How can I adjust my diabetes treatment plan to work the night shift?

When you work the night shift you may feel out of sync with the rest of the world. While everyone else is eating breakfast, you’re ready for your bedtime snack. Adjusting to conventional hours on your days off can also be a challenge. Nevertheless, with careful planning and monitoring, you can learn to make adjustments so that your new routine works for you.

Insulin Adjustments for Night Shift

• If you plan to sleep through the day, you may need to adjust your insulin dose to prevent hypoglycemia while you sleep.
• It may be easier to use a more intensive approach to manage your diabetes. For example, you could take an injection of long-acting insulin at the same time every day and rapid- or short-acting insulin before your meals.
• An insulin pump may also work well. Your health care team can help you make changes.
• If you prefer to stay up until noon and sleep through the afternoon and early evening, your normal morning insulin dose may work just fine. But you may have to make adjustments in your evening dose.
• If your job calls for some nights on and some nights off, then you will need to check your blood glucose levels more often and fine-tune your insulin dose.

If you have type 2 diabetes and are not taking insulin, you may still have to accommodate your work schedule. If you are taking oral medication, eating at a particular time may make a difference. It may be as simple as making sure you eat a snack before sleeping or changing when you eat and work out.