Can we have some help here, my husband is new to insulin?!


Question: This morning, he took his insulin, and only ate a few bites of his cereal, before he left the house- within an hour, we knew that he was suffering from low blood sugar, even though he did not have his meter with him- headache,blurry vision, and very sluggish- so he drank a very small amount of OJ- and ate some eggs- when we got home he got very tired and within a couple hours his blood level was up to 255 any suggestions? He does have a cold right now, which I know can throw off his levels too- thanks


Answers: This morning, he took his insulin, and only ate a few bites of his cereal, before he left the house- within an hour, we knew that he was suffering from low blood sugar, even though he did not have his meter with him- headache,blurry vision, and very sluggish- so he drank a very small amount of OJ- and ate some eggs- when we got home he got very tired and within a couple hours his blood level was up to 255 any suggestions? He does have a cold right now, which I know can throw off his levels too- thanks

Did he give himself insulin and not eat as much carbs as he figured? That would make him go low. OJ always makes my son high for a long time. You are right about a cold making his sugars go high too. Sugary cereal makes me go low after a few hours so I try to always have toast-it's a slower acting carb.

You should really go see his doctor with him. You did a great job with the OJ. Rebound high blood sugar is common. He was tired due to the blood sugar being high. Your husband being sick should make his insulin need higher. He may talk to his doctor about sliding scale insulin. Keep canned OJ and candy bars handy! Good Luck

You are absolutely right about a cold or infection throwing off blood sugar levels. The trick to using insulin effectively is self -knowledge.
Knowing how much insulin to take is can take a long time to figure out. One has to calculate the effects of food intake and excercise to calculate how much insulin to take.

FIRST If he has not had his blood insulin measured, you are shooting in the dark. He might have adequate insulin, but have "insulin resistance". Read Dr. Whittaker (Julian) on diabetes. He says he has hardly had a patient who didn't normalize on Vanadium Sulfate. (Though it sometimes takes a lot.) Chromium supplementation sometimes helps also. Jonathan Wright (He is an M.D. in Tahoma Washington) is a good source of information. One of the real tricks is how much too much insulin (insulin shock) seems to mimic high blood sugar, though the approach to coping with them is the opposite. The trick is to not dramatically alter what he is acclimated to. If he probably has been running high blood sugar for years, don't suddenly say it has to be "normal"- between 100 and 130 (or whatever numbers the medics are selling) The body is coping as best it can, and dramatically, and rapidly changing the rules tends to upset things.

if you take insulin, you have to eat. you HAVE to. and if you have symptoms of low blood sugar, you HAVE to treat it.

his sugar probably went up because he ate more food than he took insulin to cover.

Your husband's life from now on is disciplined eating of the right food moderately, taking his meds as prescribed and daily aerobic exercise of some kind to maintain a relative steady level of glucose through out the day. So help him use this event as a wake-up call to do just that.

He must eat his normal meals, watching his carb intake and good low carb snacks in-between. He should always administer his insulin as prescribe by the doctor and monitor his spot glucose levels to know how everything is working daily.

He may lapse once in a while. I do, but I always can trace back to a 'cheat' that resulted in the higher spot rise in glucose levels.

Best Wishes.





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