Morning person

I am not, as Jane will tell you, a morning person.

It's not, I hasten to add, that I am at all grumpy(!), rather that until something approaching 9 or 10am you are lucky if you get more than a grunt out of me. And then there's the sighing and yawning. Lots of that.

Over the last few years, mornings have also had an added complication in that it has not been unusual for me to wake up a little low. More often than not it's just a case of something sugary with my coffee and all is well, but it's never a good start to a day. A few times a year I am not only low, but my levels are dropping, and Jane has had to intervene.

Since we've been blogging about our experiences of living with diabetes this has been a nut I've been trying to crack. I've tried dropping 2 units of Lantus which seemed to throw my system into a high-sugar tantrum. I've tried dropping 1 unit of Lantus, which involved getting hold of a new, slightly different Autopen. I've tried various amounts of carbohydrate at suppertime to stave off the morning low.

None of these has been particularly successful.

So now I'm trying something something suggested by a commenter on this very blog. I've moved my Lantus injection to the morning rather than last thing at night.

Although Lantus is often said to have a 24 hour peakless profile in reality many Lantus users find the graph is a bit more complicated than that. Indeed this graph on lantus.com shows a slightly flattened version of what I believe happens in my case. It shows a period of onset rising to a mini-peak 4-6 hours after injecting; followed by a slight drop and levelling off; then a fall-off of activity at around 18-28 hours (which I believe can be more or less depending on the person). If my morning lows are due to Lantus's higher level of activity in the hours after injection - at the time when it appears I need less background insulin - then a move to a morning injection should match the fall-off of activity with my reduced need.

It's only been a few days yet and I've not had a chance to run any basal tests to see how things are going, but so far I've not had a pre-breakfast low and levels through the rest of the day have been pretty much what I'd expect.

So far so good. I'll let you know how things progress.

Update: Timing is everything