thanks, sue. yikes...switching bolus for basal, that's scary. this is the first time i really paniced. i'm not a rookie with this but no way a novice either and I really didn't know what to do. Yes, i was stackin', of course dropped too low eventually, just became a 2 hour through the night challenge. i just kept thinking, "I'm gonna get messed up here soon and I don't know what to do with no basal on board" also, it took my endo 1.5 HOURS to call me back that night. answering service was calling the wrong on-call endo, he was pissed, ha! i almost went to the ER because once I finally started droppinig I thought, oh, crap...i'm going to go way way low now then back high because I don't know if I have basal. OH well, i made it through but it's just stuff like this that makes me realize what insulin dependent type 1 diabetes is, ya know. thanks!
I always worried myself to death about whether I would survive mixing up my lantus and my novolog. Half a unit mistake with either insulin sent me into a low. Glad to know people have survived it! I went on the pump finally because of that fear
me too! i start (restart) my pump today in 2 hours...!
Hi Sarah,
When my son ended up in the ER we canceled our vacation plans and headed home. Luckily his new pump was at home and he went right on it. He had worn his old pump in the lake because he was going hypo and didn't realize what he was doing. Yes you're right, type 1 is a PITA! Hope you do ok until you're back on your pump.
thanks, sue! day 2 on pump, so far it's been great. flatlined all night long, just stayed steady. i slept 6 hours in a row, first time in a few years, no Dexcom ringing - beeping saying i was high or low...fantastic! gotta get used to all these tubes and stuff stuck to my body, dex - pump, ha!
I'll have to go read this thread bc I'm pretty curious. I've only been in dka once and it took me several days to get there and I was very symptomatic. Sadly, I just didn't know what the symptoms were. And it started out as food poisoning, so all of us who at that meal were yacking. But I had those symptoms for several long days. Of course, I was half dead when I my dh FORCED me to go to the ER. But still...
Sarah, I agree with the others, but I don't want to talk you out of your belief. I kind of wish that I always had thought that any given day was that big of a deal. I probably would have been much more conscientious. But I don't want you to be crazy worried about it either.
Today there is a post at DiabetesMine addressing how long we Type 1’s can live without insulin. There is no proven answer, so read it and draw your own conclusions. The endo from the Yale Diabetes Center answers the question this way:
“I will see that in someone with 0% insulin production, they’ll begin to fall ill within 12-24 hours after last insulin injection, depending on its duration of effect. Within 24-48 hours they’ll be in DKA. Beyond that, mortal outcomes would likely occur within days to perhaps a week or two. But I could not see someone surviving much longer than that.”
The link to the article is: http://www.diabetesmine.com/2013/03/ask-dmine-lifespan-sans-insulin…
How charming that everyone in this thread gets to be right!
i mean seriously! I talked to my nurse about it on Wednesday. Even that day, because I was going to start my pump and didn't take my AM basal dose, by the time I started the pump (3 hours from when I should have taken my AM basal dose) my blood sugars had climbed to 230 and going higher. She told me DKA can happen very quickly, within hours! OF COURSE it can..NO not days! If i had gone to bed at a very high number, unable to get it down, and HAD NO BASAL for 24 hours I probably would have been very very sick, may have ended up in ER. WHO KNOWS. I paniced, i took care of it and got through it. People are fooling themselves if they think they know how long it takes for them to go DKA with NO INSULIN ON BOARD. And, if you've ever been DKA, you'd be scared too. It's a YMMV, it depends on how much insuin we have in our systems, if any, how much insulin we're still producing, many, many factors. Also, I never let my blood sugars get over 130, tight control, anything near high, unfortunately, i feel it. pros and cons i suppose to tight control.