"Average" Insulin Requirements?

Thank god I don’t have that spike that but I do walk after breakfast which is right away. So I am eating and walking within the first hour of my day. Just to confirm you are spiking even without the BP coffee or did you not rule that out?

My breakfast this morning was egg whites and spinach and some sort of healthy fat as topping. OR I do bone broth protein with almond milk (it’s really yummy) and veggies on the side, OR I do 3 coconut flour pancakes (recipe below)

1 TBS water
3 TBS egg white
1/2 TBS coconut flour

Stir and cook on non stick pan. Top with non dairy butter, monkfruit or swerve sweetener, cinnamon or cocoa powder sprinkles.

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@WestOfPecos, I started making the tincture to deal with the chronic pain from a spinal cord injury. Just got a diagnosis from a neurologist for it: Generalized, secondary Dystonia. Multiple vertebral fractures and head injuries from horse riding accidents caused the development of this syndrome which causes random muscle cramping and muscle rigidity. I am getting 100% relief from the tincture… which the neurologist says is fantastic because traditional treatment of Dystonia is mediocre at best (his words, not mine :stuck_out_tongue: )

So, imagine my surprise when a couple of weeks after I started on the tincture, my pump started reporting it was using less insulin! That was March, 2017, and my daily average of insulin usage–according to the pump–has dropped from 43.3 monthly average to 30.51 monthly average… with a weight loss of 18 pounds over that period of time.

Some may be due to increased activity. I can stretch and hike and move again without triggering cascading cramps so that has to impact insulin sensitivity as well. AND, without the cascading cramps 24/7 impacting cortisol, my adrenals are recovering from what my endocrinologist thought might be a downward trend that would require pharmaceutical support at some point… but not anymore :wink:

The formula I make for myself has a 3CBD : 1THC ratio, and 50% of cannabinoids are acids. I take approx. 200mg per day in 4 doses of 50mg.

All in all, all I have is anecdotal based on my experience, but it’s working great for me :smiley:

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@Terry4 I have thought of doing this…but, I usually wake up low (like 2.9-3.8). It’s scary to take a bolus with those numbers! I always think, what if it doesn’t raise today (because occasionally it doesn’t). I usually wait till it starts to go up on my dexcom, then correct, but it’s usually chasing a high by that point.

I’m always hungry.

I spike if I eat nothing (no coffee). I almost always go low around 3am, and have my basal rate from 3 to 5am at almost nothing (.20). I wake up in the 2.9-3.8 range, then it’s up up up. Only way I’ve found to somehwat control it is to eat nothing till lunch. Which I fail at maintaining.

@Jenni-Bean - What time period are you setting the basal changes?

We find that we have to put the basal rate change about 1-1/2 hr in advance of when we see the BG rise/drop which we are trying to target with the basal rate change.

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It is really wonderful that you found something that works well all around!

The D effect is a bit of a shocker.

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@Tim35 good point…I could move the lower basal rate up in increments until it’s lowering at the correct time! Thanks!!

In some of us, going low during the night causes large and sustained hyperglycemia rebounds. For many years I thought that this rebound affected all who take insulin and went low while sleeping but participating here I found that my experience was not the norm.

For me, if I can limit the low (< 54 mg or 3.0 mmol/L) to less than 20 minutes then I can avoid the rebound. My rebounds usually elevate to 180+ (10+). In the days before I used CGM, waking up low meant I couldn’t eat breakfast and it would take 3-6 hours to get back in range.

I understand this is the result of counter-regulatory hormones and the liver’s release of emergency glucose.

The best thing you can do is prevent the overnight lows, then you can avoid the hyper rebound. You might consider setting an alarm for 3 a.m. to monitor and treat, if needed.

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I was a wack job. My doctor never liked how I ran my basel rates higher than normal but I didn’t need to bolus 90 % of the time I wasn’t giving boluses and now I can manage with one injection. But my a1c was 5.4-5.6 so they let me do what I wanted. I figure to each their own in a disease like diabetes so long as it’s working and keeping you sane.

When I was on a pump I remember my rates going way up from 5 - 9 in the morning to offset that bs spike. I think it was up to 6.25 for 3 or 4 hours to get my day started. I just hated to bolus. My totals for the day was 13 units.

I feel like I am hungry when I am not getting my insulin (poor absorption) kinda like confused signals. I want to eat cause I am not getting my energy from food. But I’m also am emotional eater so I think my signals can get confused. :frowning:

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I wonder if the effect of CBD on diabetes might have been mediated by pain reduction, i.e., chronic pain increases cortisol/stress hormone production, so treating chronic pain reduces insulin resistance. Might not see that effect in people without chronic pain, but you’d need to experiment to know.

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That would totally make sense and explain the effect very neatly. Nice hypothesis!

@cardamom definitely at play here. I agree. I think there are several pathways the CBD engages that impact insulin sensitivity. I don’t know all of them, but I am researching :stuck_out_tongue: Liver pathways of metabolism are impacted, and it’s been proven in studies now that CBD stimulates ketogenesis aka fat burning over carbohydrate burning… and that impacts the metabolic system as well.

Clearly, more research is needed. This could be huge.