Saturday, April 16, 2011

Roller coaster

Posted originally on April 15, 2011

From time to time, a good, in-control diabetic, can have a unexplained roller coaster of blood sugars. This week I experienced one that lasted much longer and had different attributes than any other I've experienced. It was so strange that I just have to blog about it.

This is my roller coaster. For those who aren't diabetic or familiar with normal numbers, I should be right around 100. For me, anything in the 80-140 range is pretty normal- and considered good blood sugars. (Narrative below)

date time sugar
4-10 9:37 am 305
4-10 12:12pm 73
4-10 4:56 pm 199
4-10 9:52 pm 346
4-11 7:52 am 360
4-11 10:57 am 166
4-11 12:40 pm 313 changed my site
4-11 2:34 pm 260
4-11 3:35 pm 231
4-11 4:57 pm 176
4-11 10:07 pm 197
4-12 7:43 am 294
4-12 11:23 am 373 changed bottle of insulin, kept same site
4-12 1:47 pm 322
4-12 2:50 pm 238
4-12 4:21 pm 213
felt quite low at dinner, didn't check but guessed it was in the 50's
4-12 8:28 pm 54
4-12 10:59 pm 57
4-13 2:23 am 48
4-13 5:48 am 170 Husband woke me up to check on me and tell me to test my sugar.
4-13 11:21 am 143

I began this roller coaster on Sunday morning. We have church at 9:00 am and I ate breakfast without testing beforehand, (that was my first error) bolused, and checked my sugar and hour and a half after breakfast as I usually would check my sugar. I felt kind of high and wasn't real surprised at the 305. I took my insulin for the high and drank a little water out of the drinking fountain. By the time we'd made it home from church (three hours later), I was at 73. I ate lunch and probably didn't take too much insulin for it. At dinner I was 199. My mom made a nice spice cake (second mistake) that sent my sugars way high. 346 at bed time, I took my insulin for that and expected to wake up with a normal sugar. Not so.

By morning I was 360, normal after breakfast, high again at lunch and changed my site after lunchtime. This is usually where my blood sugars would even out and start getting normal again. This time, I went another 24 hours with high blood sugars.

I decided that my insulin bottle must be bad and took out a new bottle, and switched out my reservoir. I didn't change my site though because it had gone in really well and I was happy with the way it was feeling. I think I changed my basals up a bit but I'm not sure. That sort of did the trick but it took quite a while. When I changed my insulin, my sugars came down and by that night, I was having a lot of lows. Usually when I have a lot of lows I'll have them between highs or regulars. This time, I had 4 low blood sugars in a row. After the first one, I ate. After the second one, I had some juice and went to bed. I also lowered my insulin to 75% and changed my basals back. After the third one, I just couldn't believe it! I woke up sweating and just astonished at the 48 on the screen. I drank a bunch of orange juice and ate a piece of bread too. I wanted to let Husband know that I wasn't doing well but I didn't want to wake him up, so I sent him a message on Twitter and asked him to check on me in the morning. When he did, I had finally begun my climb back into the normal range and have pretty well maintained that throughout the day today. What a mess! It is so hard on my body to go through these blood sugar swings.