Dear RJA,
i'm not a doctor but a diabetic like you. Now keeping records of your blood sugars will give your doctors a better view of the problem to be worked on. i swear, after 32 years of diabetes i'm the worlds best record keeper. It is best to avois hypoglycemia as welol as hyperglycemia.
Your problems with drinking could be the alcohol doing odd things to your blood sugars. Even though the ADA says a diabetic can drink two drinks a day, it is still not always wise.
good luck with your doctor, bret
P.S. My first doctor after becoming diabetic told me in my record keeping to write down whatever the reading is as they can't fix a problem they don't know about.
Sounds like you are in the Honeymoon stage. The insulin you are taking relieves some of the pressure on your pancreas. And the beta cells increase their production of insulin. Blood sugar levels come down. And it can seem almost as if the diabetes has gone away.
Unfortunately, this is short lived. The beta cells will die off and you will soon become totally dependent on injected insulin. The challenge is to manage the transition. The fact that, during this honeymoon period, the production of insulin by the beta cells is not consistent makes it difficult.
As you are on 4 shots a day, I assume you are injecting basal insulin onece a day and short-acting insulin before meals. This means that you should be able to make suitable adjustments to your dosages.
My daughter, who was diagnosed a year ago, has just been through this process. What worked for her was to reduce the basal insulin so that she didn't have hypos between meals. She increased the pre-meal shots a bit to compensate. She also tested between meals and would inject extra short-acxting insulin if neccessary.
It worked well for her. It meant that she didn't have unexpected hypos and she maintained reasonable control at the same time. She has now passed through the honeymoon stage and has increased her basal insulin to the level it needs to be.
Cheers,
Mark