Weird basal behavior

[corwin]

I just got back from a week vacation in London. When I was there I noticed a weird behavior of my BG levels when I don't eat or use rapid insulin. I take my lantus before I go to bed and I was always waking up in the range of 75-100. The past few days it seemed like I keep going low during the day, it wasn't too bad and I always cought it above 65 but it seems like it goes down when I don't do anything. I tried lowering my lantus by 2 units but then I woke up 120-130 so now I raised it 1 unit. It's been a very irregular and out of the ordinary week for me so I won't make any major adjustment to my doses based on this week alone. However I do want to know if it's possible that a basal that is perfect for night time can be too high for the day? If that is the case is there any way to deal with it other then having to eat to compensate couple of times a day?

Thanks,

Corwin.

[DeusXM]

Your basal needs vary throughout the day - a lot of people have liver dumps first thing in the morning which means they generally need more insulin.

Bear in mind though that changes to basal insulin usually take anout 3 days before you can really start measuring the impact, and also an adjustment of 1u usually has very little effect anyway. You sure you just haven't done something different that resulted in waking up with higher bg (illness, less exercise, slightly more food)?

If you really find that you need less insulin during the day than at night, you might want to split your Lantus dose and inject every 12 hours, rather than every 24. Say, 60% of your total dose at 10pm, 40% at 10am. Alternately, you can just a smaller amount of Lantus full stop and take 1-2u of your bolus insulin before going to bed. Or cut out your evening snack.

Best advice I can give you is that you can't treat T1 with diet - I know that sounds obvious so let me explain. If there's a problem with your control, don't eat more or eat less - adjust your insulin instead.

[stella117]

If you were on vacation chances are you were out and about running around which has glucose lowering effects. If it's not your normal routine, I wouldn't worry about it as a change in your basal's behavior. As Deus pointed out, basal needs fluctuate and your vacation activity probably caused a lower need.

[Shotokan]

While you were in London the time changed right away, but your body was probably slower to change. Maybe you got your nights and days mixed up from your body's perspective.

[corwin]

Thanks for the advice guys. Now that I'm back to my normal work schedule everything seem to go back to the way it was. I had no idea that such small changes as 2 hours time zone and more time walking can cause such big changes. I'm sure glad I tested very often so I wasn't too high or too low for more then an hour or 2.

Deus: The advice to adjust insulin and not food is great, it's also my endo's approach and I try to adopt it as well. I know many will disagree here in the forum but that's how I try to live my life.

stella and shotokan: You are both right, seem like the vacation activity and changes effected me more then I thought.