Knowledge is Power and I finally took the plunge and did an overnight basal rate test (it’s been years) It also served as an excuse to not exercise…but since I have guests coming this weekend, I did clean, which can be exercise itself.
I had suspected from a few random middle of night checks and consistent lows in the morning that I had been dropping at some point in the night. My fasting blood sugar has more often than not been below 70 (often 40s and 50s), which is not a good place to start the day
Started in range at 11:30 (after meal bolus was over) and took Lantus at 12:00am.
1:00 109 and went to bed
3:00 83 dropped a bit but still in range
5:00 37 dropped significantly!
When the alarm went off I felt shaky but not extreme, I was expecting it to be in the 50 maybe upper 40s where it would stay until fasting check…so I ended up eating too much glucose (7-9 tabs) and woke up to 233. I took a correction bolus of 1 unit and 6 units of symlin
At the 1 hour mark it had dropped down to 67 (1.5 hours after correction bolus, 1 hour after eating).
At 2 hours (11:00am) 110
At 145(lunch) 99
Interestingly, when I wake up low, I treated, took symlin ate, injected bolus and would run high (anywhere between 150-250). However today w/ no bolus it’s been smooth -so far
I’m going to run more tests, but I suspect the lantus is too high. I also realized that I was dropping a lot lower than I expected so I’m guessing by the time I actually correct the low, my liver has probably dumped a lot of extra glucose into the system.
I think before anymore testing, I’m going to cut back on the lantus and then start over with the overnights then move onto various parts of day. Once I have that I want to retest the overnight and evening after normal exercise (since I exercise at early evening/night time)
So the lack of sleep has definitely been worth this piece of knowledge
Thanks for reading (even if just skimming) and if you have any advice or things I should take into consideration, let me now
I’ve been low at night, too. The sleep you lose in testing is not as much as being restless with a low. Even if you don’t remember it. Good reminder to go over our treatment plans, again and again. A good basal rate is the beginning of success.
Basal rate testing is so important–but such a pain! It’s so difficult to control “life” enough to replicate circumstances for a specific time frame 3 days (or nights in row)–'cause making medication, food, or exercise adjustments based on just one night of records can lead you to treat an anomaly rather than a pattern! Good luck as you embark on this testing. You’ve given me some motivation to get to work on my afternoons …
I did it again this weekend and last and so far my overnight basal test readings are all within 10 points of each other, but my morning to lunch time is running in the 180 range and fine in the late afternoon I go a little low so I made a small change and now it’s ok except for the morning.
Thanks for sharing. I need to do this also. I admit to putting it off for the reasons Kelly mentions. I take two basal doses, so overnight & daytime tests are really in order. I suspect that I go low overnight also, but with dawn phenomenon (no pump) I’m not sure what to do.
Well, I hope some day my son will be motivated to do his own basal testing. I have spent the last 2 nights checking him at midnight, 2, 4 and 6 am. I will do another sleepless night tonight as I change his midnight basal rate. He is waking up so high - like 200-300 and not feeling well and has for a while. Besides he had pump issues yesterday (getting a loaner one today), so I felt he needed to be checked frequently. THe information is invaluable and so helpful for gaining control but I wish there was a better way to get these results. As Kelly writes - it is “such a pain” ! ! ! !
