#levimir

Following DAfNE, I decided to switch my Levimir to twice daily. This was a huge decision for me because I had always rejected the idea for several reasons:

I did not want to inject more than necessary

I may forget to take my morning dose

I didn’t want to carry another pen around with me

Until recently I didn’t have a routine, so I would wake up at different times every day

There were a lot of practical things to consider, but overall I decided I would benefit more from twice daily and so I made the switch. I went from 9 units at night to 5 units at night and 4 units at around 10am. 

Logically it makes sense. Levimir tends to last 14-16 hours, so thats 8 hours a day you’re not covered by basal, which can result in high, out of control sugars (fun). So you would think that to have two doses would cover you all day and you would have pretty steady sugars, right? Well this wasn’t the case for me. The one thing I noticed and the thing I hated the most was I would go to bed at a decent number and wake up abover 17mmoL/l. If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that I struggle with anger towards my diabetes, especially when it goes wrong and makes me feel shit. To wake up in the middle of the night thirsty and needing the toilet, every - single - night really got me down. I was injecting in the middle of the night and feeling worse for wear the next day, 

The steady rise during the night became the bane of my life.

I wasn’t hypoing during the night and I wouldn’t be snacking before bed, so this was just ridiculous. I started upping my insulin until I was back to 9 at night and 5 in the morning. However, throughout the day I was incredibly up and down, I was dropping much faster but also shooting up after correcting, it was becoming ridiculous. 

This was taking place during my trip to Edinburgh too. I was hoping that in the following week, when I was in a more rigid routine, that it would start to settle down. But this wasn’t the case, my sugars remained high above my target range and it was very difficult to understand where I was going wrong, so a few days ago I decided to switch back.

I am now on 10 units at 10pm, and my aim with this is to see if my patterns change or stay the same. I seem to peak from around 10am to 2pm so potentially will need to up my breakfast ratio again. Ultimately if I can gain better control by changing my ratios rather than taking two basal injections, that would be pretty fab. I will potentially try to switch back to twice daily, but with higher doses of levimir and see where that takes me but I guess it’s all about trial and error.

Just as a side note, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Libre’s benefits definitely outweigh the negatives. Purely down to the information I’m getting from the Libre and the ease of scanning, I’ve decided to stick with it. I don’t think I’d be able to solve any of these issues without the help of the Libre. 

Let’s hope it all works out! Again, I’d love to hear all your comments and if anyone has struggled with the same issues I have, so please feel free to contact me - on here, facebook or twitter (I promise I’m nice!)

Love,