Increase BG during sleep

Hello,

My 7 year old was recently diagnosed with type 1 about 6 weeks ago. He steadily has been reducing it fast acting insulin and long acting insulin since he’s been discharged from the hospital. We found ourselves correcting his number throughout the day while he was taking only .5 units of fast acting insulin. Right now for the last 10 days he has not had any insulin at all. 3 days after stopping insulin he would experience lows in the 50’s and 60’s. He’s getting about 150 carbs per day. A trend I’ve noticed the last few days is his number steadily increases throughout the night as soon as he falls asleep. He’ll go to bed every night around 100 and one night it went up to 230 before coming down before he woke u at around 150. Every other night his number will peak around 150 at midnight then start deceasing to about 100-110 before he wakes up. Also, 3 of the 4 autoantibodies came back negative ( GAD, ICA and IAA ). IA-2A was a .3.

Thoughts?

Thanks everyone

@Luke123 Hi Luke, and Welcome to the JDRF TypeOneNation Forum!

There are most likely more than one reason that you are seeing fluctuation in your son’s BG levels. I’m not a medical professional, and I do not know your son’s history prior to his diabetes diagnosis including how long he actually was living with diabetes before his diagnosis. Very often, when first diagnosed a person continues to make his own insulin - but this internal production of insulin is not consistent nor is it usually sufficient.
This self-production of insulin has been found to reoccur even 60 years after diagnosis - that is one reason why your son may need to continually monitor BG and adjust insulin doses.

Overall, from the data you provided, it appears to me that his current insulin dosing is sufficient - “decreasing to 100 - 110 before he wakes up”. A rule-of-thumb, observe a pattern for a minimum of three days BEFORE adjusting insulin dose.

For a lot of good, useful information, I suggest that you click on the “Resources” tab at the top of this page and select the “Newly Diagnosed” heading.

Thanks Dennis - His numbers of increasing to 150 before midnight and reducing down to 100-110 prior to waking up is without any insulin. Just in the last couple days he had a night where he went to bed with a BG of 100 and increased above 200. Just wondering why would his glucose be increasing hours after dinner and steadily increasing throughout the night. Is this a typical pattern? Again, he hasn’t been on insulin of any sort for 10 days. Prior to that he was on 1-3 units of insulin depending on the number of carbs he was eating.

Thanks

Luke @Luke123 , managing diabetes is very tricky often because our bodies are not robots and always behave exactly the same thing. We will sometimes have an elevated BG, or a very low BG for no apparent reason - some days we just need to go with the flow and see what happens the following day or days. After 64 years of successfully living an active life with diabetes, I’m still discovering - and learning - new stuff.

Especially because your son is a “diabetes newbie” and his body is changing constantly and rapidly, I suggest that the best care you can offer him is for you to be observant [without being a helicopter parent, write down what you see and share your notes with his doctor and/or diabetes educator. Listen to suggestions and then bring them into your son’s life. Keep in mind that a seven-year old can be very active [activity has the tendency to lower BG for hours post activity] and there may be the possibility for him to drop into hypoglycemia / insulin reaction. I suspect that his doctor has this in mind and prefers for your son’s BG to be slightly at a “safer high” rather than risk going to low. Over time, he will lvel out.

On a very positive note, there is really nothing in life that your son can not do - let him live a “boy’s life”. It took me a while, but I learned how to manage diabetes to fit into my very active life - I don’t let diabetes dictate.

Hi, Luke, and welcome to the club no one wants to join! We’re sorry tour family has this to deal with, but we’re glad you’re here.

I’m not a doctor, either, and I don’t know anything about the lab work you mentioned. I’m just a mom whose daughter was diagnosed with T1D 6 years ago now, when she was 6. I’ve learned a ton along the way, and you will, too. Especially at first, learning about what you need to know about this disease is like drinking from a firehouse. I can’t imagine it’s ever “easy,” but it does get easier.

Rising BG overnight is common, yes. Our endo explained that most of our growing and healing happen when we sleep, and those things require more insulin. If we have functioning beta cells, no problem: the extra stress on the system is met with extra insulin production, and BG levels stay in range. For those with T1D, though, the extra stress can’t be matched with more insulin, and BG levels rise.

Your son’s BG levels are rising but then falling again, so he wakes up more or less in range after all. That’s awesome, and probably means he’s still got some functioning beta cells. Again, I’m not a doctor, but you might ask yours about what is called the honeymoon period. I posted about it pretty recently here:

It could be that that’s what’s happening with your son.

Thanks everyone. It’s been a roller coaster ride since his diagnosis. I just didn’t know if the autoantibodies showed negative if he’s still in the early stages of type 1 and whether that means his “honeymoon” period would be extended. Any thoughts on diets or foods that can keep those beta cells producing insulin? I’m sure a lot of you have researched a lot over the years.

Thanks again