sick day rules

JWo said:
having some needless hypos due to applying sick day rule because my urine results were "out of date". Get well soon!

I agree with novorapidboi26, if you're feeling better and can eat... with your BGs behaving much better, I would proceed with my normal insulin regime again.

Ketones have been a strange one for me when I was last experiencing them a lot and my nurse explained that sometimes you won't need to be high to have some ketones. I was in a good range and getting ++ and the like. I never really fully established the exact cause for my ketones but apparently things like going too long with out food, exercise... can cause some ketones to appear.

With me being a diabetic for 20+ years, when this came to light, I was very alarmed. Ketones were very dangerous I was taught and it usually meant a hospital visit. This updated information from my nurse though has helped me though. When I changed over to the blood testing kit instead of the urine strips, it did take me a bit to realise what was a dangerous level of ketones - my blood seems to be obsessed with having a trace (0.1) but my nurse pointed out to me that this was nothing to worry about considering the levels to worry about are covered on the sickday rules page (stupid me didn't think to look!).

Check the main image out on the sick day rules page here.

Need to have much more than 0.1 to have to respond - so I've slowly come to terms with the fact my body will produce ketones sometimes even when I'm not ill. It is a natural process after all... you only need to worry when you're definitely sure you're ill (but don't hesitate to check your ketones when you're over 13 BG - best to check than not).

My opinion is that ketones occur when there is no fuel for the body to use through lack of food, which can happen overnight when fasting or when to ill to eat anything.

So being ill in a sense is not the direct cause of them.................in my opinion.....

If you can compensate for the liver dumping extra fuel to fight infection or virus and keep eating then in theory you should keep ketone production under control........in the real world though getting this right quickly is often difficult...........

I agree with novorapidboi there.Again I woke up with ++ ketones this morning with a high BG.I am aware that my high sugar is needing to be brought down by increasing my BI at night.I have been told by my DSN that my ketones are "starvation ketones",but not to worry too much about them.I do start the sick day rules regime(as advised to by my DSN),and find that after one or too extra doses of the TDD regime,that my ketones are gone and my BG is back down.I am aware though that ketones caused by other causes are not soo easy to get rid of.

Ketones are processed by insulin just as glucose is so the more you have, the more insulin you need.....the thing with ketones is that is a bi product of a bodily function, so unlike eating, we have no control of them.

I can actually confess that I dont check for ketones unless I am unwell or have not eaten in some stupidly long time, which very very rarely occurs. I am only really high in the morning, and i will defo has a small amount then, and even if I have went really high, the insulin correction I take deals with the glucose, processes any ketones and dumps the surplus into the bog...........

novorapidboi26 said:
My opinion is that ketones occur when there is no fuel for the body to use through lack of food, which can happen overnight when fasting or when to ill to eat anything.
So being ill in a sense is not the direct cause of them.................in my opinion.....

I wasn't responding to anyhing you said.....just explaining my understanding of them.........

Did one get out the wrong side of the DAFNE targets this morning.......lol.......

novorapidboi26 said:
I wasn't responding to anyhing you said.....just explaining my understanding of them.........

Did one get out the wrong side of the DAFNE targets this morning.......lol.......

Dont worry about it, coming across the wrong way is bound to happenm with me quite often, mentioning my "opinion" is just my way of emphasising thats its what I believe with the information I have been given up to this point, but I could be wong or not know the full science of the ketone......

I wouldnt say ketones are the cause of illnes, as they are a natural ocurance and are processed even in a non diabetic, when illness occurs extra glucose is provided to help in fighting the infection or virus or healing of a wound, so for diabetics this can be hard to estimate what we need to compensate, and therefore ketones are more likely....

During the night the brain actually depends on ketone bodies for energy

DKA obviously occurs when the bodies functions cant cope with the acidity and lack of fuel, and will shut down eventually...............

As we alaways have some ketones in our blood, I wouldnt think that it would prevent a hypo after a hypo, unless however there are elevated levels of them then obviously there is not engouh insulin to get even glusoce to the bodies cells, so the likelyhood of the BG dropping is low.......

Thanks. ^_^; ...and I've had my nap too now. Bit of a siesta, with the sunshine blazing from the window!

You're already expressing more deeper knowledge than I do about ketones, I just know what I've discovered each day - perhaps I should look at doing more research, a habit I've not really started considering you can't always trust what you read online. ;) How did you learn what you've come to understand?

I had no idea that ketones bodies were used for energy for example!

It's so easy to misinterpret information, which is a shame. Taking stuff at face value, typical attitude of a child really now that I think about it. I do really wish I was diagnosed later on than 5 years of age sometimes. What I've grown up with is wrong sometimes - ketones are a great example considering not all of them are bad (as you're telling me now as well as my nurse helping me to realise). I do wonder sometimes that it's because since DAFNE I've started testing for ketones a lot more (because I used to be very bad for not testing at all, ill or otherwise), that I never became more aware sooner... but oh well, you live and learn.

Its for stuff like this that I'm so glad DAFNE is in my life. My diabetes was in such a guess cloud before. -_-;;