with everything!!

So I was on a set fast acting of 8 units because I had a go at the 1:10 ratio which I know may not be right for me and so far my breakfast I only took 6 units and actually took 1 unit to self correct as I was at 8? So 6 units of insulin instead of 8? Is this what's caused me to hypo?

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Just re-reading this, there's nothing wrong with fixed doses as long as you eat sufficient carbs. If you want to take 8 units for breakfast every day, you're going to have to eat enough carbs for those 8 units (or whatever set dose you're given).

Set doses generally mean set (ie the same) amounts of carbs.

If you're giving correction doses, then I presume you've been given a correction ratio? Have you also been given meal time ratios?

@kellie lees . Well as you may realise from the replies you've had, diabetes ain't easy.
Just to throw something else into the mix. Your blood sugar was 8.5, know I'm thinking you are maybe using finger pricking and test strips of some description, herein can lie a little problem, meters are not 100% accurate. It's possible your sugars could have been nearer to 7 just by default tolerance on your meter. Do 3 separate BS tests altogether on 3 different fingers and you may be quite surprised at the results.
In time things will make more sense and become easier.

kellie lees said:

We haven't been given a correction ratio or meal time ratio yet have I done this wrong?

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Well you took 1 unit to bring you down from 8. Do you have any clue how much 1 unit of insulin will reduce your blood sugar by, if you've only been diabetic 2 weeks I'm imagining not. 1 unit could bring you down 3 mmol which would be great, or it could bring you down 5 which would be a little too much and explain the hypo. If youre newly diagnosed and trying to avoid hypos 8 might be considered acceptable and not require a correction, at least until you work out what your correction dose is and perhaps get a half unit pen.

You might want to have a look at getting the think like a pancreas book. And a look at the Bertie online course for a guide to carb counting.

If you don't know what your I:C ratio is and you don't know what your correction factor is then playing about with both at the same time does make it difficult to work out which one might be the culprit. There's loads to balance and loads to learn, well done on throwing yourself in. Stop thinking your doing anything wrong, take a breath and just realise it will take while to figure out what works for you, you can only learn from when it goes wrong and I'm sure every diabetic does everyday.

kellie lees said:

No all I was told when diagnosed two weeks ago was to take 8 units with food and then 12 units of long lasting insulin every night.

The DN and dietician said I'd move onto carb counting and adjusting my insulin dependent on exercise and what I'm eating.

So I have the dietician this week so I thought I'd try reducing my insulin to match my carb intake?

We haven't been given a correction ratio or meal time ratio yet have I done this wrong?

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Ok, no problem. You haven't done anything wrong - you've done what you were told to do

Once you learn carb counting, Type 1 is much easier to control and understand. It used to be taught at diagnosis, and that does make things easier. Push to be given some help as soon as possible. You don't need to wait for a course. Simple carb counting isn't hard and can be picked up very quickly.

But for now - the simple explanation is that taking 8 units with food will only give you good sugars if you get the amount of carbs right. Eg for breakfast, you could have a boiled egg and a small slice of toast and that might only be 15g carbs approx, or you could have two Weetabix, milk, and a slice of toast, which would be more like 50g carbs (just approx numbers for illustration purposes). If you were to take the same 8 units for both breakfasts, your blood sugar after would vary enormously. 8 units might be far too much for your first egg breakfast,,causing a hypo, and it might be not enough for your second breakfast causing higher sugars than ideal.

But eating the same amount of carbs - the amount that those 8 units cover, giving you a good blood sugar afterwards - would result in much more predictable, smoother sugars. I hope that makes sense? Carbs and insulin are intimately related.

So this morning's hypo may have been due to you not eating enough carbs for the insulin you took, or it may have been related to the correction dose you took (if it was too much) , or it could be another reason.

Type 1 is a learning game. Each week's experience helps you learn more and improve things. It's a long term game. Please don't worry or be hard on yourself. Keep testing and keep good records, and you'll get there. Your numbers are pretty good for someone recently diagnosed

*Edited to add - when you see the dietician, if you're not shown how to count carbs or given any info connected with that, simply ask her/him how many carbs you should be eating at each meal that you take 8 units. You've been given half of a piece of information, in my opinion. I was on fixed doses too but was also told to eat a certain amount of carbs for each meal. That's the key.

Hi. It does sound like the 8 units was too high for 30gm breakfast. I would try to do the carb-counting using the 1:10 ratio which is about right for many of us. When unsure just take a bit less until you learn more about what your ideal ratio is. As you can imagine, 8 units with a 1:10 ratio would typically need 80gms of carb. I think telling you to take 8 units with food was too much and risking hypos.