Optimize Insulin Dosage – Tips To Navigate Blood Sugar 

For a diabetic, it’s important to navigate blood sugar levels. You can live a healthy life with better blood sugar control. In our detailed guide on how to optimize insulin dosage, we help you do that. We discuss how insulin works, and how and when to change your insulin dose. It will help you make smart choices. For example, calculating your insulin needs and the symptoms and causes of insulin resistance. You will know how to make accurate assessments and improve your well-being.

Table Of Contents

Why Should I Have Better Blood Sugar Control?

It is really important to have better blood sugar control. It can actually help you avoid getting chronic diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney failure. Keeping a healthy weight is awesome because it gives you more energy and makes you feel better overall. 

Reasons To Navigate Blood Sugar 

If you have diabetes and take insulin, keeping tabs on your blood sugar levels is crucial. Regular blood sugar monitoring can help with diet, exercise, and insulin decisions.

There are many things that affect blood sugar. Some consequences are easier to predict, and experience and training can help. This is why monitoring your blood sugar levels as directed by your doctor is essential.

The following are examples of conditions that tend to increase blood sugar:

• Taking in a lot of carbs.
• Missing or not taking enough insulin or other diabetic medicines.
• Chronic inactivity, or engaging in significantly less physical activity than usual.
• Using steroid (corticosteroid) drugs.
• Ailments, operations, and emotional strains.

The rise in blood sugar that happens around dawn is the dawn effect. Scientists think that cortisol and other hormones change every day. They say that’s what causes the rise in blood sugar.

• Smoking.
• Dehydration.
• Puberty.

Your blood sugar will usually go down in these situations:

• Not eating enough.
• Overusing insulin or other diabetes medication.
• Movement of the body.

Your blood sugar level may go up or down because of the following. This depends on how your body works and many other things:

• Menstruation or periods.
• Timing of meals and diabetes medications.
• Consuming alcoholic drinks.
• Interactions between non-diabetes medications.

Diabetics must constantly monitor their blood sugar levels. That’s because there are so many things that could change them. It’s the only surefire technique to tell when your sugar levels are rising or falling. As a result, you and your healthcare practitioner can better tailor your treatment.

Know And Optimize Your Insulin Dosage 

How Much Insulin Should I Take?

Non-diabetic people’s insulin production triggers due to the consumption of food. This is due to the prevalence of carbs in the average diet. Bread, sweets, fruits, and veggies are all examples.

Metabolism of carbohydrates takes place in your body. They break into glucose and other simple sugars. This glucose cannot be used as fuel unless insulin is present. If your body has trouble producing or using insulin, you may need to take insulin injections. It’s important to convert your food into energy.

You need to consider two factors when determining an individual’s insulin dosage:

Dose of basal insulin. You should take the same quantity of basal insulin every day, regardless of what you consume.

Dose of bolus insulin. A bolus of insulin compensates for or anticipates carbohydrate ingestion. To fix this, a rapid-acting insulin bolus is usually given.

Calculating a bolus dosage can complicate insulin delivery. Estimating the insulin units needed to metabolize carbs is crucial to self-administering insulin.

According to research, one unit of rapid-acting insulin can manage 12 to 15 grams of carbs.

When blood sugar levels are too high, you need a bolus dosage. The average reduction in blood sugar after taking 1 unit of insulin is 50 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL).

Due to individual differences, not everyone responds the same to insulin. Time of day, stress, and physical exercise might make predicting these statistics harder.

Thus, you will likely start with conventional insulin doses. If the statistics help manage blood sugar, you may need to change based on how your body reacts to insulin.

Calculate To Optimize Your Insulin Doses

You normally consume carbohydrates during meals. You will likely administer an insulin injection at that time. Typically, you will also take a blood sugar reading.

How to calculate your insulin needs:

• Before eating, see what your blood sugar level is.
• If your blood sugar is already within the normal range, there is no need to inject any extra insulin.
• If your blood sugar is above 120, the therapeutic range, determine the insulin dose. Always follow your doctor’s recommendations. But, 1 unit of fast-acting insulin usually lowers blood sugar by 50 points.
• Estimate the amount of carbohydrates in your meal. Carbohydrate counters are useful for approximating this.
• Administer one unit of rapid-acting insulin for every 12-15 grams of carbohydrates consumed. If you think your doctor should change this number, say so.
• To account for both your goal range and your meal, add the appropriate amount of units.
• Sum up the insulin units and give them out.

Injecting insulin and eating the same number of carbohydrates every day, may help maintain a regular insulin routine. Your body’s optimal insulin response takes time.

Insulin Resistance – Symptoms And Causes

Before you can make a type 2 diabetes diagnosis, the body has already started to change. That’s both bad and good news. If you don’t have any signs, you might not know you have it, but if you know your risk, you can take steps to prevent or delay it. Is a big change going on behind the scenes? Not responding to insulin.

What are the symptoms of insulin resistance? 

