I do the same! I am cautious about it if I’m in the midst of a plummeting low (say I’m 50 with double arrows down), but if I’m at a more drifting low (anywhere from horizontal to one down arrow) and I’m pretty sure I know how deep it’s going to go, I’ll sometimes take insulin either preemptively so I can “overtreat” or more likely right after the fact if I realized I impulsively had more than I needed, because eating only a small amount of carbs is really hard when low!
4 Likes
I don’t get into the day-by-day analysis of pump records with an endo, but this is the kind of funny conversation I would envision.
“Why did you take 2 units when your BG was 54 on this day?!”
“So I could have a whole pitcher of margaritas, instead of just one glass.”
4 Likes
@Eric and @cardamom: I take insulin when low, too, if I either decide I want to eat more than needed or do so “accidentally” (and this is coming from a low-carber!).
4 Likes
This is really interesting, the late eating screwing up overnight numbers. Thanks to you and @Chris for sharing about this.
Certain years I work until 10 at night and then we get dinner. One more variable I hadn’t considered.
What time do you wind up going to bed when you eat late?
3 Likes
It’s really variable—I think all of this would be easier if I had a more consistent schedule! But I think when it gets very tricky is eating a substantial amount of food within a couple of hours before bed, especially within 1 hour and especially high protein/fat, since while during the day, that’s the easiest way to eat and any later rise is slow and easy to catch and nudge down, at night that ends up just slowly shifting me well out of range if I don’t have my high alert turned on audibly (which I sometimes don’t, because I really need the sleep and don’t want to wake up for anything I don’t absolutely need to).
I’ve also learned that if I do eat higher protein/fat before bed, what I really need to do is actually the same thing I’d do during the day which is take a little insulin even if I’m well in range at bedtime (I could be 110, and I probably need to take a little), which is easy for me to convince myself to do during the day, but has taken longer to convince myself to do at night.
1 Like
You know, I’ve done this to eat a banana and almond butter, a favorite snack I don’t eat often normally because of the spike, but I’ve never had big sugary things on hand! The woes of a SAHM on a medically-restricted diet. 
1 Like
We also have tried to shift to earlier dinner time, not always successfully.
One reason is that we have a 5.5 hour insulin tail, so we don’t know for sure where we will land until after that (same as others on this thread). Another one, more specific to a teenage population, is that if a hormone spikes happens before dinner, it will postpone dinner for another 2-3 hours or more: if we aimed for 7:30 we might end up eating at 10:30 or later.
While not necessary, I do think it makes things easier. If it works out, I have no qualms about eating earlier. If not then not.
As I see it, the benefits of eating earlier are more time for the food/bolus to work themselves out. Then 3 or 4 hours later, we have the opportunity (still before bed if early dinner) to do a BG check and a “fine tune” of the BG with a smaller bolus correction. (Or carb correction - whatever)
But if dinner happens to be at 8PM - then dinner is at 8PM. And if that means a 1AM check then it is a 1AM check.
(5PM dinners are still easier !!!)
1 Like