Apple Juice Boy here. Yumm, well not really
Rick
I keep 4 oz juice boxes next to my bed for night lows, best for me to avoid the kitchen altogether or I’ll eat an entire box of granola bars and have to correct. As for the snack to follow I too think this is from the old days of Regular and NPH insulin. After glucose tabs or juice you would follow with a starch and protein to cover the NPH still on board so you wouldn’t bottom out later. I am currently on lantus and novolog and don’t find I need the extra snack. I love regular coke…I keep it in the house just for lows!
Just to give you some perspective, for a 236 this morning, I took 3.9 units to correct it. Even with ketones. A unit of fast-acting insulin (depending on you and depending on which insulin you take) lowers your blood sugar anywhere from 20-50 mg/dL over the course of roughly an hour. I know you’re working on it, but I read your dosages sometimes and wonder how you are possibly alive. You’ve got some resilience, kiddo.
Maybe that would be another help to you - figuring out how much you actually need to drop a sugar. Without any fast-acting on board, and with your sugar in a range that doesn’t make YOU panic (maybe 110-120ish?) take one unit (ONE unit) and see how far you drop in an hour. Write that down. Try it again another day. I know you’re really working on wrapping your head around what you have to do next, but maybe this little experiment could help you re-train yourself on how to use the insulin. The next time you reach for that full syringe, you’ll remember what 1 unit did and think in terms of “what will happen if I take 50 times that?”
I am fairly certain that a single shot of 50 units of my Apidra would kill me. On my pump, my total daily intake over 24 hours is, on average, 39 units.