October 5, 2005
Meal Planning, Food and Diet, Other
Question from Lakewood, California, USA:
I am trying to figure out what a good combination of food is at night to keep my son’s blood sugar from going down too quickly without having to be at 250 mg/dl [13.9 mmol/L] at bedtime. He just turned two and is on 1.5 units of Lantus and.5 unit of Humalog with meals. If I decrease his Humalog, it would be by.25 unit, which is difficult. Also, his blood sugars are really good during the day with 1.5 of Lantus, but, at night, his blood sugar tends to be between 70 and 80 mg/dl [3.9 and 4.4 mmol/L] at 3 a.m. and I need to give him some milk to finish out the night. He doesn’t have these lower blood sugars if he goes to bed with his blood sugar over 250 mg/dl [13.9 mmol/L]. I have seen, with whole wheat pasta, that he tends to go up many hours after he eats the pasta. I just didn’t know if there is a combination of fat, protein and carbohydrates that really takes longer to break down.
Also, there are no support groups in my heavily populated area. Do you have information on support groups?
Answer:
A specialty food I would recommend are Extend Bars. The bars have an effective combination of a modest amount of carbohydrate, protein and fats to help prevent nighttime hypoglycemia and, best of all, they taste good. The key ingredient that makes Extend Bar so effective is uncooked cornstarch. Uncooked cornstarch is a very complex, low glycemic carbohydrate that digests and converts to blood sugar very, very slowly.
JMS
[Editor’s comment: The question of setting up support groups has been addressed. Please check our Search feature using Ask the Diabetes Team.
BH]
