Wow, we are very similar. I also have allergic issues with infusion sets (and problems with severe allergies in general). I can’t use plastic cannulas at all due to the reactions “shutting down” the site and causing my blood sugar to skyrocket. I’ve had much better luck with metal sets, but I do still react to them somewhat.
It’s interesting that we are both having problems with highs in the evening and sustained lows in the early morning. Have you been taking your Tresiba at night? I think tonight I may try splitting mine into evening and morning doses and see if that helps.
@MickiB, welcome to the forum, really glad you found us!
Changing regimens, particularly to a 2-day insulin such as Tresiba, is such a hard process! We are also wanting to try it (from the pump), but are waiting for the end of swimming season to do so.
You may want to introduce yourself on the Welcome thread!
Thank you! I was excited to find this site. I briefly tried metal infusion sites but seemed to react to those as well. I even went to an allergy specialist and had patch testing with the site adhesive, insulin, plastic and metal canulas. Showed nothing. However these were taped to my skin and not inserted. I’ve also tried angled sets, barriers, and Flonase. Sometimes I can make it three days with a site, other times it was getting funky after 24 hours and resulting in high BGs. I too have other allergies. I have been taking my Tresiba at night. I will be curious if splitting the dose helps you. I’m planning on lowering my dose tonight but know that I may not experience the full results for a few days. I have been eating low carb too (expect for the five thousand grams of carb I had to treat with last night)!
Oh, yeah. I’ve given up on sites lasting three days. I count two days as a success. One day is not unusual. When I’m really reactive, I have to change sites every twelve hours (in this case, with the metal sets I usually just re-use the same set in a new location). I also react to the adhesives on the contact detach sets slight, and can’t use Skin Tac or Tegaderm due to reactions. Fortunately, I don’t react to the Dexcom sensor or adhesive much at all.
I know what that’s like. The week of Christmas I went through a tub and a half of glucose tablets, plus ate many other carbs! Typically I try to stick with around 30 grams of carbs a day, but I’ve been less strict over the holidays.
I think my plan is that I’m going to reduce my Tresiba dose further, to 20 units. Given that I’ve still been dropping overnight and have had two lows in the past 24 hours (after having none for a week or so), and that the highs earlier in the night may well be due to food, I’m going to try reducing the basal and also splitting it into two injections. So tonight I’ll take 10 units and tomorrow morning I’ll take 10 units.
Hopefully that will offer more stability to my blood sugars. My standard deviation for the past week has been 5.1 mmol/L (92 mg/dl), which is higher than I think I’ve ever seen. I’m still planning to go until the end of this first week of work, but if at that point I’m still trying to find basic overnight stability, I’ll probably call it off. At that point I’ll have given this experiment a month, which I think should be enough time to have found a baseline dose if this regimen were going to work for me long-term…
I’ve been running lower today - had two lows this afternoon, in addition to the one last night. I also didn’t spike horribly at dinner (I got to 13.3 mmol/L but then came down). I’m flatlining at 6.1 mmol/L at the moment. If this continues until bedtime, which I see no reason why it shouldn’t, then I should get a perfect night to test.
I took 10 units Tresiba tonight and will take another 10 units in the morning tomorrow, and continue doing twice-daily injections from there.
Dramatic, dramatic difference! Night and day (no pun intended).
According to my meter, I went to bed at 6.1 mmol/L and woke up at 7.0 mmol/L. According to my CGM, I spent the entire night in range!
This is a great setup for this coming week.
(Also, it always shocks me the difference between spending all night high/low versus all night in range. Previous mornings I’ve been dragging myself out of bed at 10 AM…this morning I’m wide awake and energetic at 5:30 AM!)
I could try that. But my theory is that the huge drop I’ve been having overnight is caused in part by Tresiba kicking in somehow, and the huge rise I’ve been getting is due in part to it wearing off. So I think it’s the split, more than the timing, that has improved things (that would certainly mirror my experience with Lantus). This split dose thing has been like a 180 from what I was experiencing before - ten hour flatline and counting (with a few boluses in there as well - but only 1.5 units so far!). I don’t know the reason for it, and I’m not one to say Bernstein is always right (he’s not), but on this I think he is, for whatever reason. I may try moving to one dose again, but I’m really reluctant to change up something that seems to be working this well!
I’m actually trying it unsplit right now, just because I like to experiment on myself and to see what difference it makes. I’m taking it in 2 injections though to see if it was just absorption that was my problem or if the split makes the difference. So far so good for a day, but we’ll see if it continues!
