46 Comments
When your sleep is disrupted because of T1D, what are the most common causes? Select all that apply to you.
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The notification that my sensor or transmitter will expire “soon” in the wee hours of the night is very frustrating. I wish there was a “do not disturb “ function for non-critical alerts. I don’t need to be awaken at 3 am with an alert 10 days before my transmitter is set to expire! Not helpful!
Amen!
These days, very rarely any of the above except for physical effects of a low. I usually sleep soundly though pump alarms, but if I am dangerously low during sleep what I experience is struggling to awaken or escape from a weird dream. My husband awakens to witness me thrashing and moaning or talking nonsense and my pump CGM is beeping.
However thanks to closed loop technology I rarely have sleep lows like that anymore with Tandem Control IQ. The pump adjusts and suspends insulin delivery if I am below target until I am back in range, thus I generally sleep peacefully through the night.
My CGM does not alarm which is fine for me since I wake up any time glucose gets too low. When Omnipod 5 and Dexcom 7 become available I will switch to looping system. 65 years T1
Right there with you. 66 yrs now. Looking forward to having a loop system
I don’t have a CGM (yet). I get hot when I go low and I wake up.
It’s because I have pee haha since I switched to tslim I have zero lows and highs at night.
I wake up every two hours because of pain and contractions in my hips, legs and ankles. The pain wakes me before my CGM alarms. I look at it when the pain wakes me and if I am going high or low, I fix it. Although it seems to correspond with my fluctuating blood sugar, my endocrinologist chooses to pretend it doesn’t happen or makes ridiculous suggestions.
Calibration required.
The worst for me is the 3:00 a.m. need to calibrate my CGM. I seldom get high or lows overnight.
I’m glad you asked this questions. Perhaps my biggest frustration with an insulin pump/CGM is the number of ridiculous disturbances I get while I am asleep. “Your blood sugar was high/low 2 hours ago, do a blood test.” Are you kidding? I don’t care that my blood sugar was high/low in the past, and I don’t do blood tests. Low insulin warnings. I know my insulin’s low. Does it have to wake me up at 3am to tell me I have 5 or 10 units left? Oh, then there is the “incomplete bolus alert.” This happens often, when I have not tried to take a bolus at 2am. It just goes on and on. There really needs to be a “Do not Disturb” setting. Let me know when I’m very low or very high, in the present tense. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear from my pump.
You took the words right out of my mouth!
Device indicates bg trend that will be out of range while asleep, wait to confirm trend Wil be in range.
My CGM Freestyle Libre 14 day is without alarms. So when I wake up in the middle of the night for the bathroom walk, I check the sensor and see a number in the dark. It works well for me living alone for the past 3 years, and I am so thankful to have this device, and would find the alarms very annoying . Good sleep is so important for your body at any age!
Type one diabetes doesn’t interfere with my sleep! EVER.
You’re a very lucky person!
When my pump goes out of Automode because of a minimal or maximum basal adjustment. Usually with warning. Then need a new calibration to restore Automode.
Before the DEXCOM G6 the most common cause of sleep disturbance was firemen asking “You ok now?” after my kids called 911. Great people these firemen.
Bless all their hearts! ❤️
For the past week or more I have been alerted at 4:00 am that my pump needs a blood sugar reading to stay in auto mode. Since my sensor, by the morning, is invariably 10 lower than my blood test I just add a few points to the current reading and feed the information to the pump. It is quite annoying as I have no idea why.
For me it is CGFM warning of highs/lows. I have a very narrow range (60-120), so I get quite a few alarms. But I’m fine with that. keeps me steady and in my range.
Very rarely awakened with my Dexcom G6. Frequently awakened for a journey to the bathroom. This is caused by fluid in my legs.
In addition to the maddening beeps and buzzes of lows and highs coming from my CGM, my legs have become the source of my worst sleep interruption. I get restless legs, leg cramps, aches, pains, numbness and prickly sensations. The only way to quieter my legs back down is to get out of bed and walk around until they calm down. At that time I also check my BG and go to the bathroom, and by that time I’m usually wide awake.
Have you ever tried a potassium supplement? It may help with the leg cramping.
This happens to me too. In my case, it seems to occur more when I’m dehydrated and drinking a big glass of water seems to help.
Does your diet provide adequate potassium?
Do you need orthotics and extra depth shoes?
