I was wondering if any of you have ever has this happen. I have been having my fasting blood sugars go to 200 a couple of times a week. The meals the night before do not make a difference. It just happens randomly. I use between 15 and 20 units of fast acting insulin to correct this. But two of the days (work days) 2 hours after taking the insulin, I began to feel low blood sugar symptoms. I checked and blood sugar was 130. Two hours later I feel it again and check, blood sugar is 126. An hour later, I am getting ready to clean my last building of the day and start to get weak, shaky, and visual issues. I check and my blood sugar is 86. My blood sugar is 86 but my body is reacting as if it is in the 30’s. I had to eat a snickers bar and sit down in a chair for a little while before my energy came back. This has happened three times this week. The other times my blood sugar was at 70 and I was experiencing severe low BG symptoms. I had to eat the candy bar to get better because I had to finish my work. The one day I was off and BG was 190 in the morning, I used the same amount of insulin and my BG eventually went down to 80, but no severe hypo symptoms. All good. On each night I have gone to bed with BG between 80 and 98. I’m not sure what to do with this. I’m just getting frustrated again.
I know it’s difficult because you want to make sure you do not feel like you have a 30 bg. But why a snickers bar? I was the same for a while. And if I really feel I can’t get to something else before I keel over I go for the fast sugar rush. But try an apple or something similar. It’s better all round
True Dave, but I was at work and it is a cleaning job. I would not eat from anything that is not from inside a package right now, and not until my hands are thoroughly washed.
The first low feeling was three hours after taking the fast acting. The second low feeling was 5 hours after, and the last one. The one that was so bad but only 86 was 7 hours after taking the fast acting insulin. I had eaten nothing all day, just coffee. I thought fast acting insulin peaked at the 2 hour mark and cleared the system after 4 hours?
Maybe it is simple lack of food before doing so much physical labor? IIRC you are practicing OMAD but would you be willing to have some eggs and bacon or some other thing that won’t affect your BG so you don’t have to deal with it while working? Could you be lacking an essential vitamin? Have you had any B12 tests done? People can have some pretty hard to tolerate symptoms from lack of certain nutrients.
I might try skipping insulin in the am and eating breakfast then if that does not work maybe a low carb snack before work. I just don’t understand how I could be experiencing what feels like a severe hypo with a blood sugar of 86. I mean bad enough that I would not be able to drive a car. A lot of days BG is 120 in the AM cept for the days when everything is more resistant. Makes me wonder what’s going on.
Your body disagrees with your meter measurements when you feel hypo. I believe your body over the meter. Do you wash and thoroughly dry your hands before making these measurements? Do you have access to another brand of meter and strips? What meter do you use? I really think that either your hands contain some sugar, food, or other contaminant on them or your meter and/or strips are failing you. Your body doesn’t lie.
I agree with the other comments that question whether eating a candy bar is the best choice for treating hypos. A simple sugar is much better. It treats the hypo and contains no tail of fat and protein to influence beyond the first hour or so. I use glucose tablets which can quickly treat a hypo in a very measured way. It’s easier for me to resist over-treating a hypo with glucose tabs.
What insulin do you use? If you review the medical literature, like the package insert, you will find that the rapid acting analog insulins (Apidra, Novolog, Humalog) last about six hours. You may very well observe that most of the action is done in four hours but you’ve also seen the power of that insulin tail coming back to bite you. The small amount of insulin in the 4-6 hour period of the tail combined with some exercise can easily create a hypo, especially in the absence of other food.
Have you considered trying a continuous glucose monitor (CGM)? The education that a CGM can give you is invaluable for balancing exercise, food, and insulin. You need to figure out this equation; it’s a matter of insulin dose size and timing. It will also teach you about your unique insulin sensitivity. This is the amount of blood sugar drop cause by one unit of insulin. You may be using an insulin sensitivity factor (ISF) that has not been tested recently. Your ISF probably changes throughout the day, so a morning insulin correction acts differently than an afternoon one. What ISF do you use?
Your body is trying to tell you something important. Listen to it and experiment. If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll, of course, get more of the same. I would start by examining the quality of your meter and strips and adopting a hand-washing routine before every glucose check.
Good luck; what you’re going through is familiar to all of us. You can fix this!
If you have been type2 a long time it maybe your body saying 80 is now your recognized low. Especially if you are having low symptoms.
A cgm may be helpful to you in figuring this out. Would a juice pack be helpful when you are working? Nancy50
I wonder if it is the meter. I have the cheapest one you can get. The Trumetrix brand. It’s all my insurance will pay for. My hands were very clean when I took all of those measurements. We are in the middle of a pandemic and I work in a high risk job. I had just washed my hands for 1 minute with hot soap and water. I checked my BG before I put a new set of gloves on. I have had this meter show high BG before and it was not accurate. Had a few BG of 250 and then it was really 160 or something like that. I can’t test three times in a row every time I test because I only get 100 test strips a month.
I have a bunch of other medical issues too, so have to look into those as well. Sweaty, heart palpitations and feeling like my entire body is heavy. That is from my heart and BP issues. But my BP was 106/85 to 100/72. Low BP, but that never gives me any symptoms. BP without meds is always 150/116. Shortness of breath from just walking from the dumpsters to elevator, which is about 500 feet. But this is from chronic lung issues from blood clots. So, there is always a big list I have to go through and check each condition off in order to figure out what the problem is.
