Knowledge is the key to everything. Obtaining knowledge comes at a price
sometimes, for me the price was no sleep and no food. I spent about 20 hours fasting in order to
understand how and when my body was releasing glycogen from my liver and
muscles and if my basal insulin dosages were correct.
Here are my fasting basal testing blood sugar results
showing the dawn phenomenon (which I will abbreviate as DP):
7am-117mg/dl accompanied by my basal dosage of 8units
Levemir
8am-145mg/dl
9am-188mg/dl
10am-198mg/dl
11am-179mg/dl
12pm-174mg/dl
1pm-141mg/dl
3pm-138mg/dl accompanied by basal dosage of 8units Levemir
4pm-126mg/dl
Just to remind you these numbers are showing an upward trend
WITHOUT me consuming anything besides water.
For anyone who is unfamiliar with diabetes, this is the DP and let’s be
honest, to most diabetics it is a HUGE pain in the butt. It is unpredictable, frustrating and at times
it feels that it is uncontrollable.
Each person, diabetic or not experiences the DP. In the morning, anywhere between 3am and 8am
our bodies are preparing for our day, releasing a plethora of hormones such as
cortisol, glucagon and epinephrine which causes our liver to release the
culprit…GLUCOSE! What is so interesting
about this is that these circulating hormones actually cause less sensitivity
to insulin. Therefore those of us
injecting or pumping insulin have to increase our dosages anywhere from 20%-50%
to fight against this surge! Non-diabetics
are able to combat this since their system of “checks and balances” is still in
place, meaning their body recognizes any slight rise and secretes insulin while
those of us with diabetes have to pinpoint the time that our body typically “dumps”
this glucose and try to have the upper hand via low carb breakfasts, more
insulin or adding Symlin (injection) which is to replace the hormone Amylin
that T1D’s also do not produce.
After doing my basal testing and reviewing my previous
glucose logs, it was evident that each day my blood sugar was climbing anywhere
from 60 to 85 points each morning even with a NO carb breakfast, peaking
between 10am and 11am.
My first experiment with this new information went a little
like this (and for those diabetics reading this, you may think I’m nuts):
1) Take morning blood sugar reading and add 75 points, which
was a typical point increase I was experiencing. Gives me a new number to bolus to.
2) Subtract 120 (target blood sugar) from new number.
3) Divide by 45 (this is my correction factor)
4) Add X units to morning bolus.
EX: 1) morning
reading 100 + 75 = 175
2) 175-120=55
3) 55/45=1.22
4) 1.22=number of units to add to morning bolus
(in hopes of combating DP)
I tried experiment 1 for a few days and found for me that it
only worked well IF I was combining both rapid acting insulin and Regular
insulin that has a slower peak.
Time for experiment number 2: Reintroduction of Symlin aka make me wanna
puke medicine
I have to give credit to a fellow T1D, Jason, who had written a
whole post called, A Practical Symlin Guide for Type 1 Diabetics - Part 3: Advanced
Techniques, Train Wrecks & Disasters, and High Protein/Lo-Carb Diets. He suggested combating the DP by injecting
Symlin early in the morning to keep the dump of glucose from the liver.
Fast forward to this morning, blood sugar of 114, I injected the Symlin
first thing when I woke up, 30 minutes later I took my insulin, but decreased
it by about 2 units, ate my no carb breakfast about 15 minutes after that and
drum roll please, post breakfast blood sugar was 144. An increase of 30mg/dl (I’m aiming for no
more than 20mg/dl increase or decrease), that sure beats an increase of 75 or
80mg/dl increase I was having!
I plan on furthering this experiment, especially considering that I
only took 15mcg of Symlin which is the bare minimum and you must build up your
dosage on this medication.
Moving on from my experiments, I’m excited to announce that after
months of hard work my A1c is finally below 7%.
For years now I’ve been bouncing between 7%-7.3%. My triglycerides have lowered significantly
and my good cholesterol is way above the target at 74. Low-carb, higher fat, no sugar, more exercise
has helped me to accomplish this. I gave
up fruit January 1st, I had already given up all grains 90% of the
time, but went all in also on January 1st. My meals consist of fat, protein, veggies and
some people would be scared to learn that my daily intake of fat is about 50%
of my daily calories! Your body needs
fat people, what it doesn’t need is a ton of glucose which comes from fruit and
grains!
Do you think that what I’m doing is following the traditional path of
diabetes care? No, it’s not. I previously had two doctors and three
nutritionists who shut me down every time I brought up doing anything low-carb
or disconnecting from my insulin pump and “back tracking” as they said to
injections. They insisted I could eat a
diet that consisted of 60% carbohydrates and just as a refresher, carbs turn to
glucose, which I cannot metabolize correctly.
Does that sound like a good treatment plan for someone with diabetes?
What I hope that people can take away from this post is that YOU are
your best health advocate. Realize that
you are in control of your health! Don’t
be afraid to change doctors until you find the best fit for YOU! Do your own research; seek second, third and
fourth opinions when it comes to your health.
Be in control. Read, read and read some more, take notes, talk to others
with your condition because they may have stumbled across something you’ve
never heard of! Keep the lines of
communication open with your physician, because you may teach them something
and they may get on board with your plan, like my MD is now.
Well guys, thanks for reading this week! Hopefully I’ll be posting more positive
results as time progresses.
God Bless,
~D
This is awesome, D! I admire your determination and willpower! Keep it up :)
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