getting up late and on insulin

[kelvin]

Hi there,
My 19 year old son has been recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and is on insulin twice daily.
The question I have is regarding sleeping in on weekends e.g. if he gets up late at 11 am and takes his insulin just before he eats, is this OK? In the week while he's at school, he has his shot usually around 7 - 7:30 am.  Is it important to have a set time? Or is it OK to have varying times of taking insulin. In the evening he usually just takes it before dinner and it is almost always around 6:30pm, so at the weekends his inulin dosage is quite close together. Is this cause for concern?

[jdrf team dm]

Dear kevlin,

Thank you for reaching out to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. I am a mom of a son diagnosed at 8 at is now 27. When he was older and living on his own he would do the same thing on weekends, but it is important that he try to maintain his week day schedule through the weekends. wak is correct. You can either check him at 7 or 7:30 in the morning or have him set his alarm to check his blood sugar, take his insulin and have a quick breakfast and sleep for a few more hours. My son has done this when he knows his work hours are going to be late. None of us are physicians here so I recommend that you have him talk to his endo about possible adjustments. I would check how his blood sugars are running. Does he test more than 3 times a day? This can also tell his doctor if on the weekends they are running in a different pattern.

Please continue to check back for further postings and please let us know how he is doing.

I wish you all the best,

dm

[JDRF-Team-wak]

I am not a physician, but the mom of a type one 9 year old. When my daughter was on shots, we had the same problem. According to our doctor and the insulin manufactures insulin should be taken at the same time every day-  Especially if it is NPH or Lantus. These long lasting insulin peak in a certain amount of time, then the blood sugars start to rise.  
We solved this problem by myself or my husband getting up, checking her blood and give her shot while she was sleeping or she would get up take her shot and go back to bed.  Then we got her the insulin infusion pump. Now she can sleep as late as she wants and it is not a problem.
   I would suggest you call your endocrinologist and discuss this with him.  He might adjust the dosage or give you some better ideas of how to handle sleeping late.