For the sake of simplicity, at this point I’d just recommend taking the lantus once daily until you figure out your doses and get the game plan figured out… taking a single dose and adjusting as appropriate up or down a couple units every few days (within the parameters of your doctors instructions) until you get close is a far better plan at this stage then taking a different seemingly-random number of units 2x daily…
Eventually you’ll get a more intricate insulin regimen. At this point I’d just recommend taking the same dose every day 1x daily with lantus until you see a real trend just to get the basics under control first before you dive headfirst into the weeds…
Realize that at this point your gp has only given you the toools to keep you out of immediate crisis. This is not the long term plan and you’re not going to fine tune it to perfection at this point.
I would actually recommend a conservative approach. You dropped from 400 down to148 with just your starting dose of like 20 units. I would stick with twenty units a day and after a couple of days see how your blood sugar is doing and then make a 5-10% change. If your blood sugar is averaging 150-200 at the end of the week, that is a win. Don’t try to bring your blood sugar down from 400 to 80 suddenly. Work it down.
Ok thanks. Woke up at 5 am bg is 155! Did not take insulin last night I will take 22 units this morning. I am thinking clearer if that makes sense. I am feeling better. It was a very gradual slide to higher sugars over past 6-9 months. Subtle changes in day by day slightly higher bg. I tried oral meds and believe my body can’t make much insulin anymore. I will see if library has think like a pancreas! I did paleo diet for two years very strictly but past year started dairy and peanut butter and other foods. I crave chocolate and try ice cream no sugar added. Last night family had birthday cake and Thai food but I stayed away from high carbs. My granddaughter came to live with me mid July and just had eye surgery two weeks ago. I had to stop yoga as no childcare. Now I can go again as new Rec center opened oct 8 so there is childcare. I feel much better doing yoga. Think the stretching might help blood circulation and glucose regulation somehow. Thanks for the support and have a good day!!
This is great news. I would actually caution you that you may end up needing less insulin than you think. Often it takes markedly more insulin to bring down a very high blood sugar in the 400s. Our cells go into “self defense” against high blood sugars and become insulin resistant. If you haven’t taken your insulin yet you might consider dropping your dose from yesterday. Perhaps even down 18 units. It is better to be a little conservative and get your blood sugar down in steps. If you go higher than you want towards the end of the day then increase the dose, but 5-10% at most. And if you do find that you actually only need like 10 units of basal you don’t want lows. So just give it time, but overall a 155 mg/dl is a total win and I’m sure you will feel much better with this greatly improved blood sugar.
Shoot I already took 22…I also wanted to ask do you use alcohol wipes before injection? I don’t and my skin is clean so don’t think necessary. I really don’t like injecting in my stomach so tried thigh. Does it really matter? Is it supposed to be middle of body? I wonder why they can’t yet make a insulin pill… I will check sugar to make sure I don’t go low. Noticed you have the glucose tablets in case. Maybe I should buy some so I don’t have to eat a bunch of food.
Don’t worry about it, just be aware that as your blood sugar normalizes you may end up needing less basal insulin.
I don’t use alcohol and I inject through my clothes. I’m a berry, berry bad person. I’ve never gotten an infection.
You can inject anywhere on you body where you have an adequate bodyfat layer. Lantus “must” be injected into bodyfat, so good technique is to pinch up a good inch or two of bodyfat as an injection site. If you can do that on your thigh then great. Levemir/Tresiba is more forgiving and I have no problem injecting into my butt without bothering to pinch up.
And yes you should get some glucose tabs but you can likely get by without them. I use small packets of smarties and sweetarts (actually from valentines). But I also will just go have a cup of tea and put a teaspoon of table sugar in. Swish it in your mouth for faster action. One teaspoon of sugar is 4g of carbs, enough to raise your blood sugar 20-40 mg/dl.
My random contribution to the excellent advice here: changes in basal insulin typically take two to four days to stabilize and exhibit their final effect. So it’s a good idea not to change insulin dosages any more often than that. Otherwise you may not be observing the true end result and you may end up drawing false conclusions.
There are bugs in the name management and sometimes when a member wishes to change their name we must ask them to rejoin. It is our hope that the OP rejoins and posts in this thread soon.
Anyway, to answer the question: If I was physically capable of some cardiovascular activity I would do a minimum of 30 minutes. Get the heartrate into the fitness zone for your age/health, or get a good sweat up – either is a fair measure of getting cardio going.
Doesn’t matter if it’s 1 AM. You can do situps. Run in place. If it’s safe and the weather is good enough, go out for a vigorous walk.
Regardless, at 400, pretty much the ONLY option you have absent insulin is to get the metabolism going burning calories. And the absolute BEST exercise are things that move large skeletal muscle – that will suck the most glucose out of your blood, sensitize muscle to insulin so what you’re producing will work more effectively, and will continue to remove glucose for hours after you finish.
This will probably get your BG down under 300 within 2 hours. Bear in mind that’t not certain, and depends on a lot of things, especially what you’ve eaten in the last 6 hours or so.
Anyway, any time your up that high, over 300, your top priority must be some cardio activity if at all possible in any way. This, of course, assumes you do not have insulin to administer to bring that BG down.
I was told it was dangerous to do exercise when the blood sugar is that high.
When I was first diagnosed with a FBG of 289 and an A1c of 11.5, my doctor gave me a sample diet to follow, which as it turned out had far more carbs than I was accustomed to eating. My BG went up to 548 postprandially two days in a row. I tried walking in the house including repeated trips up and down the stairs. It helped a little, but I was still running in the 400s and I was getting out of breath. My doctor had said on Friday that if I got feeling “too awful” over the weekend to go to the emergency room. I finally spooked out with the high numbers and did so. When I told a nurse there about doing the exercise to try to get my numbers down, she scolded me and said I could have had a heart attack. I should not attempt to exercise with a BG over about 250.
Perhaps someone with more medical knowledge than I do can respond to this. Is there a BG point beyond which one shouldn’t exercise that is generally recognized?
I was told it was dangerous to do exercise when the blood sugar is that high.
[/quote]That’s news to me… never heard it before.
I’ll look into it.
EDIT: Okay, was able to find lots on line about this. After reading up on it, it looks like it’s really a concern for T1 diabetics because at high BG levels there may not be enough insulin in-system to help process the high sugars, and there is a big risk of DKA.
For T2s the concern doesn’t seem to be much, although maybe its a good idea to have some ketone strips (as a T2) and check to make sure everything’s copasetic before exercising at these levels.
An insulin pill? They’ve been trying for years. The insulin needs protection to keep the acid in your stomach from breaking it apart and stopping it from working. Now and then you read about someone who thinks they are close to developing an insulin pill, but there’s no sign anyone has one that’s reliable yet.
I rejoined as yoga62…LOL my blood sugar was so high when I joined I could hardly type. and I work full time computer work all day analyzing contracts. somehow it recorded my email as my user id…
I’m not sure. I don’t drive, but I’ve heard above 70-100 mg/dl for people who are at risk of hypoglycemia (mostly people who use insulin). I’m not sure if there’s a cutoff for high blood sugar. As others noted, the cutoff for exercise mostly applies to people with Type 1 diabetes who produce little to no insulin and are at risk of developing DKA.
you don’t drive? curious how that works? i would like to get to the point that I live near a beach and walk on the beach and walk and ride bikes. i have been driving with blood sugar 300-400
