Hi from Grammy Byer

[GrammyByer]

Hi. I have been living with type 1 diabetes for the past 36 years. Over this span of time I have experienced great improvements in the control of my disease from having to boil my insulin syringes and needles to now wearing a pump. I work hard at maintaining good control and my A1C's are generally under 6.5. However, I am experiencing neuropathy in my feet and at the moment I have my right leg in a cast because of some stress fractures in the foot. I am also having some difficulty with very low glucose readings, mostly in the night. I am unable anymore to feel a low. Two nights ago, my husband had to test my blood (it was 28) and force me to drink juice to bring me around. I had no recollection of the episode, no memory of what happened at all. This is very scarey to me. And what always happens afterwards is that my glucose goes up to 200 or more. I am trying to get my insurance company to pay for a Real Time CGM Metronic mini-med insulin pump to help deal with this situation. Does anyone else have these problems?

[ProudNanaof5]

Welcome Grammy..:wavey: Glad you joined our family. I don't wear a pump so can't comment on that. But there are lots of family members that do and I'm sure they will comment... Good Luck...

[BriOnH]

Welcome GB. I didn't realize I just missed the glass syringe days. Glad I did! Try to keep your leg circulation going. The amputation that I have seen documented (yes I know a pop of 1 is statistically insignificant, but relative to me it was very significant) were the diabetic was bid ridden and couldn't keep circulation up.

Glad you made it here! Always good seeing another diabetic long timer.

[kgm0612]

Welcome to this great forum, Grammy. Glad to have you with us!

I'm a Mini Med 515 pumper. I'm holding off on the 522 with it's continuous monitoring system until the insurance companies decide to start paying for it. I'm sure by that time, a "new & improved" system will be out on the market. LOL

Karen

[MJM]

Hi Grammy. Welcome to the Forum. I've had similar probs to you. One thing to remember is that, even though you have become hypo unaware, if you can keep the blood sugars up for any length of time the awareness should come back. Things to remember; you will nearly always get a kick-back after a low which will result in a high. I think most people have hypos at night. How I deal with them is this: I tested every hour during the night over a week and discovered that my blood sugars started to reduce from about 9pm and continued until 5am. Then the Dawn Phenomea materialised from 5am to 8am. Now you need to test this yourself as what's appropriate for me would not necessarily be right for you. I reduce basals from 9pm until 5am and then increase basal from 5am to 8am. How much you have to reduce or increase will have to be worked out by you.It now works well for me but it took some time to get it right. So start testing and you can change your basals to whatever you feel is right for you. Now with the CGMS Medtronic that will be done for you but you can do it without that. One thing you could do also is take something to eat before bedtime and this should help. It's a matter of trial and error until you get the CGMS Medtronic, so start testing now.

[xMenace]

Hey granny,

The pump has helped me with night time lows, but there's an education curve: you have to take control of everything yourself to reach ultimate stability. Failing getting a pump, I'd explore splitting your basals (morn and night) and doing some basal profiling. Not only can this reduce the amount of overnight insulin in you but can address that dawn phenomenon which you have but failed to mention.

And ditto on the activity thing.