High blood sugar, high triglycerides, high LDL or bad cholesterol, and low HDL or good cholesterol. All these may show insulin resistance, but a doctor can’t diagnose it with one blood test.

An autoimmune reaction, in which the body assaults itself, can produce type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetics must take insulin daily because their bodies can’t make it.

What are the causes of insulin resistance?

No one knows for sure what causes insulin resistance. But being inactive, or overweight (especially around the middle) can cause it.

Insulin resistance can occur at a healthy weight as well. Insulin resistance is not visible on the outside and you cannot diagnose it.

Insulin, Blood Sugar & Type 2 Diabetes

Insulin plays a crucial role in the onset of type 2 diabetes. This hormone, vital for life, regulates glucose (blood sugar) in the body. Here are some of the highlights:

• Blood sugar is a byproduct of the digestion of meals.
• As glucose enters the blood, it triggers the release of insulin from the pancreas.
• Insulin facilitates the uptake of glucose from the blood by cells for use as fuel.
• Insulin also sends a signal to the liver to store glucose.
• As glucose enters cells, blood glucose levels fall. And insulin production also falls in response.
• Reduced insulin levels signal the liver to release glucose from glycogen stores. This ensures a steady supply of energy even when meals are scarce.

When it happens, everything runs like clockwork. But, this balanced system might suddenly become unbalanced if:

• The amount of glucose in the blood rises dramatically.
• The pancreas secretes more insulin.
• Over time, cells stop responding to insulin.
• To stimulate cellular activity, the pancreas keeps pumping out more insulin.
• The pancreas becomes overwhelmed and cannot control the steady increase in blood sugar.

High levels of glucose in the blood can cause serious damage to the body. So it’s important to get that sugar into cells as fast as possible. Insulin levels are high, signaling the liver and muscles to accumulate glucose. When liver cells are full, they direct any remaining blood sugar to fat cells for storage. Indeed, weight increases. More seriously, pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes are now likely outcomes.

How To Reverse Insulin Resistance?

If you’re insulin resistant, you want to do the opposite and make your cells more sensitive to insulin. This will make your cells better at absorbing blood sugar, so your body will make less insulin.

Regular exercise is important for managing diabetes and staying healthy. That’s because it makes insulin work better. Don’t put off getting more exercise until you’re told you have diabetes. The better off you’ll be, literally, the sooner you act.

To lose weight, you need to maintain healthy blood sugar levels and lower your stress levels. You also need to get adequate sleep (exercise can aid in this regard). 

Adopting these practices has been beneficial. Consult your doctor for advice on where to begin.

Optimize Insulin Dosage

The method used to make changes depends on your insulin regimen (types and doses).

Doctors advise a basal-bolus or MDI regimen for type 1 patients. This insulin management strategy is the most flexible and works well for busy people. 

Insulin modifications vary on treatment strategy, although there are some general guidelines. 

 Since insulin lowers blood glucose, taking too little or none will do the reverse.

 Regular blood sugar testing and tracking can help you control diabetes.

If you need to change your insulin dosage but can’t do it yourself, start small.

If you take rapid-acting insulin, you may need to make adjustments to your dosage every day. But, you should change the basal (long-acting) insulin dosages only at times. And even then, consult your diabetes care team. 

Look at the following instructions for modifying basal and bolus insulin doses.

Changing the Insulin Baseline

Inadequate dosing of long-acting (basal) insulin can manifest in a variety of ways.

Continuous high or low blood glucose levels during the course of a day.

Your blood sugar in the morning is either always high or always low. And during the night, only your basal insulin is working. If the amount is right, glucose levels should stay about the same all night long. When glucose goes up overnight, it means that the basal insulin dose is too low. When glucose goes down overnight, it means that the basal insulin dose is too high.

Another way to figure out if your basal insulin amount is right is to have lunch without carbs or insulin. And check your blood sugar levels in the afternoon.  Do you have any fast-acting insulin on board? If not, then any changes in glucose levels are due to basal insulin levels. If there isn’t enough basal insulin, glucose levels go up, and if there is too much, glucose levels go down.

Once a pattern has emerged, you can tweak your basal dose a little and reevaluate. Consult your healthcare provider if you lack confidence in your ability to do so.

Modifying Insulin Boluses

The doctor will adjust the bolus insulin daily. And he will do it according to the carbohydrate intake and blood glucose levels.

Is your blood sugar rising after meals? Then you’re not injecting enough insulin to handle the carbohydrates you ate. 

Conclusion

Diabetics, to keep their blood sugar levels stable need to optimize insulin dose. They need to check eating habits, physical activity, emotional state, and insulin resistance. With constant monitoring, good advice, and technology, they can make it easier. 

Blood sugar levels vary from person to person. Better blood sugar control can help diabetics improve their quality of life and lower their risk of complications. They can make insulin dose adjustments. The best way to deal with this situation is to get help from a doctor, be aware of yourself, and take action on your own.