Had a somewhat scary night last night. Tested (98bg) took my bolus for dinner and waited 15 minutes to eat. Ate dinner and in the space of an hour my sugar was down to 43. 15 minutes later it was 42 after a 12oz glass of orange juice. 15 minutes after that it was 40 so I had a few cookies. (20g carb)
Problem was that I still had 8.53 units active insulin in my system still.
I had some more carbs and a hard candy to try and level things out. barely topped 92 and then 128 after 4 hours.
Went to bed and woke up at 8am with bg of 270. Took 4.6u bolus.
Now at 10am bg is 244 and had to give another bolus.
Just a very confusing night and has left me not feeling too well. Hopefully it gets back to normal in the next few hours so I can be productive today.
I am guessing I must have over treated but it was just not going up at all for the space of almost 4 hours, so really not sure what I should have done differently.
That is scary. It's happened to me too that I can't seem to get the BG up. One thing I do now most of the time is if I have a problem like that I put on my alarm and test my BG during the night to be sure that I can start the day RIGHT! ( and not at 270!) That's not an explanation of what happened. I agree with you though: it was probably over treating. I've noticed sometimes I wait 15 minutes and if I would have waited 20 I would have started ascending. When you are in those LOW levels, you just can't wait that long! Maybe some quicker glucose than cookies?
Yes, I've been on that roller coaster ride which feels sooo much better when you get off. What did you have for dinner? For me it always takes longer to get back to "normal" after things like this happen but you will get there!!
Dinner was higher carbs, but was all good food. 2 servings of chicken (6oz, 1:6 carb ratio from 8pm-12am serving size is 1 serving =25g per 3oz)
2 servings of Brussels Sprouts at 6g per serving.
1 serving of salad with nuts and apples and raspberry vinaigrette. 15g per serving)
50g 12g
15g
---
77g/6=12.8333
Within 30 minutes of eating I was at 43 from a starting bg of 98 and zero active insulin.
I left a message for my endocrinologist but they are out of the office on Mondays.
I had the lows again just a bit ago as well. Had a sugar free vanilla latte with non-fat milk. Total carb = 24g so should be 4u of insulin. I did 3.5u since I had still 0.48 units active.
BG was 92 before the coffee.
Just over an hour later I was again at 42 and still had 2.88u active insulin.
It took 46g of carbs (2 snack packages of cheeze-it at 23g per) and 1 hour to get back to 137. (Slightly over target, but preferable to the alternative)
I just switched my pump to a temp rate of 80% for 2 hours to see if it helps.
As I said, just kind of frustrated with this since I am not ill at all and shouldn't be having any issues like this. When I get sick, I will have a lot of lows and then about 3 days of sustained highs. But I am perfectly healthy.
Just wish I knew better what was happening so that I could adjust things to suit the situation.
Anyhow, thank you for listening and sharing your thoughts, it is appreciated. - Mario
Sorry you went through this.. when you're in the 40's and possibly sinking though you have to treat to bring yourself up quickly. I usually use glucose drinks because they are super fast in addition to glucose tabs. Oj usually works pretty well for me too but if I feel I'm in trouble I go for glucose drinks. I agree to wake up later to stop a spike, or maybe do some light exercise, but too much with that much on board.
Could it be that the food isn't being absorbed as fast as the insulin? Seems that that is what happened, or high fat content may have slowed it down. Of course there are many other things that can come into play.
I agree, did the chicken have that many carbs? That is also a LOT of carbs for one meal. I was told not to take more than 7 units per meal, I have never taken that much except maybe once in the hospital for a higher carb meal. I would prolly go for lower carb meals and do a double bolus etc. instead of all of that at once.
It was fried chicken. For just chicken breast it would have been quite a different amount. I see what you mean though.
Dinner for me is my largest meal of the day, though I know it shouldn't be it is just how it works out in our house. Lunch is always a single salami sandwich. Bread for sandwich = 17g x 2 slices = 34g + 3g for salami and a slice of cheese and 2 pickle slices.
So 37g for lunch isn't bad as I only take a touch over 6u.
The thing about dinner times is they aren't overly large meals. They just have a high carb count, sadly. I eat a lot of green vegetables and I always eat them first as I read that his helps with preventing spikes over time while the food digests. As you can see though, 27g of the carbs in the meal in question were from vegetables and salad. Roughly half of the carbs I consumed. It's tough to say that it is an inordinate amount of carbs when you take that into consideration.
If you have ideas for better meal time protein I am open to suggestions. I just prefer chicken and fish so that is usually what I stick to. Having a routine helps me know what I can count on for meals.
Which is why this whole thing took me by surprise. My endo was unsure as to what may have occurred as well. She said that perhaps there was an issue with my tubing or? Like I said, it's a stumper.
I appreciate the help. :)
Hi, I don’t know if you’ve gotten anything figured out yet; but, this happened to me all the time. I sat down with my endo and he explained my basal rate was too high leading up to dinner and then over night.
So I’ve been slowly messing with it by changing it by .03 or so every few days to see if it helps, and it has. I’m still getting the lows here and there but they’re much better and less frequent.
Hope you figure it out!
