Following initial diagnosis and partial response to pills I went to the Endo
He gave me Humulin H insulin and told me to have ten units in the morning and ten units at night. Initially I saw a great improvement in the day time readings but not much improvement in the night and first morning reading.
Reporting back my stats the doc increased to twenty units in the morning and twenty two in the evening.
Now I see no progress and my day time readings have got worse
First day the day time readings went as low as 140 and lunch time reading today was 295!! Eating well - salads and salmon, salads and meat, no carbs, etc
Humulin H? Do you mean Humulin NPH or Humulin N? That is an intermediate insulin (lasts 12-14 hours) which would be appropriate to take twice a day.
It may take some time to find an appropriate dose of insulin. Often they start conservatively, with too little and then move it upward until you approach a useful dose.
You might want to check back with the endo and ask if you should be taking any before meal insulin. Was the 295 before or after eating lunch ? That is too high of a number anyway. It does take a while to reach the best dose ( like bsc said). You might not reach it until you go back to Israel. Ask if you should be taking some R insulin before meals.
I have one more week here and was hoping to get to good levels before then.... Speaking to Endo tomorrow and will ask about short term insulin before meal.... 295 was before lunch. Last week wasn't as high as 295
Exactly catlover. If shea took meal time insulin with breakfast (or cut carbs!) then the before lunch number would look better.
Some people also need the Regular insulin with lunch too when taking NPH. Shea you can decide if you need Regular with lunch by checking a couple hours after lunch but I would suggest addressing that before lunch number first.
The cheese is protein with 0 carbs. The rice cakes (if plain) have 8 carbs each. So unless you ate 5 or more your BG shouldn't go up to 295. I eat 1 plain rice cake with peanut or almond butter on it and a 1/2 c of cottage cheese for breakfast most days. That is under 20carbs. You will have to learn how many carbs are in everything you eat. Try to pick up (while you are in US) a book on how many carbs are in what you are eating.
Hi Shea: I know this is a lot of information all at once. It is really tough when you are first diagnosed and it takes time to figure out insulin dosages. I have found books by John Walsh ("Using Insulin" and "Pumping Insulin") to be very helpful, and "Think Like a Pancreas" by Gary Scheiner is also good. Very few of us had an easy time figuring out insulin regimes, you are doing great, give yourself time.
If you ate 5 or more you had at least 40+ carbs. That is quite a few without being covered by any mealtime insulin. As a diabetic you must watch what you eat and how much you eat. Portion control is very important. The quantity of food you eat at every meal can effect your numbers as well as what you are eating.
Could be. This is not a HUGE number of carbs but it is more than some people have determined they can have without these spikes. I think that all signs point to you needing insulin at meals.
Try counting carbs and checking blood sugars around meals to see if you can find a pattern. You should be able to reasonably predict that if I eat x grams of carbs I can expect y rise in my blood sugar and with that information you can decide how much and when you can have carbs or if you want to cut them out all together or when you do start mealtime insulin how much and when to take (actually really doing this type of testing will allow you to see lots of different things and is usually quite valuable).......
5 rice cakes certainly contributed ;) Why not try 1 rice cake and something else with 0 carbs, like a hardboiled egg, at least for a while until you figure out how various foods effect you. I know it's a pain... but are you keeping logs? It's very useful, especially at first, to log what and when you eat, how many carbs are in the meal, what your bg was before and (ideally) 1 and 2 hours after). There are other factors in food too, but if you start with carb counting you'll be well on your way!
The log would be useful to share with your endo in ישראל as well.
