Big Vs Small Meals

Type 1 and LADA
1

Hi,
I am type 1 (lada) on insulin. I take 12 units bolus insulin per day. I was slowly gaining weight and bg’s were also increasing. The fasting was around 100-105 mg/dl. I decided to change things a little by reducing the meals/calories per day.
I used to eat 5 meals a day earlier. Now I have reduced it to four with small Breakfast, larger Lunch and Dinner and small snack at night. The gap between Lunch and Dinner is about 6 hours.I take 4 units insulin for 60gm of carbs with lunch and dinner each.

What I have observed is that my bg start to go down after 4-5 hours. At the start it would be 90, 130-150 at 3 hrs. By 5th hour it is 75-85 range and continues to drop. Yesterday after 6 hours it was 68.
My fasting has gone down and I see numbers in 70’s very often. I feel very hungry around 4-5th hour after lunch/dinner.

Though I like my numbers now but would like to understand why it drops later.

2

Are you using a basal insulin such as Lantus or Levemir?

3

No basal insulin yet.

4

Can you bolus in 0.5 increments? Maybe try a 3.5 U bolus for dinner, as it sounds like you are still producing some endogenous insulin.

5

I can only do 1 unit increments as I am on MDI. However I was thinking of eating some snack at the 4th hr. Like a half banana or something.

6

FWIW, you can get syringes that will allow you to withdraw 1/2 units. Likewise you can use syringe markings to guesstimate at fractional units.

Another point to consider is the presence of insulin when low stimulates the appetite, so your feelings of hunger as your BG drops is “normal”.

7

FYI, there are several HALF UNIT PENS if you want to bolus in 1/2 unit increments.

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