Insulin scare

Strider · Jan 17, 2007

Wow, I was trying the hardcore cutting diet posted in the articles section on this board for the first time last night and I dropped down to a blood glucose level of 1.7mmol/L = 30.63mg/dL. I just have to say that after all the warnings listed everywhere about using insulin and the possibility of death, I was actually fully prepared. I had my fiance watching over me in case of a serious emergency, and I had the glucose I needed on hand. When the sweats hit my body hard all of a sudden I walked straight into the kitchen and started to eat, first glucose, then every other carb I could find that had a high GI. I've never felt so hungry before in my whole life.

I was using humalog-r, and I started with 2iu. Two hours and my numbers were 4.4mmol/L=79.28mg/dL, so I tried another 2iu which after 1.5 hours had dropped me down to 4.0mmol/L=72.08mg/dL, but after the two hours was up I checked again and got 4.3mmol/L=77.48mg/dL. At that point I decided to up it to 3iu, and about 45 minutes later I started to sweat like I'd never sweat before, I mean the sweat was running off of my face and upper body, and I was suddenly starving to death. Thanks to the info posted here and elsewhere, I didn't get to scared, I just went and started to eat, then sat down telling my fiance to make sure I stayed awake, and to call for help immediately if I passed out and she couldn't wake me immediately. That's the story. I will try again, but this time I'm more aware of how my body reacts, and I will use all of the same precautions. I just thought this might be informative for people thinking about trying insulin. I was prepared, I had a glucometer, glucose, I knew as much as one can know going into something for the first time, and I thought I was careful. I still could have killed myself.

Enanthanator · Jan 17, 2007

so you took 7ius of humalog in 5 hours? Without eating anything? Humalog lasts for about 5 hours in your body it peaks around an hour after injection. I applaud your intelligence for having the meter and the tabs but I am wondering why you did it this way? Just to experiment?

Strider · Jan 17, 2007

Yeah I was experimenting trying to find out how much to take to drop me into ketosis. I know humalog lasts for five hours, but it's peak effect is in the 60-90 minute mark.

Dad · Jan 17, 2007

High rep workouts over a few days on low carbs will take you SAFELY into ketosis (which you shuold be monitring with KetoStix).

Yuo can then load carbs as the muscles and liver will super-compensate for the depletion.

Yuo were VERY lucky this time.

Strider · Jan 17, 2007

I agree I was lucky, but I was also prepared which is the point that I am trying to make. Be prepared, then even if you do fuck up somehow, you won't die. I am using KetoStix by the way.

Dad · Jan 17, 2007

You're free to do what you want, but few people on this board have the medical and science background to evaluate such a dangerous practice, and those of us who do, wouldn't touch it!

Strider · Jan 17, 2007

There's a thread on this board in the articles section called hardcore cutting that discusses just exactly what I am doing.

Dad · Jan 17, 2007

Yeah, I've seen it. Yuo can read my response if you'd like. Using insulin to achieve ketosis is unnecessay, very dangerous, and not even the best way to use ketosis to supplement fat burning.

Google in "Exogenous insulin-induced coma," and see what your risks are. All for what?

Strider · Jan 17, 2007

Acute hypoglycemia is reversed by raising the blood glucose. This is usually accomplished by eating or drinking 10-30 grams of carbohydrate. Carbohydrate is digested and raises blood sugar most rapidly if it is not eaten with protein or fat. When hypoglycemia is more severe or carbohydrate cannot be given by mouth, glucagon can be injected intramuscularly or intravenously, or dextrose can be infused intravenously to raise the blood glucose. Most people recover fully even from severe hypoglycemia after the blood glucose is restored to normal. Recovery time varies from minutes to hours depending on the severity and duration of the hypoglycemia. Death or permanent brain damage resembling stroke can occur rarely as a result of severe hypoglycemia.

Strider · Jan 17, 2007

I'm trying to discuss this with you Dad, not disrespect you. Isn't that the point of these boards? I mean do you really want people to just listen to what you say without trying to explore your argument?

The above was a quote from Wikipedia.

Strider · Jan 17, 2007

I'm trying to find some info on the prevelance of insulin-induced hypoglycaemic coma and death from.

Dad · Jan 17, 2007

Strider,

I'm not trying to argue either. It's just that there are some things - diuretics and insulin, in particular - that just leap out as being things that are extremely dangerous to make mistakes with. Can you do these kinds of things as outlined in the "Hardcore Dieting" thread and get away with them? Yeah, 9 times out of 10, you'll have no big problems. It's just that the margin of error is very slim on these two in particualr, so if you DO have problems, it's going to cause serious consequences.

With drugs we look at something called the therapeutic index. This measues how safe a drug is in terms of dosage. Some drugs you can take 100's of times the recomended dosages, and be ok - they have a wide therapeutic index. Others, like insulin and diruetics, even 1.5 or 2 times the right dosage is a BIG problem - these have a narrow therapeutic index.

Yuo probably know that I've spoken out against the high dose/long cycle idea with AAS several times here. At worst that idea gives you lots of annoying sides, and takes your body months and months to recover from. With insulin and diuretics, the consequences can be, at extemes, fatal.

All this risk MIGHT be justified by a competing pro who's making hunderds of thousands a year doing so (but not in my book). THe problem I have is with people reading some article, accepting that the person knows what they're talking about who wrote it (not always the case with articles directed toward bodybuilders), and, without understanding the true risk/reward profile, goes ahead and tries it out. Yuo yourself had a bad scare recently with just such an approach.

