In the past three nights, I've seen the same diabetes pattern. At 10:30pm, I suddenly drop. All three times have been a little over an hour after a meal and roughly seven hours after my afternoon Lantus injection. I stay low for a few hours and after several treatments, I pop up to the 140 range (or the 200s like last night).
I'm extremely frustrated by this. The lows are definitely taking their toll on my body, as usual. My weight is up a few pounds. And I'm generally just feeling weak and out of sorts. Not the fatigue of the weeks of highs, but a general low energy that results in me eating just to feel a little better. And lots of cravings for sugar mixed in there.
The main problem that I'm seeing here is my schedule. The mix of an early afternoon Lantus shot with the large boluses at dinner time have to be causing these annoying lows. Although I'm still unsure why they are happening now after several days of extra insulin and even now that I've lowered my total insulin doses.
With school starting tomorrow, I'm a little scared what might happen. I wish that I could move the Lantus dose up, but the problem is that my daily schedule isn't consistent. Tuesdays, I get to sleep in late. While Wednesdays, I'm in class from early morning to late afternoon. There is no good time to take a large Lantus shot. Too much going on, too much that gets in the way and makes me forget.
Right now, I'm taking it sometime between 1:30pm and 3pm...depending on where I get caught up (I've been driving a lot in the mid afternoons for long distances, making these shots a real pain). Then my next dose is around midnight. I am not a morning person so I'm wary of moving it earlier in the morning. When I get to sleep in, I do. And when I don't, I'm usually sleeping in anyway making me late for wherever I'm headed.
None of that is conducive to proper Lantus schedules, which means that taking my Lantus injection at its current time means running two peaks smack into the middle of each other.
If only the pump worked for me. If only I was open to the pump. If only diabetes was a little simpler.
For right now, I'm leaving my Lantus at 1:30pm. We'll see how school works out with it. Maybe I can use a larger carb ratio when I'm having a late dinner. Although I've already moved it up twice and it hasn't seemed to do much.
I'm scared that I'm going to start seeing horrible highs again now that I've lowered my insulin so much. I'm scared that my schedule, my college career will get too much in the way. I'm scared that I can't get perfect control until I'm in a stable job. Mostly, I'm scared that the overwhelming emotion of this disease is going to take me over and I'm going to lose all control.
Hi Lindsey,
From my personal examples I can share the following. Sometimes the "carbs" for the meal do not match the speed at which they hit the blood stream. Some will enter very quickly and raise blood sugar and some will have a major delay with no glucose entering the blood stream, but!!! insulin going to work to lower blood glucose. The rise in glucose transport will come much later and result in a later high reading. So, the question is what is an example. My example is something high in sugar and carbs with a large amount of fat and oil can do this trick. Hope this helps and as always have a great day.
Dan
I seem to have the same problem, im currently on lantus also and my sugars yoyo alot. I also
feel the fatigue and low energy which I am so tired of. I'm a very go go type of person and this has put a damper on my life as a whole. I'm currently being weaned off lantus and trying some oral meds. Metformin didn't work for me it gave me such heartburn and pain in my chest it put me down for 2 weeks and now i am being switched to another oral med, will post later if it seems to work.
you need a pump! From what I've heard Lantus i susually bedtime or split between bed and AM so the afternoon thing is what concerns me too. I started pumping in college (after 10 yrs MDI) for the very reason of varied schedules day to day and I haven't gone back 10 yrs later. My D son is on MDI still and it is miserable to follow that schedule of his.