Fat Adapted...

jassnip

So my son is a T1 diagnosed in January and I've had him on LCHF since then. I've recently discovered something really interesting about how his blood sugars behave. He's been doing a roller coaster of highs (for him) 150-200ish range. But it wasn't anything he was eating that we could tell it was almost like his insulin wasn't working (but this past week we had literally just refilled his prescription). Anyway, it occurred to me that maybe he wasn't eating as much as he should and his liver would start dumping glucose. So when I'd see his BS start to go up (he wears a CGM), I'd tell him to go eat something. He'd go have some cheese or jerky or something like that, salami is another favorite, anyway his BS would stop going up and even drop. The human body is just amazing.

Sunny_Bunny_

Interesting observation.
Are you familiar with the facebook page called TypeOneGrit? They're all T1D's using LCHF to achieve normal, non diabetic blood sugars. It's organized by DR Dave Dikeman who's son is T1D.

cstehansen

@jassnip, that makes sense to me. I was diagnosed T2 which I know is different, however, I noticed when I first moved to an 8/16 IF schedule where I ate no breakfast, my BG would sometimes stay higher than normal through the morning. By adding some HWC, MCT and/or almond milk to my coffee seemed to bring it down. I think you are correct about the body needing some fuel and the liver dumping glucose. It makes even more sense for T1 since your son is likely not needing to lose weight, so there are not lots of excess fat stores. Likewise, this was happening to me after I was in weight maintenance and my BF had gotten down to what it was when I was in high school and was a weight lifting, basketball playing, raquetball playing fiend.

T1DCarnivoreRunner

I'm a type 1 that converted to low carb in March. I haven't experienced the same thing, but I wonder about basal rates. I get raised BG (not exactly the speed of a spike, but bordering on what could be classified as a spike) for whey protein and I'm much more carb sensitive than I used to be. Even 10g of carbs raises my BG as much as 30g would have in the past. Since there are carbs in whey protein powder, that could explain this experience.

Consider this possibility: He may still be in the honeymoon phase and the food, despite being low carb, may be causing enough insulin to be released to deal with the consistent glycogen release and/or gluconeogenesis. It may not be an increase in glycogen release, but rather too little insulin until he is able to release enough insulin to supplement the artificial insulin he takes.

I assume he is on a pump? If yes, there are no peaks as one would have in long-acting basal insulin... if we rule that out, your theory could be right or mine could be.

*By the way, I applaud you for discovering low carb so early. When I was diagnosed, treatment plans and technology was nowhere near what it is today. In fact, I was injecting beef insulin at one time and mixing insulins for injections... nobody has to do that today. The diet plans then also contributed to my obesity - I doubled my weight in the first year after diagnosis and tripled it withing a few years. If only I had known at the time about the value of low carb... and if CGM's existed.