I usually keep my mouth shut with the things I see people do, but every once in awhile I feel like I've just got to say something if it's really dangerous or makes no sense.

Not trying to give you a bad time, but just concerned that this is reckles beyond description, that there ARE better ways to achieve that same goal, and hoping you don't run into problems you don't come back from well.

PM me and I'll give you a great plan for ketosis and fat loss that I've used successfully in many shows.

cordoba · Jan 17, 2007

Seems like this diet isnt worth a damn. If you take insulin then have to shove down every high GI carb in the kitchen so you dont die that just makes you fat. Also a glucosemeter is ment for hyerglycemia, they are acurate +-15%, which is almost useless at the low end of the blood sugar spectrum. So all you really know is that your blood sugar was low, but we could have asumed that anyways since you took insulin. Id suggest you stop using insulin in your diets, it dosent makes sense.

Strider · Jan 17, 2007

I can respect everything that you said and listening to your position makes me start to think twice about using this method. I do know about therapeutic indices, drug interactions, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and so on. Therapeutic index is LD50/ED50 (lethal dose for 50% of the population divided by effective dose for 50% of the population), and anything under 10 is considered to be quite hazardous. Yes, insulin is probably quite low depending on how you define an effective dose. I think you may be right that this is an error for me to be doing things this way as I am not a pro with my financial well-being on the line, however, I do believe that if you are careful, have taken all the correct precautions and informed yourself fully, you should be alright. I wasn't able to find the stats on insulin-induced coma/death that I was looking for, but I am sure there are things we do everyday in our lives that have a higher chance of killing us over which we have absolutely no control. I have to decide if I will try this method again or not, but I will say that I wasn't really scared when I started sweating and craving food, I knew this was a possibility and I knew what to do. I was prepared like a good boy scout. I think of this as a learning experience and wanted to share it with others so they could learn from it as well.

Dad · Jan 17, 2007

I respect that, and think it's great to share your experiences.

Yuo obviously DO have some understanding of the science, and this separates you from the vast majority.

Yuo might like to take a look at the Dan DuChiene thread in the Articles Forum. In that is laid out Dan's Ultimate Diet - a 10 day cyclic ketogenic diet. It will accomplish the best job I've seen of getting rid of the fat, AND get you stronger to boot!

Just be safe, man!

bpoppapumpp · Jan 17, 2007

Dad said:
Strider,

I'm not trying to argue either. It's just that there are some things - diuretics and insulin, in particular - that just leap out as being things that are extremely dangerous to make mistakes with. Can you do these kinds of things as outlined in the "Hardcore Dieting" thread and get away with them? Yeah, 9 times out of 10, you'll have no big problems. It's just that the margin of error is very slim on these two in particualr, so if you DO have problems, it's going to cause serious consequences.

With drugs we look at something called the therapeutic index. This measues how safe a drug is in terms of dosage. Some drugs you can take 100's of times the recomended dosages, and be ok - they have a wide therapeutic index. Others, like insulin and diruetics, even 1.5 or 2 times the right dosage is a BIG problem - these have a narrow therapeutic index.

Yuo probably know that I've spoken out against the high dose/long cycle idea with AAS several times here. At worst that idea gives you lots of annoying sides, and takes your body months and months to recover from. With insulin and diuretics, the consequences can be, at extemes, fatal.

All this risk MIGHT be justified by a competing pro who's making hunderds of thousands a year doing so (but not in my book). THe problem I have is with people reading some article, accepting that the person knows what they're talking about who wrote it (not always the case with articles directed toward bodybuilders), and, without understanding the true risk/reward profile, goes ahead and tries it out. Yuo yourself had a bad scare recently with just such an approach.

I usually keep my mouth shut with the things I see people do, but every once in awhile I feel like I've just got to say something if it's really dangerous or makes no sense.

Not trying to give you a bad time, but just concerned that this is reckles beyond description, that there ARE better ways to achieve that same goal, and hoping you don't run into problems you don't come back from well.

PM me and I'll give you a great plan for ketosis and fat loss that I've used successfully in many shows.

Dad, i just posted a thread about gettin ready to start insulin for the first time. but after reading what u wrote, i decided against doing it. i'm not going pro anytime soon, and honestly don't know enough about insulin to justify using it with the possible risks. with my luck, i'd do it once and not wake up the next morning. so, thank you.

cordoba · Jan 18, 2007

Strider said:
I can respect everything that you said and listening to your position makes me start to think twice about using this method. I do know about therapeutic indices, drug interactions, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and so on. Therapeutic index is LD50/ED50 (lethal dose for 50% of the population divided by effective dose for 50% of the population), and anything under 10 is considered to be quite hazardous. Yes, insulin is probably quite low depending on how you define an effective dose. I think you may be right that this is an error for me to be doing things this way as I am not a pro with my financial well-being on the line, however, I do believe that if you are careful, have taken all the correct precautions and informed yourself fully, you should be alright. I wasn't able to find the stats on insulin-induced coma/death that I was looking for, but I am sure there are things we do everyday in our lives that have a higher chance of killing us over which we have absolutely no control. I have to decide if I will try this method again or not, but I will say that I wasn't really scared when I started sweating and craving food, I knew this was a possibility and I knew what to do. I was prepared like a good boy scout. I think of this as a learning experience and wanted to share it with others so they could learn from it as well.

Your not going to find the infomation your looking by searching diabetic coma, try searching "insulin shock" or "Neuroglycopenia". Insulin shock is the hypoglycemic condition and Neuroglycopenia is the shortage of glucose in brain tissue. Be safe, 5lbs of muscle and 10lbs of fat is not worth dying over.