[6angels]

Hello everyone. How is everyone doing?

I am still struggling with my levels. My Dr and I both are getting so frustrated. It seems for whatever reasson my body does not like insulin.

I am having to take a large amount to try to get a good range and then I don't stay low long.

I am getting a bit frustrated b/c it seems no matter what I eat I go high.I can FEEEEEL myself going high.

I have made video diary's of what I am eatting and the Dr and I donot understand why I can not stay lower.

I get hot flahes really bad when I start going really high. the problem is I am also going threw the woman change ( had lady parts removed last year and can't take hormones due to health issues) so at times it is hard for me to tell if it is a hot flash because I am high or the change.


I keep gaining weight!! My Dr says sometime this just happens but OMG like 40 plus pounds this year. I LOOK HORRIABLE and FEEL Horriable . My husband and I did join a gym then my feet started going numb!!!


So now we are walking 2 miles everynight and have been for a month or so but still gaining. I can feel tightness in my skin. THIS SUCKS.

I am going to try the pump after I get back off Vacation and we save the money for this. ( the co pay is soooooooooooooo high!) Maybe this will help with my levels? Maybe with the weight gain! I dont know.


I know I am all over the place with this post . I just needed to vent. yell and scream! My Dr said I may be insulin resistant? Idk but eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek this is horriable. I am having to take soooooo many shots a day. We have tried other kinds of insulin ect it just does not seem to be keeping it low enough.


I was a size 12/13 at the start of the year. I am a 18!! I can not fit anything any more. This is so **** depressing. I am sure you hear people gripe all the time but I really AM watching my carbs and fat intake. ugh!

4th of july I had ONE slice pf pizza . I dont know why I thought I could do that. ugh I went up to 450!!

OK I am going to shut up now. I hope everyone is having a good summer and doing ok.

[EazyE77]

I'm sorry to hear about all the troubles you're having lately with your D. Insulin Resistance is the first thing that comes to mind with the information you typed out. I'm not a pumper myself but I've heard the stories of how great the pump is so in a chance to hopefully get your body to accept the insulin through your trials, the pump may be of great help to eliminate all those shots per day you take. Just keep looking in to the information on them, asking about them here and consulting your Dr about it in your quest to hopefully gain control of your D. As for the weight, I'll be completely honest, I'm unsure on that one it could be a result of several things just keep looking and working with your Dr.

Also as I can speak from experience on this next part, feel free to let out your emotions any way you can and don't beat yourself up emotionally because keeping the emotions inside will naturally just make things worse and beating yourself up emotionally won't do any good at all. I wish you the best of luck and wish you a speedy road to control over your D.

[6angels]

Originally Posted by EazyE77

I'm sorry to hear about all the troubles you're having lately with your D. Insulin Resistance is the first thing that comes to mind with the information you typed out. I'm not a pumper myself but I've heard the stories of how great the pump is so in a chance to hopefully get your body to accept the insulin through your trials, the pump may be of great help to eliminate all those shots per day you take. Just keep looking in to the information on them, asking about them here and consulting your Dr about it in your quest to hopefully gain control of your D. As for the weight, I'll be completely honest, I'm unsure on that one it could be a result of several things just keep looking and working with your Dr.

Also as I can speak from experience on this next part, feel free to let out your emotions any way you can and don't beat yourself up emotionally because keeping the emotions inside will naturally just make things worse and beating yourself up emotionally won't do any good at all. I wish you the best of luck and wish you a speedy road to control over your D.

Thank you it is just so frustrating. AS soon as I think I am n control BOOM! I have one or two good days and then it goes down hill. Man I feel so bad when I am high. I have never been a Soda Drinker but I did drank one last week and WOW . I learned my leasson!

I have tried a lot of locations for the shots ( belly arms legs ect) I still bruise and seem to swell up right after a shot. Sometimes it burns even if it goes in very slowly.

thank you for letting me vent. We leave for vacation in 14 or so days and I am terrfied of trying to eat while on vacation!

[Subby]

Yes, these are things we can relate to for sure, rest assured there will be many people nodding their head sympathetically with your issues.

I'd have to agree with the idea that you might be insulin resistant. I've had problems with going high after meals for years, and if it doesn't stay high, it goes into a serious hypo later. It suggests your insulin action is taking too long to kick in for the timing of your meal carbs.

I know you need to take stock, have your holiday, relax about things, etc. If you wanted to do something that may help quite easily right now, it would be to try looking at significant pre-bolusing before a meal. This will give your insulin a chance to "kick in" before the carbs send you out of range and into more resistance. Two things about this: 1. to be safe you need to test a lot, eg every half hour in the period between bolus and food, and 2. It's a pain in the backside to time things like this! But may be worthwhile in the meantime, for a bit more stability now.

