Why my sugars are never "good" at night

It is, well, it is because I eat. I go to bed at 10, and then I wake up at 11pm, half asleep but with a knot in my gut, inwardly afraid of a low that probably is NOT going to happen, and I eat something, usually without bolussing for it. If I do bolus, I UNDER bolus. Then, again, I wake up at 2am, and do the exact same thing.....Ive thought about this so often, every morning in fact, and Ive tried several things to try and break this habit. It is so frustrating! I have to figure in a 2 am snack in my daily total calories if i even DREAM about ever losing weight, and you can bet that that 2am snack is not broccoli or cucumbers.....

I think it all began when I was 16 or 17, heck maybe even age 15....Back to NPH days......I used to wake up every night low. Not normal low but DESPERATELY LOW, in my teen, twenties and high in my thirties kind of low. I would tumble ot of bed, crawl through the downstairs and up the stairs, and collapse next to the ginger ale cabinet and gulp at least a can, then once conscious enough, I would ravage anything I could get my hands on and then mope on back to bed. There were nights that I remembered these nighttime adventures, and there were nights that I "awoke" at the kitchen table, and there were nights where I had no idea I had made the trek until the next morning when I am confronted with the wreckage of pop cans and empty cereal bowls in the kitchen still bleary eyed from sleep. We moved on to Lente after NPH, then Ultralente and FINALLY the pump, which has effectively eradicated the night time lows, but not the night time voyage to the kitchen.....AAACCCKKK! does ANYONE else have the problem of the nighttime eating attacks?

The worst part is, try telling your doctor you "sleepwalk" and "EAT IN YOUR SLEEP" and that is why your morning blood glucoses just won't fall into place.....They look at you like perhaps you truly belong in the psych ward rather than the endocrine clinic.

Anyhow, in the past year, Ive worked out some things that seem to help, but don't eliminate the problem. I keep my glucometer by my bed. The point being that if I wake up, and I do wake up at least 3 times a night, I check my blood sugar and can alleviate any fears I might have about a low, when It comes back normal or slightly elevated. The problem being, that if Im not over 130, Im too nervous to sleep and have to have a snack to calm my fears......This fear of mine runs deep.

I also take symlin and one side effect Ive had with symlin, or something that has come with the better blood sugars Ive had with symlin, is reduced hypoglycemic awareness. Ive been 25 and felt just peachy, which scared the CRAP out of me, becaues it was 11:30 at night, and I checked my blood sugar only because I was having some trouble drifting back off to sleep. I fear, that being a single mom, one night I just won't wake back up. How do you teach a six year old to deal with the possibility that I might not wake up and what you need to do if for some reason I don't? I mean, we have the phone numbers up and he knows who to call, but really, how do you do that and KNOW that it is going to work?

There is so much so deeply rooted in this night time blood glucose problems and eating escapades, that I KNOW that i really don't want the kind of tight control that would tie my gut in knots if ONE thing caused a low that for whatever reason that ONE time I didn't wake up with. I have confidence in my basal rates, and my carb ratios, but I don't have confidence in the forever what ifs of this disease and insulin therapy....