"Sugar surfing" at night

Type 1 & LADA
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Of course, the ultimate goal overnight is to get a flatline. But we all know that’s difficult to do (or at least it is for me!). The second-best thing is staying (mostly) in range by using carbs and boluses as-needed. I have a bad habit of sleeping through my CGM alarms, which can result in prolonged highs and lows. But when I do wake up promptly for them, it really pays off!

Last night I woke up to my CGM alarming both high and double up arrows at 2;00 AM. Since it had double up arrows, I bolused two units of insulin. This is also why I love the touch bolus button on my pump—no getting out of bed, sitting up, or looking at a screen to do this bolus. Then just after 6:00 AM the high alarm went off again (I was already awake due to a coughing fit, thanks allergies), so I bolused one unit. Today I’ll be raising my basal rates again (already did that yesterday as well), but in the meantime waking up and correcting highs before they got too high really helped me stay in range.

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The screenshot above also illustrates how rapid-acting I find Fiasp to be. I know that not everyone finds it acts really rapidly. But for me, if I can hit a high before it really gets started—I have my high alert set to 7.0 mmol/L or 126 mg/dl for that reason—I can get back into range within 30-45 minutes easily.

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That was a great post!

That’s pretty amazing. We brought some FIASP back from Canada last Christmas. We will try it as a correction tool to see how well it works for us.

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Here’s an example of last night, where I slept through the alarm until I corrected at around 6:00. Once I go high I stay high indefinitely until I correct, and I’ve spent entire nights high because of it, so waking up to alarms can make a huge difference…

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I switched back to Dexcom from the Libre recently because it’s so hard to stay in range at night without an alarm, and I had so many mornings where I’d wake up at 11 or 12 and know I could’ve corrected it if the alarm woke me. I’d like to find a way to avoid waking my girlfriend though. I thought a Pebble watch might do the trick but there are only 2 settings - 1 is too powerful and wakes both of us, and the other setting doesn’t wake me at all. I know most people want their spouses to wake up so they can assist them, but lows during the night (or any time) have never been dangerous for me for whatever reason - I only care about high blood sugars at night!

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