To give you an example I currently pre-bolus by up to 1 hour, and that's after a lot of changing factors and improvement on needing up to 2 hours. The only way to find out if you need this kind of pre-bolusing now is to try it and test to watch what your BG do. When things are a bit tricky I basically take my bolus, then test every 20 or 30 min and don't eat until I see a little downward movement, at least, signifying the insulin is doing it's thing.

Carb control could be another useful thing to take the pressure off your boluses: don't have to take it to extremes, just being extra aware and cutting out that extra bit of bread or whatever.

I know you werent' really posting for all these practical suggestions but I just like to throw them out if they might be some use sometime. Other things you mention, like problems with injections and sites, and the obvious will to get to a better place, suggests the pump could be a real change for the better for you.

Take it easy, enjoy your vacation.

[DCaplinger]

Hello trinasangels. I would agree that it sounds like you are having problems with resistance. I suffer from that too. I've heard it refered to as 'double diabetes', because we suffer from type 1 and the resistance of type 2.

BTW, I LOVE your signature. That's the funniest thing I've read in a while. Hehehe.

Regards,

[shiftzor]

Are you sure you are type 1? Not a type 2 or LADA/T1.5? Have you tried something like metaformin, might be worth suggesting to your doctor. Switching simple carbs for complex carbs such as brown bread, brown pasta and brown rice would help you. I would eat low carb until you can sort this out, such as 150g of carbs a day or less. Do you have an I:C? That would be a good indicator as to how insulin resistant you are. Sit down and write down everything you eat with pre-meal and post meal bg checks. Start looking for patterns, be methodical and work through it. Drawing graphs can help you see these patterns y axis would be bg and the x axis would be time of the day. Draw two lines for a lower and upper bound bg ranges. Doing this for a couple of days or a week may help you figuring it out. If it’s just poor absorption, an example of this might be that you go very high at 1 hour into a meal and then 3 hours later you return to normal. Testing 1,2.5,4,6 hours after you start eating will help you to nail down exactly what is happening. See the example created by winglucofacts, although you could do it hourly with carbs eaten:

[LancetChick]

Well yeah, it could be resistance, or it could be...... REBOUNDING! Are you aware that the BG levels at which the body starts pumping glucagon run the gamut from zero (like me..... I don't seem to make glucagon, and am totally unprotected in the event of a serious low) all the way to 70 or possibly even higher. "Easy" rebounders typically get to the point where they are taking massive doses of insulin, see constantly high blood sugars with totally inexplicable lows coming out of nowhere, and gain weight. In such cases, these people really only need a small fraction of the insulin they are taking. If you're taking only 16u of long-acting insulin a day, then this doesn't apply to you, but if you're taking 50u, then give it some serious consideration..... here you can find a basal dose wizard that will give you a rough estimate of how much basal insulin you should be taking based on a questionnaire you take. Basal insulin is the most important dose to get right since bolus and correction doses won't be accurate unless your basal dose is correct. I hope you get this puzzle solved!

[DCaplinger]

Originally Posted by shiftzor

Are you sure you are type 1? Not a type 2 or LADA/T1.5?

Type 1.5 is Type 1, the patient is just a lot older at diagnosis because of the delayed onset of symptoms. The treatment is typically the same for T1 and T1.5, however most T1.5's have some indigenous insulin production for a while, so they may not need to be put on insulin immediately, and can possibly be treated with drugs like metformin for a while. It's just a matter of time though, because it's still an auto-immune disease. The body will kill the beta cells, just as it does in childhood for most T1's.

Both T1 and T1.5 can suffer from the insulin resistance that comes with T2. That mostly has to do with weight gain. The heavier we are, the more resistant we tend to be. Some of it has to do with genetics as well, however I'd be willing to bet that if I were to drop about 40 pounds, my resistance would diminish, if not disappear entirely.

Regards,

[Subby]

Some good info being given here.

Originally Posted by LancetChick

Well yeah, it could be resistance, or it could be...... REBOUNDING! <snip> If you're taking only 16u of long-acting insulin a day, then this doesn't apply to you, but if you're taking 50u, then give it some serious consideration.....

Good point about the rebounding. It certainly was a large element for instability for years for me, especially in MDI. (still causes trouble, I would be right at the top of the range for liver dumps). I wonder if easy rebounding and IR often occur together. Does for me.

I just wanted to point out that those dosage numbers you put in are very dubious in themselves, as to whether they indicate the wrong doses. Me now: I'm on 47u basal, which is appropriate on a good control day. I have a TDD of 90 - 110. I am only slightly over optimum weight, reasonably fit, eat moderate carbs, and going by usual TDD calculators I should be on about 45 TDD. But there you have it.

