Can anyone help??

[Pitzi]

Ok, posted my long history here: http://www.diabetesforums.com/showthread.php?t=5317
So I wont give you all the details again, but I want to know something.

Sometimes, I test myself a couple of hours after a meal, and I find a lowish glucose level (say 3.1) so i have lets give an example, a banana.
In some cases, the banana will hardly get it up, so I have to eat some more.

On other occasions, with exactly the same reading, I eat the very same banana and after an hour its at 8 or 10.

What causes this? the reading is the same, the amount of food is the same, the food is the same. Why?

[duck]

There are always extraneous factors to consider: Was there any exercise involved, was it hot/cold, were you stressed, etc. Personally, I do not use fruit when I am low because I have found that some fruits (ie, bananas) do not give me consistently same amounts of carbs. I don't know if it has to do with the time of year they are picked, where they are grown, but it seems to be a glass of coca cola is always consistenly sugary.

[Pitzi]

Thanks for the feedback.
To answer some of your points.
1) I rather use fruit as I have to take the enzyme suplement with any other foods
2) i cannot drink most soft drinks as they contain traces of gluten, and I am intolerant.

Heck, my life is complicated sometimes :(

[CarlyesHope]

How about Fruit juices, they are consistant and sugary - make sure you drink the same amount.

[Pitzi]

I actually enjoying getting something solid in my stomach between meals ;)

[MarkMunday]

Gerardo,

I read your story in the other thread. And it sounds very harrowing! Congrats on dealing with the challenge in such difficult circumstances. I used to live in Johanesburg (We are now in Auckland) and if you need to find a good endo, go and see Larry Distiller. He runs the Centre for Diabetes and Endocrinology in Houghton. And he is a legend!

As far as the unexplained sugar level fluctuations go, figuring out the cause-and-effect relationships can be difficult. Especially as you have other complicating problems. And I would suggest that the first step is to use the same muti every time you treat a hypo.

The problem with treating hypos with food is that you can never be sure of how many grams of carbohydrate you are getting and how long it will take to raise your blood sugar. So learning from experience can be difficult. For most people, this doesn't matter. But, if you are trying to figure out confusing results, it makes a big difference.

The best way to treat hypos is with glucose tablets. They are always the same size. And they always act with the same speed. If, in spite of using glucose tablets to treat hypos, you still get inconsistent results you can be sure that another variable must be involved. For many years I used Huletts sugar sachets. They are also consistent in magnitude and speed of action.

At least some of the volatility in your blood sugars is probably due to to the peaking of your insulin. So you may want to consider switching from Humulin I to Lantus. Lantus has a much flatter action profile than NPH. And I found my control improved enormously after switching. Although I still inject a few units of NPH at bedtime to counteract the dawn phenomenon.

Cheers,

Mark;)

[Belinda]

okay here is the take on bananas....for me anyways.
The greener they are the less they bring up BS....for example same bunch of bananas eat one on Monday...20 carbs bolus 1.0 unit. Same bunch of bananas eat one on Friday.....20 carbs must bolus 1.5 to cover. Now my theory on this stems from a nutrition class back in college.....the brown spots on bananas are sugar spots...so the more spots the sweeter the fruit. Notice the riper the banana the sweeter it is :thumbsup: Why I remember this I do not know.... :whistling

[Erin]

Is the food you eat at the meal and the insulin you take at that meal the same?

The reason I ask is because at a relatively low number that's not too low, I sometimes wait a bit to see which direction my sugar level is moving in. If i ate food and took insulin a little while before it is possible that i could still be comming down from the insulin, or the insulin could have worked a bit faster than the food hit my system, and I could be on my way up.

The differences in your results could have less to do with what you are using to treat the low and more to do with what occured before to cause it.

[Pitzi]

Thanks for all the replies!
let me answer one by one :)

MarkMunday, I have heard about Distiller. When I first had problems I tried to get an appointment to see him, but he is booked for like 6 months in advance and his office just forwards you to a nurse at the clinic, which is pretty useless. he only sees patients with serious complications.

Belinda, I also try to eat the greener Banana's as they give better results with less chances of my sugar levels bouncing up.

Erin, you have some very valid points there. Thanks a lot :)