Hello and can I ask a question straight up?

[NicoleParticipant]

Hi all

stumbled on this forum and figured it would be good to join since i’m in a whole new world now that my son has been diagnosed T1 diabetic. Don’t think I’ll ever sleep properly again until his overnight wackiness settles down. Alas I digress…..

Can anyone answer this scenario which happened tonight and was driving me batty:

Son had dinner at 6pm given Lantus and Novorapid as per dosing advised by doctors. His reading before dosing was 5.2.

Ok so 7.51pm wanting him to go to bed , doctors advised minimum BGL of 7 required – his reading was 5.6.
gave him a muesli bar.
8.09pm reading was 6.4. So gave him 4 Jelly beans.
8.29pm his reading has now DROPPED to 6.3 so gave him 1/4 cup apple juice (since we are so close to Nirvana didn’t want to get carried away)
8.44pm his reading now back at 6.4 (whooppee with sarcasm). so gave him another 1/4 cup apple juice.
9.03pm his reading was 7.6 (yayy can FINALLY send him to bed safe in the knowledge (well not really cause of course I’m worried now) that he will remain at this level till morning).

I mean in total that’s equivalent to approximately 3 carbohydrate exchanges. Normally he’d go sky high without insulin to counter it. We’re only a month old in this journey so it’s all very new still.
any explanations would be appreciated. Thanks.

[redadareMember]

Hi Nicole. I’m a Type 2 so different ball game BUT I’m on Nova Rapid and Lantus as well. Levels, at times, leave me scratching my head.

 

I’ll get straight onto Helen, the Administrator of this site, as she is a Type 1 and exceedingly well qualified in the area of diabetes.

cheers

red

[Helen-EdwardsMember]

Hi and welcome

thanks for letting me know Red It is so hard when you first get diagnosed, or your child does, with diabetes. It is not a 1 + 1 = 2 scenario either and for parents can be exhausting and scary.

Ok so questions first – have you been advised to give a set dose no matter what the reading?

How old is he?

What did he have for dinner that night?

The Lantus does not play here, so it is just the Novorapid – what was the dinner time dose?

5.2 is excellent for a pre meal reading, but depending on what he had for dinner, the carbs from the meal may not have caught up with the novorapid and also he may have been on the way down to being a bit lower. Remember a BGL check is a moment in time and it may be you catch a 5.2 on the way down to a 3.5 for example. Also BGL monitors are guides and can be a mmol or two out either way, so he may have in fact been a little lower than 5.2 mmol.

No it also takes a bit of time for food to enter the blood stream and they have different time rates depending on both the amount of food and the glycemic index of the food. So the fact he was still only 5.6 mmol at 8 pm may have been related to any of the above factors – not enough carbs with the dinner, a lower reading than you thought or was on the way down when you checked pre dinner.

Was he particularly active at all that day? Because that can also play a part.

What was the muesli bar and how many carbs in it? These can be slow or fast GI depending on the type of museli bar, so a check basically 20 minutes after the fist reading at 7.50 pm, of 6.4 at 8.09 is probably pretty right for the museli bar – it may have risen more later. The fact that he was 6.3 15 minutes later is neither here nor there, as a machine can have an error margin and really 6.3 and 6.4 mmol is essentially the same reading. The 4 jelly beans and 1/4 cup apple juice would have only totalled around an exchange of carbs.

Are you counting carbs?

Given his 8.44pm reading was still steady at 6.4 it is still possible he was lower than you thought at the outset. The 7.6 reflects the jelly beans and half cup of apple juice in total – what was he the next morning?

Hope this helps and please ask as many questions as often as you like!

Helen

 

[CathyParticipant]

Hi Nicole

Firstly, sorry that you had to join our community but welcome – know that you are in safe hands.

Helen has answered this question perfectly, as always, so I won’t add and confuse you.

Just know that type 1 diabetes, at times, makes no sense. It doesn’t always play by the rules and it will leave you scratching your head. We are approaching my daughters 9 year mark with T1D and I have learned over the years to expect the unexpected.

Good luck with everything and, as Helen said, feel free to ask away.

Cath

 

[NicoleParticipant]

Hi and thanks for the reply. ahhh my brain is to scrambled to remember what he had that night for dinner.

I know I had the same problem again last night though. I dropped his lantus by one unit (down to 3) due to the fact that he had been running around all afternoon and gave him 1 unit less of novorapid with his dinner. (i do count carbs and he is 1 unit insulin for 1 carb exchange as a general rule). I put him to bed at around 7.30 and he was in the area of ‘fine’ somewhere around 7bgl but by 8.00pm he came out saying he was dizzy and had dropped to 2.3. So it read like this:

754pm 2.3 (gave 1/2 cup apple juice)
811pm 4.7 (gave another 1/2 cup apple juice plus one slice wholemeal bread)
828pm 5.5 (figured he could go to bed again and would check him a bit later)
8.50pm 3.1 (he came out saying he was hungry so gave him 6 jelly beans and a chewy muesli bar about 20gr carb consisting of oats,
yogurt and fruit)
Just after 9.30 pm he was up at 10.6 so obviously it all caught up and i put him to bed. I don’t have the book now but his 3am reading was just above 15 and this morning at 8am he was around 11.

so this morning i only dosed him for the carbs 1.5 exchanges and 1.5 units of insulin. I didn’t give him the correction dose (of 1) because I thought he might go low again and as first day back at school didn’t want that worry.

Thing is I’m following the procedure the doctors gave me about giving 1 quick acting carb (juice etc), checking after 15 mins and then giving 1 longer acting carb. Incidentally I rang the doctor and he c0uldnt understand why it was happening either – he said if my son got sick of eating to raise his sugar levels to give him glucagon injection. (didn’t get to that thankfully) Obviously my son just wants to be a weird diabetic ! It’s geting to be a pain though when I want to go to bed and can’t because I’m trying to get Jackson right. (He is 7 years old). Also crazy for him to finally be going to bed at 10pm when he has school the next day…… Needless to say we only just made it. I have a younger daughter also and am single parent so it certainly gets interesting!

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