I've always had weirdo BS after having cereal in the morning. It's so bizarre because I'm counting the carbs right and everything.
So my BS was 6.8 (122) when I woke up and ate breakfast at 7am. I had the regular serving size of Special K (22g) plus 1/2 of Skim Milk (7g) and 2 strawberries (2g? - based on Calorie King) and a Source yogurt (5g)
= 36g
I took 3 units (1u:15g) a little more than I would normally take because I was afraid it would be high.
2.5 hours after breakfast.. my BS is 11.2 (201.6)!!!! WTF is happening. I'm not stressed.. sick.. or god, i just hate ups and downs constantly.
another ex. Monday my BS was 4.7 (84) and I had an english muffing (29g), peanut butter (4g) and a couple strawberries instead of jelly (3g) yogurt (5g)
= 41g
I took 2 units because my BS was on the lowish side.
1 hour later while on the bus i'm feeling all shaky and weird, I sit down for a sec and test. 2.6 (46)!!!!!!! so I treat.
Cereal does this to me too... I actually don't even eat cereal anymore haha. Try maybe a 1:10 for the cereal? The diabetes center here told me cereal is really high glycemic index.
I eat Rice Krispies cereal almost every morning with a banana and 1% milk and it never shoots me up real high. it says right on the side of the box "diabetes friendly", so I am guessing that it has a lower glycemic index rating than most cereal. I would suggest trying to eat that cereal and see if it does the same as the special k.
Is it a special kind of Rice Crispies?? Or the regular blue box.. white crispy thingys I used to eat as a kid. Just wondering cause ALOT if not most products are different in the states than here in Canada.
The thing with cereal is that it can be tricky at times. I mean hypothetically you can have a bowl of Raisin Bran and the carb count for one cup is 45 grams. I use this cereal for a point. This is just an average cup of the cereal, however what if you get a cup that is overly full of raisins or maybe just does not have nearly any. The amount of raisins will play with your sugar as well. I mean if you have a multitude of raisins in your bowl I would have to guess that they would affect you more than if it was just the cereal. So depending on the cereal you eat especially if it has many different pieces it could affect the sugar.
The other thing is that dairy for me at least at times plays havoc with my numbers, i.e. with a piece of pizza I will account for the carbs and everything, but the absorbtion due to all the fatty cheese slows it down and normally a few hours post pizza I can see my numbers spiking as well.
You may also just need to talk to your endo about changing your morning carb ratio if this keeps happening.
Try a 1:10 next time you eat it. If it gives you no better results then you can consider cutting it, dont give up so soon:)!! Special K is soo good haha.
No idea about the low. Most of my lows tend to surprise me too. Some of them are exercise or I was guessing at food, but most of the time it's like ugh what why?
I have the same problem and my diabetic nutritionist said it's partly due to the increased insulin resistance we have first thing in the morning and the fact that cereal is pretty much straight carbs, very little fat or protein, or anything else. The best advice she had was to take your insulin 15 to 30mins before you eat a bowl of cereal in the morning to give your body a head start. It's more trial and error than anything else unfortunately, good luck.
I've also had problems with cereal, and it doesn't matter what kind. I don't eat cereal much anymore--my breakfasts consist (typically) of egg whites, hashbrowns, and a little bit of turkey sausage. It has a pretty good CHO:fat:prot ratio, and I've noticed this helps keep my BGs level. I'm on a pump and use a 1:6 insulin:CHO ratio. I've tried using dual wave/square wave boluses and have found them to be more complicated than worth the trouble (for me, at least. I know someone that loves being able to use them).
I'm sure my example helped you out none, but I thought it was interesting others had the same problem with cereal!
I've also usually had trouble keeping my sugar relatively level when eating cold cereal. This thread once again sparked my renewed curiosity about the problem.
So, last night (instead of going to bed), I decided to sacrifice my good control to science by eating exactly 1 cup of Product 19 with 26 grams of carbs with exactly 1/2 cup of fat free milk with 7 grams of carbs. The total carbs equals 33 grams. I left the basal rate of my insulin pump going, but did not take any pre-cereal bolus. I only took a correction bolus at the end after the experiment was complete. I tested my blood sugar every 10 minutes from the time I finished the cereal (wolfed it down) and roughly 2 1/2 hours later when my sugar appeared to stop rising.
Here are the results of the experiment in chart form:
What the chart shows is that between 12:35 and 2:05 my blood sugar continued to climb from 120 mg/dl to 320 mg/dl. Right after I first ate the cereal between 12:15 and 12:35 my blood sugar actually dropped a bit. This, of course, could just be the margin of error for the meter.
Now, here is a published graph showing the action of humalog insulin over time. (Maroon line.)
From this chart it looks as if the Humalog peaks between 30 and 60 minutes, and by 120 minutes (2 hours), it is out of the system. Perhaps, we can begin to speculate that there is a significant mismatch between the glucose increase of the cereal and the glucose control by the Humalog.
A CGMS would come in handy because my poor fingertips are a little sore from last night :)
Maybe tomorrow night.
Tonight I was experimenting with a square wave bolus on a slice of pizza, which I basically should not have eaten because I'm trying to cut down on carbs. I started with a blood sugar around 100. Now it's about 1 1/2 hours after eating the pizza and I'm up to around 200. Because I extended the bolus over 1 hour, it could still go back to normal in the next 1/2 hour or so. It would probably be better with a dual wave bolus.
I use a Minimed pump. It has 3 basic bolus options:
1. The regular standard bolus where the entire dosage is given all at once (which is as fast as the pump can deliver it but not as fast as you can do it by syringe.)
2. The "square wave" bolus where you instruct the pump to slow down and deliver the bolus over a time period you program in 30 mins, 60 mins, etc.
3. The"dual wave" bolus which is a prescribed combination of No. 1, the regular bolus and No. 2, the square wave bolus. Essentially you're programming the pump to give you a portion of the prescribed bolus right away and the balance of the bonus over a programmed time. This is particularly useful if a portion of the bolus is being used to cover a pre-meal high and the rest is for a meal which might be slow to digest, like pizza.
Just like with injections, there's a lot of experimentation and trial and error with this stuff.