If you’re doing leg exercises like squats, calf-raises, long hikes, or jogging…Remember to do calf stretches and thigh stretches before and after. Are you doing 5’ of ankle rotations every day? All these things helped me solve the problem of painful leg cramps.
Are you on statin drugs? They can cause muscle cramps.
I get woken up over lost signal from rolling over on my pump more often than highs or lows.
My pump’s alarms are set at 70 and 150 and my phones alarms at 70 and 120. Night is the best time to get good even blood sugar readings for 1/3 of the 24 hour period for me in a relatively low range. 80/105 is optimal for me for that period. No effects of food, exercise or stress.
On Tandem CIQ so there NO Lows, usually a battery or delivery issue
BG required, not Hi or Lo
Biggest benefit since I switched to Tandem pump with Control IQ last November has been more peaceful nights and waking up in range every morning. I do occasionally still get overnight alarms most often from lows (due to late night snack mis-bolus or overcorrection) or me forgetting to check pump battery before bed.
I selected several of the different options offered as my sleep is very often disturbed by my pump ‘alarming’ indicating that my blood glucose level is high … even after I’ve already bolused to cover it; my blood glucose level is low … even though I’ve treated the low; that my sensor needs to be changed; that my battery is running low on power, etc. etc.
When it runs out of insulin totally because the omnipods are so expensive I always wear them for the extra eight hours.
I didn’t read the question fully, so my answer is incomplete…
But, the low (or high) alarms…
When I get a low alarm, it will frequently alarm 5 or 10 minutes later even though I’ve taken glucose… but, that takes 30 minutes or so to arrive in the blood. So, to have the extra alarms in the meantime are super annoying.
And, the high is even worse because insulin takes an hour and more to arrive.
I wish there was a way to put the alarms on “snooze” for a period of time while the solution to the problem works to show up in the blood sugar.
My Dexcom has a setting for how often to repeat some of the alarms.
Hi Sherolyn!
I just checked mine. It is set to not repeat at all (0 minutes). But! I wonder if I change it to something like 30mins and 1 or 2 hours, it will stop alarming at me every time it crosses that demarcation line. I will give it a try. Thank you for the idea! 😀
I totally agree with you about putting the alarms on snooze. If I acknowledge a low by clicking on my pump, it should not keep reminding me my sugar is low every few minutes. My sugar too can take at least a half an hour to rise after eating pure carbs. I think as long as the problem is acknowledged, the pump should at least give your body time to get the blood sugar up. I think 1/2 hour is reasonable. If the low is not acknowledged, then yes, the cgm/pump has the obligation to notify.
There used to be a Ukrainian guy name Oleg who posted on this site. The trivial trifles of low device battery or checking BG levels seem pitifully inconsequential compared to obtaining basic insulin.
So, Oleg, if you’re still around, what do you need? And how do I send it?
Що потрібно? Куди відправити?
Что нужно? Куда отправить?
What wakes me up is low sugar. Mine has to be 120 in order for me to stay asleep any length of time. My alarms are set for 75 and 150, but CIQ takes care of most of these. I do not know why I now cannot sleep with a BG below 120. I used to be able to get really low without noticing. My doctor suggested gradually lowering the point at which I would treat nighttime lows, but this has not worked. If my Sugar is 117, for example, I can lie awake 3 hours at least. (I give up after losing that much sleep – I really need the sleep.) I have tried several times, but nothing works to get me back to sleep until I hit, maybe 119.
I run the DEX and the Tandem APP all the time on my iPhone. Both APPs alarms are set the same at night (0001-0700). Signal loos is depending what side of my abdomen the set and sensor is on.
Starving and weak.
It seems like sometimes my supper digests really slowly. I will be fine all evening and then around midnight, I get a high alarm. I will do an adjustment bolus, but for me, insulin acts more slowly when I am sleeping. So often, I will get another high alarm in an hour.
My CGM does not have an alarm, so if I am not scanning it, it does not give me a reading. Last night I woke up soaking wet and hot, so I knew I was low. When I scanned, it read LO.
After drinking a cup of juice, I scanned again and it read 40. It was a long morning…
I set a higher BG alarm point for nighttime compared to daytime. That way, I lose less sleep. I use Sleep Mode on my Tandem pump 11pm to 6am, so automatic high corrections are not active. The low alarms stay the same. However, I don’t often have alarms overnight. I’m usually 90+% in range.
Calibration reminders for my CGM