How much are the continuous meters? One I saw was 80 dollars for three weeks? That would really be the only way to see what is happening over a 24 hour period. It would truly give the big picture. One big reason why I only eat once a day is because I have very slow digestion. If I eat too much and overload my stomach I get sick. I like to give my entire system 24 hours in between meals to clear out and not to stress it out like I did with three meals a day. Have any of you used the Freestyle from Libre? That is one of the newer ones on the market. I need to see doc about some things, but not until this pandemic is over with. I’m not going anywhere near any healthcare facility right now.
Thanks for the help. You guys been doing this way longer than I have.
Nancy, I only had the low feeling with 80 BG when I first started to manage my diabetes. My body was so used to an A1C of 7.1 that anytime my BG went under 100, I felt awful. This is different because when I do not work and the morning dose of insulin drops my sugars to 80, I feel fine unless I start to get active. As long as I am chilling (which I do a lot because my legs are in bad shape from blood clots) all is good.
I am on the old insulin. I use Novolin R. My doc is not well versed on diabetes and another doc I had for a while said lose some weight and then diabetes would go away. I do a lot of reading though. I know there are more meds to take like Glipizide ETC. I just read that some of those class of diabetes meds can have an adverse reaction with Warfarin.
Last night I did not use insulin and left everything alone. This morning BG was 176. I took 17 units of Novolin R and will check BG at the 4 hour mark and see what is going on. Might be that on work days I will have to skip the insulin and just leave the sugar sort of high instead of high, low, then high again.
Novolin R is not the newer fast actings.
I’m not sure if this will help, but I think you are taking too high of a correction dose, especially with Novolin R. I believe it hits it’s peak around 2-4 hours. So you are taking enough to bring it down by the 2 hour mark but it will continue to work pretty strongly for a possible another 2 hours. So hence the drop later.
The high morning fasting level can be DP, dawn phenomenon if it’s first thing, there is also FOTF which rises after you put your feet on the floor. This can be inconsistent. One day it happens the next it doesn’t.
I can feel really bad when there is a fast change in BG levels. I am at 70’s all the time with no problem, but if I drop fast I can feel very weird. I can hit 60 no issue and I don’t feel bad at all, but if I drop fast I can feel start to feel shaky at 70. Same thing goes if my BG shoots up fast. I can be at 150 or 160 ands I don’t feel at all bad even at 200 plus. But if I take a hot shower my BG level has been known to climb 50 points in 15 minutes and I feel awful.
“Novo-Nordisk Novolin-R Insulin Features: Short-acting insulin (starts working approximately 30 minutes after injection) Maximal effect at 2.5-5 hours after injection and lasts 8-12 hours All natural human-made form of insulin Store in a cold place, avoid freezing Use with U-100 insulin syringes only”
A Libre CGM can be used with an iphone for a reader and each 14 day sensor costs around $37 at Costco. You do need a prescription.
I’ve had the same sort of thing happen to me and basically came to the conclusion that it was my CGM system putting out bogus data… at least compared to a finger prick and reading my BG level using my Bayer one touch glucometer. I put the “calibration” code into the software for my CGM then I later get this LOW GLUCOSE ALERT… beep beep etc. So I check it with my to see if is really 56 per the glucose meter… At this level I’d be bouncing off the walls. As it turns out. Nope! It was 90 on my Bayer glucometer. So I recalibrate the CGM to correct… then it swings the other way. Only seems to do this with a new CGM sensor in the first 24 hrs. or so. I’ve heard similar tales about the early hours of a new CGM sensor. Just a thought… I don’t trust anything my CGM tells me in the first 24 hrs anymore.
I ended up skipping insulin for a day and a half. Wole today to blood sugar of 140. Three hours later it was 130. I used no insulin. Ate a meal with 40 units and then 3 hours later it was 98. Staying under a hundred and I feel fine. I hate this disease.
I meant to say I woke with a BG of 140. I did not use any insulin upon waking. Just for dinner. I let the sugars ride at 130-140 all day. Better than a roller coaster ride.
Have you thought about trulicity a once a week drug? That might work for you. Nancy50
I need to get a new doc who know about the newer meds. What does that med do? Does it keep sugars down? I adjusted a dose of meds to 8 units of fast acting yesterday for 170 waking numbers and had a very slight hypo at 90 BG. Ate a teeny tiny amount of carbs and forced myself to work through it and not over-correct. So, even 8 units of fast acting is going too far, but no insulin at all will leave it at 170 for hours.
It is a basal insulin. My endo told me this is why I am not on meal time insulin. Here is a link : https://www.trulicity.com/
Check it out!
Nancy Matulis
I take it on Tuesday, thus everyone in my family calls it: “ Trulicity Tuesday “,great way to remember. Nancy50
Have you tried to find a diabetes educator? They could assist you with medication , educating you , and your MD. Have you taken a diabetes class? They are covered by insurance and Medicare. I highly recommend them. Great review. Nancy50
Basil is background insulin. Be nice to take 1 injection a week and then be done with it. Imma try next to take morning insulin with a protein bar. I only like eating once a day though because I do not feel well after meals, but perhaps some snack with the insulin will fix the lows. I will look into Trulicity. So many new medications out there these days. Thanks for the information.