This doesn’t happen every time I drink wine but it does often enough. Two days ago I enjoyed two glasses of a nice white wine with dinner at 6:00 p.m., hand made by my neighbor’s brother. He has won medals at the California state fair. I don’t usually drink white wine and this wine was tasty. Here’s what happened to my overnight BGs:
yellow line = 140 mg/dl, red line = 65 mg/dl
Even though my CGM woke me up to this low as it happened, it took 4 glucose tabs over 30 minutes (I tried not to over-treat) to finally overcome this somewhat stubborn low. And then the inevitable bounce to the high side. It was not a disaster but the wine’s interruption of my liver’s usual steady release of glycogen as it got busy metabolizing the alcohol is something I’ve watched many times before. I did take 4 units of Afrezza and 1 unit IM to correct at 4:00 a.m. to hold back the bounce excursion. It peaked at 167 mg/dl.
What could I have done better? I could have limited myself to one glass of wine. I could have had a bedtime snack but sometimes this pattern doesn’t happen and the pre-emptive snack drives me high. Isn’t diabetes lovely?
I am so glad I stumbled upon this website. It has taught me much! I just was diagnosed almost a year ago and started testing my blood a week ago Monday. My levels have been very good, the highest being 161, the lowest 101. It has been very confusing and the learning curve is High. I have a sister who has been a diabetic 1 for 40 years and she has given me suggestions, but when I question to get a broader understanding she gets mad and avoids the subject! She does not eat by portion control, as she eats 2 dinner plates of heaping salad and then eats 2 large pieces of pizza for lunch. I make the comment that I could never eat like that and that I would gain 5 lbs a day…but she also takes diet pills which cause diarrhea after every meal… I will bet her Dr does not know that. She gave me two boxes at Christmas and I took one and they are still in my cupboard.
That’s exactly what happens, and you’ve very nicely illustrated this by your bg curve @Terry4. Beer is even more interesting as it has more carbs - it would produce a dip first (slight in my case, for which I would not correct) followed by a rise (for which I would bolus when I see bg starting to move up). When taken by itself, beer is just about the only type of food I would bolus for after rather than before consumption. In general, any alcohol is much easier to deal with (and much tastier IMO) when taken in moderation and in combination with food. I see essentially no bg effects when having a glass of wine with a meal. It might even reduce the spike a bit, hard to tell.
I’m glad you found TuDiabetes and are finding it useful. It’s been a very helpful community for me.
Your sister seems sensitive about her diabetes and with your recent diagnosis she may feel threatened with your additional first hand knowledge. I would tread very lightly there and only offer help when requested. She has her own way of dealing with diabetes, especially after 40 years of living with it. That shouldn’t keep you from seeking your own path. Good luck!
I like this description of beer’s effect on your BGs. I rarely drink beer due the number of carbs but I’d certainly enjoy a pint of Guinness every now and then. I may try your technique.
Personally I have pre diabetes and reduced my carb intake by drinking red wine instead of dark beer. I also wrote about drinking for Diabetes Forecast. The short version is that moderate drinking 1-2 glasses of alcohol a day could have heart health benefits for people with type 2 diabetes. Less is know about type 1’s since the data comes from large population studies where you are more likely to find type 2’s Type 1’s have to about lows after drinking and are advised to drink with a meal.
I’m hoping to be celebrating the completion of a very very long (10 years almost to the day) work project when I get home later this month. I intend to celebrate with a very nice bottle of 2005 Bordeaux (left bank). I’m excited just looking forward to it.
I am Italian and as such I have enjoyed wine as a cultural part of my live. I make my own wine both red for me, and white for my wife. Cabernet and Sauvignon Blanc are my preferred juices, but I also use others.
I started making my own wine in 2002 right after I had my heart attach, and I did this because of all the reading and the “good” talk about one ounce of alcohol in the form of red wine being actually very good for cardio issues and without all the chemicals of the commercial wine.
I first got the approval of my cardiologist for this, but as a T1D ( since 1977) I had also get clearance from my Endo. There was a bit of a struggle with my Endo and not because he was opposing the idea of the wine but because at the time he was concerned about my ability to deal with the alcohol and its effects on my liver and my sugars. So we compromised and start a sort of study on myself where I slowly and gradually increased the amount of wine by taking notes of all its effects on me.
At the time I had no CGM so it had to be done with finger pricking ( that was my price to pay for the later reward). I soon learned how to properly manage the wine and how to use it with the type of foods in my meals. It was more an art then scienze, but all of those educated guesses gave me a reasonable control, I never got myself in trouble and this made my Endo happy too.
Today that I am using the CGM I can see clearly in my graphics what the affects of a glass of wine could be with a meal that has more fats and less carbs o viceversa. I have noticed also that the type of carbs make also a difference with the wine. So in my carbs counting and extended bolus settings I leave room for the wine “factor” and I compound it in the equation. I always make sure that I have a bit of mixed carbs to eat with my meals in order to take good care of the front part of my postprandial if I have wine, and I do the same with an accasional glass away from a meal Next I am going to learn how to make beer
Many cardiologists and other specialists might be concerned when someone with serious health conditions wants to start drinking alcohol on a regular basis. One of the main concerns is often the liver which is vulnerable to long term damage from alcohol and also is absolutely crucial for our metabolism.
It used to be that in order to find out how vulnerable a patient is to liver problems, a rather unpleasant biopsy of the liver was required. Well the good news is that is now history, hospitals have, or should have, a completely non invasive scanner - much like ultrasound - that allows all the testing to be done without needles. Your doctor could tell you more about that.
And my doctors do tell me! We do talk a lot with my doctors. Last time with my Endo and Cardiologist our topics were things like my A1c being at 6.4 with my SD below 40%,. We discuss my total cholesterol at 138, my HDL at 68 my trigliceride at 52 , and we did evaluate how to best keep my TC/HDL ratio at around 2. Other topics of our conversation are my power walking and running for least 3.5 miles every other day, and how I have being passing my stress tests with fling colors regularly, also often in our talks we agree on the fact that my 60 year old body (for which 39 were passed as a T1) is performing as good as that of a 40 year old, and I have not complications from Diabetes. Yes my doctors tell me stuff in fact I do not take nothing for granted and I do comunicate with my doctors a lot .
I think that there is a big difference between enjoying a "clean "glass of wine at the dinner table and go drinking at a bar which is something that I have never done. When I say “enjoying” I mean adding one extra little good reason to be wanting to live a good and healthy life, after all what good would it do to preserve our body if our life does not brings enjoyments?
I use to drink 1-2 glasses of Cabernet or Merlot several times a week. My bgs were OK but my urine albumin came back high so I stopped drinking at home. I still drink if we go out, very rarely.
yellow line = 140 mg/dl, red line = 65 mg/dl