Don't you just LOVE how everything is variable, and cause-effect so often hidden and confused, in diabetes. It's such a fun disease

Originally Posted by trinasangels

My husband and I did join a gym then my feet started going numb!!!

You know it's quite possible this was a side effect of your feet feeling and even starting to repair low-end neuropathic damage to your extremities. Basically with improved blood flow your damaged nerves are re-utilised and re-awakened. And it seems the process is a bit traumatic for them. It's not fun at all, but with moderate exercise and better control this is a necessary process to go through to keep healthy feet.

When I started exercising again way-back-when, it was a good 6 months before numbness, tingling, pins and needles, went away. By that stage my nerves had repaired and a good lot of feeling had returned.

I'd recommend returning to the gym and putting up with a little discomfort, it's well well worth it. Just dealing with the side effects as they occur is the issue, remembering it SHOULD improve, slowly. And of course not pushing it too much, nice and steady is good. Any really bad pains and get to the dr pronto.

[shiftzor]

Originally Posted by DCaplinger

Type 1.5 is Type 1, the patient is just a lot older at diagnosis because of the delayed onset of symptoms. The treatment is typically the same for T1 and T1.5, however most T1.5's have some indigenous insulin production for a while, so they may not need to be put on insulin immediately, and can possibly be treated with drugs like metformin for a while. It's just a matter of time though, because it's still an auto-immune disease. The body will kill the beta cells, just as it does in childhood for most T1's.

Both T1 and T1.5 can suffer from the insulin resistance that comes with T2. That mostly has to do with weight gain. The heavier we are, the more resistant we tend to be. Some of it has to do with genetics as well, however I'd be willing to bet that if I were to drop about 40 pounds, my resistance would diminish, if not disappear entirely.

Regards,

It wouldn't surprise me if there are younger type 1.5s about. If she is producing insulin then it may be part of the bigger issue here, a correct diagnoses is important in trying to tackle the disease. I know a type 1.5/LADA wouldn't typically have insulin resistance but there are exceptions to every rule. Not everyone fits into these type categories perfectly.

[6angels]

I am type 1. I have been a diabetic my whole life. Unfortunally due to my past childhood ( which i will not get into) I couldnt always take meds and as a young adult I put my issues off to care for my children . Then I got really sick and was forced on shots. I also asked the Dr if I was a type 2 and after test and her looking at my past records. She says no I am a type 1 ( i also had a 2nd opnion that says same) Either way I am diabetic and need to get it under control .

I am eatting low carb but I will be trying to go to I guess a no carb diet. I am taking right over 50 units of lantus a day then fast acting depending on what I am eatting.

I can not even eat a snack without taking a shot. When I was small I would live off lettuce b/.c it woud not make me feel as sick as if I ate a "normal" meal. I think i will be going back to that for snacks LOL until this is controled better.

Thank you everyone for the nice replies I will be looking at the links and talking to the Dr again when i get back off vacation.

[Lizzie G]

i read this thing one time about a lady who was allergic to synthetic insulins and her BG went all over the place as a result. she made a switch to bovine and all of a sudden things were easier to manage. I know the animal insulins are not always readily available these days but maybe it would be an idea to try something different to what you are taking now as a start? the weight gain SUCKS but dont give up on the good habits, keep low on the carbs and hopefully at some point your hard work will have some more visible results. have a good vacation and hope you feel better soon x

[ant hill]

Hello trina, I see that you're not at all happy and not getting the control that you want. I use levermir and I get to use 45U in 12 hour sessions and I use at least 30U of novorapid before a meal and I am fairly heavy.

I am eatting low carb but I will be trying to go to I guess a no carb diet. I am taking right over 50 units of lantus a day then fast acting depending on what I am eatting.

Are you just taking 50U in one shot?

[reedmaan]

Well i just had an idea coming to mind:

You say that you shoot 50 units in one go, and that you get allergy like reactions when you inject. I would just suggest you to divide the injection in say 5 times 10 units to different parts of the body. It's more injections but probably your body's reaction will not be so heavy.

I am following the techniques of Dr. Bernstein, who also recommend a low-carb diet. If you didn't read his books, i would strongly advise you to. His writing are as inspiring as they are useful

(I didn't read all posts in the thread, so maybe i am repeating something or stating the obvious..)

Good luck!

Jakob

[ant hill]

I would just suggest you to divide the injection in say 5 times 10 units to different parts of the body. It's more injections but probably your body's reaction will not be so heavy.

What a good idea Reedmaan!, Change the injection site like somewhare in your touche. Sorry if I offended you.