Part of the motivation to create this blog about my LADA diabetes experience is that there’s a never ending amount of material to write about.  Some days are more challenging than others, but even on a good day, I have to spend time thinking about my diabetes.  I am sure as I gain more experience with this illness, there will be fewer “new” experiences, so it should become easier.

This week in my life

Freestyle Libre is helping me to perfect my insulin dose

I have been LOVING my Freestyle Libre 14 day sensor.  It’s been working far better than I ever expected.  One thing it made me realize is that my blood glucose was staying higher between meals than I wanted.  So I decided that I should increase my basal insulin by 1 unit.  But, I also realized that if I did this, I would run out before it’s time to refill my prescription.  So, I emailed my doctor to ask her to change the prescription.  Her office calls me and informs me that my doctor is on vacation for 2.5 weeks and that they can only do refills for the same dose!  They can’t change the dose while she is on vacation!

They suggest that I contact my primary care provider.  I actually don’t have a primary care provider currently but I will be getting one.  The good news is that I won’t run out for about 3 weeks, so I should be able to get the prescription changed when my doctor gets back from vacation.

OH BOY!  I don’t really like that a small change in my insulin dose can be so hard to get!  If I had my choice, all insulin would be over the counter, but that’s not the world we live in.

Accidentally injected 2 units of Humalog instead of 1

Um, yeah.  I was just going to do 1 unit for lunch because I knew the amount of carbohydrates that was in my sandwich, but instead I just dialed in 2 units, which is the usual dose I do with breakfast.  I realized my mistake right after I did it.

My solution was to closely monitor my glucose level using my freestyle libre sensor, and when I saw it start to drop, I drank orange juice!  I was a little nervous because I didn’t know how much orange juice I needed to compensate for this.  But, the amount of juice I would normally drink for a correction worked out OK.  A couple of hours later, though, my blood sugar dropped again, and I had more orange juice.  So there was like a correction I had to do twice.  Also this caused my glucose level to be going low before dinner, so I didn’t need any insulin with dinner.  So the extra humalog for lunch had a pretty long lasting effect.  Longer than I would have expected given the quick acting nature of humalog!   But, I am also pretty sensitive to insulin.

This accident was good timing, as I had just bought a bunch of orange juice at Costco.  I had chosen to buy orange juice instead of ice cream sandwiches.  I figured that the orange juice was a healthier choice, as it has vitamin C and added calcium and actually since having diabetes, I don’t drink much orange juice.  On most days, I have to be really careful about how much juice I have because it can easily cause high blood sugar.  Orange juice is very fast in correcting hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).