Hi,
I was diagnosed as type 1 a year ago in february but still seem to be in my honeymoon period- How long did other people’s last for?
Thanks, Becki x
Not sure what the honeymoon period is. After about 2 months with symptoms of stomach cramping and weight loss I saw a doctor and was just diagnosed Type 1. I am struggling with lows now as I am beginning the juggling act of insulin and carb intake. I hope this isn’t my honeymoon period. What are your symptoms and what is your sugar/A1C?
The honeymoon period is a time after your dx where your body recovers some to alot of beta-cell function. Follow this link to see the graph I will refer to. Whatever the insult to your body is that triggers the autoimmune destruction of the beta cells causes a decrease in insulin secretion and a decrease in the beta cell mass (number of beta cells). At a certain time there is not enough insulin around to handle normal serum glucose and then the body gets hyperstressed, which causes the cells to die off even faster, hence the steep curve at time of diagnosis. Once insulin is prescribed the beta cells can “breath and relax” and will start to work again. When this happens the amount of insulin needed can decrease dramatically or only a little bit or not at all. The duration of the honeymoon period is very individualized and can be extraordinarily variable in length. During the honeymoon period T1DM can be fairly easy to manage compared to the initial phases and certainly once the honeymoon phase is over. This is because the beta cells are secreting insulin and glucagon which help to prevent the highs and lows that are common once the beta cells are gone.
rossm you will pry notice in the next while that your insulin needs may decrease if you are very good at controlling your BG. the only thing that has ever been shown to increase the duration of the honeymoon phase is very tight control of the BG and decreasing the stress in your body. The more stress, the higher the systemic inflammation and a more active immune system. This also the area that is being targeted my numerous clinical trials like DEFEND-2 where they are trying to modify the immune system to salvage the remaining beta cells.
Hope that helped.
I never answered your question. Mine lasted 5-6 months. I have never had a repeat c-peptide measured, which is the only way to truly define the end of the honeymoon period. I just guessed at the time when my BG became very difficult to control and the only way to stop a high or low, or raise or lower my BG was through an external mechanism was when the honeymoon ended.
Mine lasted 2-4 months (the last two months were kind of fizzling out, so really more like two months). In fact, I just made a blog post about it a week or so ago.
I have read that the honeymoon tends to last longer the later you are diagnosed with Type 1. I have also read that the tighter control you can achieve during the honeymoon stage the longer it will last. So if you were diagnosed as a late teen or young adult and kept good control with today’s tools, I think it’s entirely possible to still be honeymooning a year after diagnosis.
Mine didn’t end abruptly. I assume now I am at the end since I have had the same insulin needs for a good 6 months. In total my honeymoon was like 10 months, so almost a year. Everytime I figured out my insulin rates and ratios and got settled in, they changed! It was so frustrating. So at first I barely needed that much insulin…I think my Total Daily Dose (TDD) was like 12 units (bolus and basal). Now, its 25-30 depending on carbs, so that is quite an increase. The main thing that ended my first spurt of honeymoon was when I got some sort of virus. I was pretty sick and my numbers went really high and it was hard to bring them down. After I got better my insulin needs never went back and that was my first major change in dosages. Sorry to ramble on, haha. Long story short----10 months!
Mine lasted about 1 year. With tight control, you can make it last many years, and of course the longer your honeymoon lasts the better off you are (better outcomes).
Mine lasted about 3 months. I don’t have any scientific evidence to prove this, but I think that the length of the honeymoon is somewhat related to the length of time that you went undiagnosed and how you were diagnosed. Given that I was diagnosed in DKA after many, many months of walking around with very high blood sugars, I think that I had burned out most of my insulin production and the honeymoon didn’t last long, but that is just a theory … and there are surely many exceptions 
Also mine ended fairly abruptly. In the first months with diabetes, my numbers generally stayed under 150 and I would panic if they went higher than that. One morning, I woke up with a blood sugar above 400 and figured that I faced a new game. We (gradually) doubled my insulin doses and I realized that it didn’t take much to send me much higher than 150.
I know that lows in the honeymoon can be tough and unpredictable, but I still recommend maintaining the honeymoon as long as possible (through tight control). It’s also good practice at learning how to manage your blood sugar while “highs” are not as high.
Boy I am glad I joined this discussion. My wife and I have been having the conversation for about two days as I am now getting some pretty bad lows (as opposed to my A1C from 2 weeks ago of 12.1). So it sounds like you just know the honeymoon is over based on needing more insulin? Funny how the endo never told me this. Is this why my islets were “normal” but I had positive GAD?
I think I just started this month phasing out of the honeymoon period…im having difficulties controlling my bg and much more insulin is needed :(…anyways that would have kept me in the honeymoon period for one year… I think the divorce period is kicking in
for me it was about 6-9 mo, gradual, and my ratio went from 1:20 to 1:15. My basal went up and down for awhile 15, 13, 10, and now up to 12. Tight control isn’t for me and I’m still on a learning curve with these great disease.
SO glad you just posted this! I was diagnosed with LADA but my islet came back normal so I am not on insulin quite yet… I’ll tell him to check my GAD next time!! Thanks!
I am so glad you asked this! I wonder this a lot as well- I actually just “celebrated” my 1 year diagnosis anniversary (yesterday, January 23- although in hindsight I can see that I was sick for at least two months before that) and I have to admit that in general, my insulin needs have not changed too much. Looking more specifically at different times of the month (my period messes everything up) I fluctuate A LOT depending on that and my needs almost double. But during my “down time” (what I call the times between periods) I am at about the same insulin requirements.
I wonder if it has anything to do with my level of activity/control? My last A1C was 6.1 and I exercise (cycling) very regularly (In fact, for my anniversary I went out for a 56 mile ride I keep waiting for the anniversary to be over… My doc really has no set info on it to tell me. I guess we are all different.
Cant’ say for certain. I was in a new T1 study looking at the honeymoon period for the two years. My insulin needs were extremely low and did not change much for those two years, at the very least. My A1cs fluctuated between the high 4s and mid 5s, mostly depending on the time of the year. I didn’t notice big changes in either until I stopped seriously training about 7 years after my Dx.
Hi, thanks for all the replies, I just never seemed to get any answers from the consultant when I asked about it! But when I went into hospital and got diagnosed my blood sugars were relatively lo compared to some of the stories I’ve heard (about 23 mmol/l 2 hours after eating), so I just wander if that’s why Im still on tiny insulin doses!! x
I was just thinking about this today because January 28th will be my third year with diabetes. I believe I am still in a honeymoon period because of the tight control and low amount of insulin I take. I haven’t had any change to my regimen for almost all 3 years. So either I am in a honeymoon period, I am extremely sensitive to insulin, or I have some other kind of disease instead of type one. I can only wonder.
What is confusing to me, is that while my total daily insulin (4 for Lantus, and about 7-ish for Humalog) is low I still get really high post-prandial values in the mid-200s for a few hours after a meal. I usually come down to <150 before the next meal. I just had my first A1C post diagnosis, and it was a 7.1 So not the most stellar blood sugars, but still better than my diagnosis at 14.9. I think I've been developing T1 for 2 years, so like one of the other people mentioned, my official honeymoon might be shorter because it was undiagnosed for so long.
So my question is, if you take relatively small amounts of insulin but have high post-prandials, is that really a honeymoon period?
I am fifteen months into my honeymoon, I am just wondering when the other shoe will drop.
...and at the other end of the spectrum, I never had a honeymoon. *_* No fair.
30 years and counting... waiting for my damn honeymoon.
I love old threads. :)
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