I am so interested in doing this diet. I just returned from Egypt to the UK and have been able to reduce my insulin consumption from 20-28 units of Humanlog before each meal to 12-18 just by doing low carb and lots of veg. Dieting in Egypt is very hard due to the lack of low carb veg and salad. A typical meal would be a potato and tomato dish with rice served with bread!!!

When I arrived in June I started getting lots of salads and veg with meat. I have lost 11 kilos since June gone from 111 to 100. Great result but with loads of hypos. I get plenty of warning so it has been ok. I would love to hear from anyone who is type 2 on insulin and their experience of insulin reduction and what I could expect on this diet. Which is a more formal version of what I have been doing by myself. Then I could present this to my doctor and we could work a rough plan.

Hi and welcome. I’m sorry, I can’t help but if you use the search box look for posts by sunshinegirl she has written much that will be of interest to you. Also try typing in hypo as I know that is a subject she has written about. If she’s not around, I’m sure someone else with experience of insulin will be around soon. One thing I have read about on here is the dawn phenomenon (again search for that) – could you be experiencing this?

Congratulations on your successes this far.

Hi JaneAkshar
You have done really well by cutting down on your carbs. I think that humanlog is a fast acting insulin – do you take a set amount with each meal or adjust it depending on how many carbs you eat at each meal?

I am actually really concerned about the hypos that you are experiencing and believe that it is not OK to experience lots of hypos. It means you are injecting too much insulin for the amount of carbs you are eating. Injecting too much insulin is a very dangerous thing to do. What if a hypo happened while you were asleep?

I am sorry to sound so negative but I do feel that I need to warn you of the danger. As you cut the carbs your body will become less insulin resistant and much more sensitive to insulin – both the insulin your own body produces and the insulin you are injecting.

I was on insulin for 4 years and through cutting carbs have been able to come off all insulin (I was on Novarapid and Lantus).

I take according to the amount of carbs I am eating but since having test strips also to the amount of my current blood sugar. It is all a bit hit and miss as my body requirements change so much which is why I wanted to see someones experieince

That’s great to hear that you are adjusting to the amount of carbs you are eating and testing with a meter. It makes it a lot easier to manage going lower carb.

What I found was that I was initially injecting one fast acting insulin unit for every 6 grams of carbs. I very quickly had to adjust the ratios to one unit for every 8 grams of carbs then 10. Then it was 1 unit for every 12 grams then 15. Then it became to dangerous to inject any fast acting insulin because of the hypos. I also cut down on my evening slow acting insulin. Basically my diabetes team left it up to me to manage the insulin doses but were always there for me if I needed to ask questions.

It looks from what I have written – that I had an orderly and controlled reduction of insulin. Actually it wasn’t quite like that and I did have a few wild swings of blood sugars and had to ring my diabetes nurse for advice. My two biggest mistakes were:
1 – staying in the same ratio of insulin to carbs too long.
2 – getting in a panic and stopping fast acting and slow acting insulin too soon (even though my diabetes team said it was ok to do so).

I came off all insulin but had to go back on it. I then was only on the slow acting Lantus and found that if I kept my carbs at 20g I didn’t need the Lantus either. While I was doing this the diabetic neuropathy, macular oedema and retinopathy reversed. So eyes and feet have been saved.

Because my HB1aC was 125 on diagnosis and the T2 was very severe I think that I am very lucky that I am “in remission” as it states on my medical records. If I went back to my old way of eating the diabetes would come back – without a doubt. However, I do love this way of eating and I would hate to go back to the old way.

Sorry this is such a long post – but I do hope that it is helpful.

That is massively helpful, many thanks

So pleased you found it helpful. Please do feel free to ask any questions – you may find that you do have quite a lot. Also – there is so much support on this forum from members with immense knowledge of this way of eating. I certainly couldn’t have achieved what I did without the support of members. Please feel free to join any thread – there are some very good threads which will help get you over this very high carb time of year.

I do hope that your diabetes nurse here in the UK is OK with this way of eating. I am very lucky that I have a brilliant nurse who supports my low carb efforts absolutely 100%. Unfortunately not all doctors and diabetes nurses do.

Hi Jane. Before I started this diet I thought a hypo was anything under 120 (6.5) now I am able to go quite low with no bad effects so a ‘normal’ for me is between 80 and 100 (4.5 to 5.5) and this is my preferred area. I used to get in a panic and stuff my face with carby food like a jam sandwich but that was defeating the mantra of my doctor which was ‘you need to lose weight’. How was I to do that if dieting gave me lows and I had to then eat things not on my diet. Now when I feel a hypo coming on the first thing I do is test. If it is not too low (say not much under 70 or 3.8) I just have a snack and eat something protein like a piece of chicken or ham. If it is below that I have the snack followed by a retest and if still low I have some full fat Greek yoghurt with a few prunes or dried apricots which provide something sweet. I used to get in a panic and stuff my face with carby food like a jam sandwich but that was defeating the mantra of my doctor which was ‘you need to lose weight’. How was I to do that if dieting gave me lows and I had to then eat things not on my diet. Hypos might not be caused by diet alone as I had a severe one 36 (1.98) last week while I was actually eating a chicken leg and that needed much more drastic measures but, fortunately, like you, I know when one is coming on so can be calm and measured about it.
I personally am on Lantus slow acting and it does not have the big dips some insulins have. The problem I had was it was supplemented with Glycazides and these are the drugs I have had to cut right down on. My insulin has gone from 40 units to around 25.