This is my first post here on tudiabetes. I am glad to come across this website and hopefully can get some information to help myself out and maybe others at the same time. I'm currently in Beirut attending an american university, it being my first year. I decided to go on a strict diet, cutting out carbs almost completely out of my diet. in the past 2 months ive lost about 12 lbs, and ive dropped my average basal rate from 1.3u/hour to around 0.7u/hour. i am eating close to 1200 calories per day and i feel really good. my total daily dose of insulin has dropped SIGNIFICANTLY from over 100 units a day to a steady average near 25-30. As i was reading online i came across a website explaining how such a caloric deficit would not work for a long period of time, and i needed to add carbs to my diet also a cheat day. So i decided to have a cheat day, and i had a few loafs of bread, some icecream and chocolate. Clearly i overdid it, and since then for the past 3-4 days my blood sugars are VERY BAD. I went to bed the other night with a blood sugar of 5, and i woke up with an 18. WHICH IS EXTREMELY BAD. I have tried to contact my doctors back home and i have not had much luck. Any hospital here would not know what to do either because they would just tell me to pump insulin?! So what do I do? My current basal rate is just above 2u/hour!! I'm losing my mind and I don't know what to do. Can anyone please help me out?
Try to take more basal insulin at bed time to avoid a high BG in the morning. Also go for a walk before going to bed, it will help drop the sugar and you will sleep better.
if you decide to cheat and have carbs, it's ok don't feel bad. Our brain needs some carbs. I don't believe in starving your body from sugar. We need a little sugar, if you have no sugar what is your insulin going to give to your cells? Our muscles need sugar. Just not too much and not too little.
if you have snacks with carbs or sugar and you are high, just take a correction dose of insulin, let's say about 3 units and your sugar should be normal again. Depending your insulin/carb ratio of course.
for me, i was at 14 mmol last night 3 hours after dinner. and i did not want to go to bed with a high BG, so i took a 3 units dose of Novorapid and this morning my BG was at 8.3 mmol. If i didn't do that i probably would have been at 13 mmol this morning.
It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what works for you to get those sugars down- the cutting out all carbs. I would go back to that until your BG's come back down. While you wait, drink lots of water, go for walks, and remember to test for ketones! Once you get your sugar back under control I'd suggest instead of a cheat day, you add your carbs back in VERY slowly. Then, I would suggest dispersing your carbs throughout the day so 5g with breakfast 5 with lunch 5 with dinner... see how that goes. A lot of people on hear say that the more cars they eat at once, the more out of control their sugar is. Of course, I assume you have changed you infusion site, checked your insulin to make sure it hasn't gone bad (ie tried a new bottle).
I know they say that there's a reason behind every blood sugar reading. It's affected by carb intake, insulin, exercise, alcohol, stress, illness, etc. But sometimes I really think there are simply bad days. I have back-to-back days that are like carbon copies of each other for my food, activity, etc. yet my blood sugars are totally different. I can't explain it. All I can suggest is continue doing the right things and making right adjustments.
I will try it out, i just feel so deflated because i worked so hard and it showed because my basal rates dropped, but now its almost doubled from my original, i'm trying everything and nothing is working, im either super high or really low. i guess we'll just have to wait it out!
Lower insulin doses is no victory IMO. Only a cure before complications manifest is considered victory. Diabetes is set out to kill anyone it attacks. It has a mind of its own and everyday we have to fight back or we loose real quick. Sooner or later a company will figure out how to outsmart it even if not eliminating it.
A lot of it is trial and error. For me, I don't look at numbers as "good" or "bad" as much as "blanks" to be filled in. A 5 at bedtime can be challenging and may lead to the 18 in the AM but can also suggest a few things? If the 5 was flat all night, that would be great? I would guess, without checking, that if I hadn't had anything else to eat (I'd probably see other clues too, sweaty sheets, CGM bump...) that it went down from the 90, the place to fix it would be maybe the dinner number or the evening snack. I know that "snackism" hearkens back to the medieval NPH regimens but, at the same time, I love junk food and beer so snacks are almost always on my menu? Either, I'd say a 5 at bedtime is pretty good and just needs a bit of adjustement to be flatter and have a smoother night? For years, I struggled at breakfast and really never got rid of weird, nighttime BG fluctuations until I got a pump. And they still crop up from time to time.
i think its just a question of time. 2 loaves of bread as well as ice cream and choccy is going to do that. You will have to up the insulin for a period of time and it will level off and drop and you will return to normal settings i would say. I know after a day of heavy eating my sugars cop it for the next few days.
