After a week of suffering from mild pancreatitis I was in the hospital for DKA. I never had an issue with BG and my AIC was always around 5 before I landed in the hospital for DKA. I am now on insulin 5 times a day. I tested negative for all antibodies but my cpeptide is low. Some doctors think I will be insulin dependent and others think I will be able to recover.
Few questions for the experts out there:
Has this happened to anyone before? Were they able to recover?
My bg fluctuates wildly even though I have been eating the same meal for the past two months. Grilled chicken, lettuce and an apple. What causes the fluctuation even know I eat the same meal, exercise the same amount?
My blood glucose is higher right before I test before lunch and dinner than 2 hours after eating. Why is this so? For example, two hours after lunch my BG is 109 and when I check right before dinner it is 150.
It would be helpful if you were more specific: What type of insulin and when? Before meals and a split Lantus dose?
What are your morning BG numbers? How do they respond when you eat breakfast?
The one thing you said that sounds like Type 1 is:
Your BG variability can have numerous causes. Many of them can be addressed. The randomness of Type 1 CAN’T always be accounted for with numbers and logic. Test a lot and look to see if your BG numbers are consistently doing the same thing everyday.
Your BG could be elevated before dinner because you need more basal insulin. If your basal insulin isn’t right, any problems with meals will be impossible to fix.
The other thing you should think about is that your pancreas is probably still producing some insulin, but it is NOT consistent and this will make finding the correct dose of insulin difficult.
Here’s the worst part: your diabetes (if you don’t recover) is unique, so what you need to learn are the over-arching concepts.
I would suggest buying “Think Like a Pancreas.” (by Gary Scheiner). It will give you both an overview of Type 1 and specific concepts like:
How do I check to see if my basal is correct?
Am I taking too much or too little insulin for the food I’m eating?
What other things can change my BG?
It is the one book that I come back to again and again when I need to find a formula or method for testing my current treatments effectiveness.
I have heard of people who became insulin dependent permanently after pancreatitis – but that does not mean that you can’t/won’t recover. I’d guess it would depend on the extent of the damage to insulin-producing beta cells, whether or not they can recover…
