Riley has been running on the higher side the past couple of days. Last night she was in the 368 at bed time. I didnt think to test her urine last night dumb me. By breakfast time she was at 168. At lunch she was 281 then at dinner time she was 300. This time I thought hmm lets test her for ketones. I guess cause from time to time she does have highs like that and its normally nothing I got in the habit of not testing her ketones or being worried about those highs. After having that many highs tho it clicked in my brain to test her. it was trace to small I think I just counted to 15 and busted out my book which says to time it. I am nervous cause I am not sure if I counted long enough or not. On the timer 15 seconds feels more like 30 seconds. So I am ready for her to have to pee again. I have a cup both bottles of the ketones strips we have and my stopwatch. I just hope it was a bad strip or something and I dont need to be as worried as I am right now. I do think she might be getting a little cold. ugh other than being grumpy from being high she seems fine. She didnt drink much of anything today so we are pushing the water now. I didnt react to it in front of her or anything but yeah I feel like a idiot for not testing her last night and her having even a trace amount of them. Again I will remind myself that I am a mom not a pancreas on move on from there.
- still new to me, I havent figured out keytones yet. I understand that having keystones means that your body is putting sugar out in your urine. now lets say that my bs is 23, my sugar is high and i know that so i have to bring it down. so lets say i check for keytones and a have them. what does this mean? and how does this affect my body? Is there a difference between having keytones and having high blood sugar? Any info would be great.
Ketones mean that your body isn't getting enough insulin for basic physiologic functioning. Usually, it's an indication that the person isn't getting enough basal (background; NPH, Levemir, etc.) insulin. If it's a pattern with her, I suggest increasing the basal.
A person can be super-duper high without ketones because they ate too much. But lack of enough insulin means ketones and indicates the need to increase insulin dosage.
Just to note: Urine ketones are often several hours behind what the actual ketone levels are at the time of testing. She could have had ketones and they could have increased or decreased without you knowing. Blood ketone testing is the most accurate (similar to blood sugar testing but with ketones), although it is annoying because you have to buy another meter and separate test strips...
Yeah I bumped her Levemir up a unit. At 8 I tester her and she went up to 365 but NO ketones this time. I used 2 strips from 2 different bottles. I had her pee in a cup and times the 15 seconds. I gave her 3 units of her novolog at dinner for her correction and 3 units for her food which was 45 carbs her normal ratio of 1:15. She normally goes up at night between 8 and 9 so I am scared to test her later blah. If she is still high at 10 I will give her some more log to help her out some.
hmm well when I tester her at 10 she was 256 and I didnt give her any extra insulin. I tested her at 2 and she was 315 and then this morning 236. She had no ketones again this morning so it was either from not drinking enough yesterday or a bad strip or something. I am not sure but I am very glad to see none again this morning.
Insulin is a hormone whose job is to carry glucose from the food we eat into out cells, glucose to cells is like gas to a car. When there is no insulin in our blood stream, our cells begin to starve and look for alternate sources of fuel. The cells begin breaking down fat and muscle cells. As with all organisms, what goes in must go out lol... Because our cells are not supposed to eat fat or muscle tissue, when they digest fatty acids, they excrete a poison byproduct called ketones!
So when your urine shows that you have ketones in your system, it means that your body has been above the normal blood sugar range for long enough to let your body to think that it is starving, sending it in to survival mode.
[quote user="Katie"]
Just to note: Urine ketones are often several hours behind what the actual ketone levels are at the time of testing. She could have had ketones and they could have increased or decreased without you knowing. Blood ketone testing is the most accurate (similar to blood sugar testing but with ketones), although it is annoying because you have to buy another meter and separate test strips...
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Does anyone else on here have the ketone meter? It's never occurred to me to use anything but the strips but your explanation, Katie, makes total sense. Is it expensive? Covered by insurance?
Sarah,
I looked up the cost of the Precision Xtra meter that I use for ketone testing and it seems to vary in price from $20-$50. Also, on the Abbott website:
http://www.abbottdiabetescare.com/content/en_US/20.10.30:30/product/Product_Profile_0004.htm
it lists the insurance coverage for the test strips by state. I'm not sure if there are other ketone meters available but for the extent that I use mine (pretty rarely), it works well. Hope this helps!
We were never even told about ketones meters. Just the urine strips. I guess we will be getting one. She is still having highs but not as high and still no more ketones in her urine.
We have the ketone meter, but the insurance wouldn't pay for the strips because they around 10-15 dollars a strip, again the strips themselves are like 12.50 or 13 dollars to be nearly exact. I highly doubt many insurance companies will pay for them considering the urine strips work, not well in my opinion cause they are hours behind. But I can't affford that cost/
Keytones means that your body is not getting enough insulin and there is sugar spilling in to your urin how old is your daughter?
She is 9 and just dxed a few months ago. She also had a cold. She is getting better now and only that first strip showed some. Since then I have tested her many times and she was fine. Her numbers were mostly good yesterday until last night. I think I have to split her levemir up and do a morning and night dose of it. Her bed time numbers are way to high. Normally we eat between 5 and 6 p.m. Her numbers are a little high then but not to bad maybe 1 and sometimes 2 units for her correction. Then at 8 she is normally at or around the same number she was at dinner. By 9 she shoots up to a scary high number then through the night she comes down. Like last night at 9 she was at 399. She isnt awake yet this morning so we shall see what she is at I am guess in the 200's.