need help desperately

By Type1Tuckerrr Friday, December 11, 2009

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I'm currently a little out of it with low blood sugar. but i wanted to do this before it left my mind. i have been having SIGNIFICANT low blood sugars. they have been causing me to lose my mind b/c i've been waking up low and i feel like i'm in a sci-fi movie or something. i've been waking up completely out of it not knowing what day it is and being extremely incoherent. i've recently dropped my lantus dose by 5 unites and am wondering if i should drop it another 5 b/c these low blood sugars/confusion states are scaring me. please help.

tuckerrr

Comments (2) | Add comment

Ann Bartlett, Health Guide

1/ 1/10 2:51pm

Tucker,

A great way to see if your basal (background insulin) is the proper dosage is to do a basal check. To do a basal check you need to fast for several hours. I usually break mine into 6 hour windows. So from 6 am- noon, on another day I do 12pm -6pm and one another day I do 6 pm-midnight. And the night basal check I do from midnight to 6am. You can do it as a 24 hour fast, but if you have never done one before I would suggest breaking it up in chunks.

Keep your normal routines, but don't try to do any exercise or gym type stuff. If during this time you experience a low, stop and treat it and realize it means your background insulin is too high! Drop your basal rate a couple units at a time and retest a day or so later.

If the basal check works out and you don't have a low then you need to rethink your carb ratio, or make sure you are counting your carbs correctly.

Keep me posted and don't hesitate to email me directly!!

GingerVieira, Health Guide

1/ 1/10 4:31pm

Hey Tucker,

Alright, so we've gotta figure this out because having such scary lows so often is no way to enjoy life. And this is fixable, we just gotta figure out the right solution!

I'm Ginger, from HealthCentral's www.diabeteens.com. I'm 24 years old, living with diabetes for almost 11 years and am a record-setting powerlifter.

While your doctor is trying to be helpful, you can't rely on their one suggestion from that one appointment and not look further into your body's needs.

For starters, check out this article on "Titrating your insulin dose."

As an athlete, I changed my insulin doses whenever I change how much I'm eating, how much I'm exercising, if I've gained or lost weight. I make little adjustments. Over the course of one year, as I became more athletic, I dropped my Lantus dose from 35 units to 23 units because I was having too many lows.

This might be part of your problem.

Also, it sounds as though your insulin-to-carbohydrate ratio may be too high. What if you experimented with 1 : 20 ? Test often around that meal and see how it affects you.

This is what I call a "Diabetes Science Experiment."

Basically, what I'm suggesting is that you start adjusting things on your own, little changes at a time, and observe the results closely. For a couple of weeks, check your blood more often, count your carbs meticulously and be patient.

What do you think?

-Ginger

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