I imagine the doctor’s thinking is - it’s safer to say “no alcohol” than it is to give a green light and tell a person they can drink. If you are new to hypo’s, alcohol can make it harder to figure out that you are low.
Eventually though, after you get a handle on everything, you can drink again.
What is your diet like after 5 pm? I tend to have a certain amount of routine with it…also, in general, I have found wine to work really well with blood sugars although I’m sure there are some wines that raise the number
Others might disagree, but I’ve found that being hungry tends to make my numbers go a bit haywire and my stomach seems empty after around 3 hours, I also like to have a small protein snack next to me if I wake up during the night, and water for hydration
I’m a little biased on basal dosing, but in my lantus days, 18.5-19 before bed was absolutely perfect, I tried a number of different strategies to split it, but those didn’t work as well
So I did have a few 5 oz glasses of Fitvine Pinot Grigio before I saw these comments lol whoops! However I teetered between 90-95 the whole time, and after dinner (which was still my best low-carbs decision as I am attempting to split my Lantus dose tonight) was a grilled chicken salad with Parmesan cheese, cucumbers, avocado, and fat free Italian dressing my BG is resting around 122 right now (90 mins post-prandial).
I just lowered my basal to 18u last night and am wondering if I should hold off on the split dose and see how I fair on day 2 18u or if I should take the suggestion to split the dose tonight. What do you guys think? @Eric made me a really fancy graph and everything, so I’d like to put his math to use… just want to make sure I’m not jumping the gun. I’m just second guessing everything at this point lol.
Mark, I eat pretty late between the hours of 6-7:30,8pm which is probably bad lol. But it’s usually low carb meals. Salads, burger wrapped with lettuce instead of a bun, tilapia salad, salmon with broccoli. I typically do not snack after dinner being I eat that late and then I fingerstick and inject basal at 10-10:15 before bed. If I do snack it’s around 4:30-5 when I get home from work, and I really like the cheese snacks they are making these days. There’s one pouch I pick up at rite-aid called “oh my Gouda” and it really is very Gouda
In general I would advise a change to not be done with any unknown wildcards, like the wine or anything else. But since you are reducing insulin and not increasing it, I think you are pretty safe with the split tonight.
If you were increasing basal, then I would be more concerned if you had a bunch of other things going on, like you drank a bunch and exercised a bunch, etc.
But with a decrease, the worst thing that might happen is you run a little higher tonight.
Since this is the first split, the true test will be tomorrow night, after you have also taken the morning half. Tomorrow night is where everything is in-sync and you can start to get an idea how it will work for you.
Tonight you just muddle through it the best you can. Drink a lot of water in case you are running high.
Copy that. So far, so good. I’m teetering in the low 150s, so I’m not too worried about how tonight will go. Praying I taper down safe with the 9u tonight. Feeling okay, will definitely keep you updated.
@Necroplasm FWIW, booze has a double whammy effect. It can lower your bg temporarily until your liver can process it, then the helpful old liver dumps all that glucose back in your system. There are tricks to dosing if you are drinking, but if you are drinking heavily your bg may drop precipitously low.
Good luck with the Lantus split. IMHO, it is most likely a better option for you.
Thanks LADA buddy. so far having a better morning. Dropped to 64 around 6:30 when I was getting up to start my day, right now resting at 96. Hoping to not have issues because I only got 5 1/2 hours of sleep but we’ll see. I’m going to try not to worry about the cortisol rising and just keep myself as relaxed as possible. So far this is the first morning I haven’t been racing against BG drops.
We were never able to get my daughter’s blood sugar stable on long-acting insulin. It became easier when she switched to a pump about 6 months after diagnosis, which allows for a very customized basal schedule. Even now, we still battle night time lows and highs. But it has improved a lot. Hang in there.
Sorry to hear that! Hopefully things get better for your daughter and she has less lows!
So far I have stayed pretty leveled today as I have began the transition into splitting my dose. Still not ideal, this morning right before my breakfast I had began dropping a bit low, but it only made it down to 64 before I was able to control the low from causing me grief. I think the 9u at night and again at 8am might hold me for now.
I know neither is optimal, but at this point I think I’d rather be a bit high than waaay too low.
ISF is a huge factor to have correct while looping - especially with our kiddos smaller bodies. It’s the first thing i tweak when i see a pattern and only one time range at a time and only very slight changes. Continuous testing and tweaking.
Interesting choice of the basal insulin. Lantus is a very long lasting insulin. As a result it does not have a linear dose of insulin. I use two shots, 2U each, of a shorter lasting insulin, NPH. I space these 12 hours apart. I use a very small dose, 3U, of fast acting insulin, Humalog, for my bolas before each meal. Of course I use my Dexcom G6 and Smart Watch to monitor my levels at all times. At night the watch relays all data to a smartphone for any warning or projected warnings.
Just goes to show you that diabetics are amazing at finding what works for them, which I think is why doctors pull their hair out when they run into diabetics that have tried out for themselves what works rather than listen to the sage advice the doctors provide without additional testing.
It did! It’s still tapering down on it’s own at night, but it’s slow in its progression into the morning. I do believe that you were right when you stated I’ll probably have to continue to lower it so that I may make room for bolusing in the future, there are still times throughout the day that I have a drop - but it’s at a very slow rate and usually hangs in balance around the 90-100mg/dl mark until I eat something.
I’ve noticed my BG levels post-prandial hang out at a raised number for 3-4 hours now… instead of trending down quick 2 hours post-prandial. Perhaps this is where my basal should stay for now. At any rate, the split dose isn’t spiking me or bringing me too low. So I’ll keep injecting the 9u at 10pm and 8am unless I see less safe numbers happening again.