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Thursday, October 14, 2010

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Lose

Tuesday was an awesome day for me, diabetes-wise.  I'm pretty sure I even had a no-hitter, but I haven't downloaded my numbers to confirm.  My in-range trend continued into yesterday, and I decided to reward myself with a regular Snickers bar (not dark Snickers?). 

Big mistake. 

Since I had a meeting soon after lunch, I got my Snickers bar and bolused accordingly without waiting the standard 30 minutes for my insulin to kick in.  Of course, I sky-rocketed to 325 mg/dL before I started coming down.  But since the last few days had been rock solid on the insulin absorption front, I started coming down fast . . .  too fast.  Even without a correction, I was still dropping so much that I needed to drink some juice before I left work. 

Riding this glucoaster left me so drained when I got home, that I punted on making dinner and declared it "Leftovers Day" (we both ended up eating a bowl of cereal, but I digress).  But it seemed no matter how much I ate, I couldn't get my BG back up AND stable.  It seemed like my numbers were playing some sort of virtual tennis game, and whenever I would hit 100 mg/dL my trend immediately started going down again.  It got to the point where I was literally sick of eating, and just wanted to go to sleep. 

When I was ready to go to bed, I was 89 mg/dL with a straight arrow down.  I didn't want to eat anymore, especially in the middle of the night, so I set a 50% temporary basal for 2 hours.  Constance did go off about 30 minutes after I was in bed, saying I was 69 mg/dL--right under my low threshold (I was kind of annoyed that I was "Low" but just under.  I just wanted to go to sleep, and being woken up from a 69 mg/dL was like "What?!  You couldn't be one or two points higher!").  I tested but my meter said I was 99 mg/dL.  I corrected Constance, and she compromised at 85 mg/dL but still with a southeast arrow.  I figured my temporary basal would kick in soon, so I went to sleep. 

This is where things went to crap.  According to Constance, I jumped to just under 350 mg/dL and stayed there for 3 hours!  What scared me most is that I didn't wake up.  This is exactly the kind of situations I wanted to avoid with a CGM.  I finally got up at 3 AM when Constance woke me up at 276 mg/dL.  Luckily, my meter said I was actually 181 mg/dL, so I'm hoping that Constance was overshooting that 3-hour, 350 cruise.  The thought of being at that number for that long just makes my stomach turn.  My first thought when I woke up (at 127 mg/dL, I didn't correct the 181 for fear of going low again, I was comfortable just cruising until I woke up, basal rates may need tweaking) was I wondered if these past few bad days was going to mess up my blood work that I'm going to get done on Friday. 

A recap of my bad day.  (I wanetd to label this pic "crappy_day" in my Constance folder, but I already had one labeled that.  So this is crappy_day2, ducking fiabetes.)
I hate days like this because I worry about what damage I'm doing to my body with these numbers.  And it's not just the persistent highs, it's the bouncing from low-normal-low-normal-high etc.  I notice that my body takes time to get used to "normal" and having days like this (sick days, stress days, Snickers days) makes me feel like I'm starting all over. 

I think next time, I'll just reward myself with a diet soda.  =( 

5 comments:

  1. Dude! We are having similar problems. I hate it when the Dexcom wants to compromise with you when it's waaaay off. I also get quite annoyed being woken up for no-I'm-actually-not lows. Oh, Dexcom.

    Although I'm sorry to hear that this is happening to you, I'm secretly a little bit relieved that I'm not the only one. :)

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  2. My body takes time to settle into normal, too - I call it diabetic detoxing. After a day or two of glucoastering, all of a sudden random foods make me spike and I have mid-grade not awesomes (like, 140s and 150s) that are awfully sticky and hard to get rid of.

    My CDE also said that a low will eff your numbers for the rest of the day. I'd always wondered why she was so super aggressive about my lows when I was logging, and she said if a low will basically make the numbers for the rest of the day completely useless for patterns. I've been watching since she said it, and yep. That's the case. Darned liver.

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  3. I'm having a similar "false alarm" experience and have the burnt test strips to prove it! It started with the sensor I put in last Wednesday and it's been fun fest of inaccurate "LOW" alarms ever since, all varieties, small (< 70 mg/dl), medium (< 55 mg/dl) and large (< 39 mg/dl). I was blaming the sensor location but maybe it was a bad lot? Mine was lot #5009871. I'd be curious to see if yours (and anyone else's) was the same. Probably I should yank the sensor and put a new one in, but yeah, that would be too logical. I bet the cost of the extra strips has outweighed the sensor cost by now!

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  4. Fiona, I have been having a similar issue with this pack (I'm not quite sure which lot it is), but it's been giving me false low alarms especially at night. I actually had to call Dexcom and replace the first sensor because it kept giving me ERR1 on the 6th day. This one is a little more accurate so far, but it's only on 4.

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  5. I'm on Day 8 with this one. It got to the point I actually had a conversation with Mr. Gaeta (my Dexcom) about the boy who cried wolf. Out loud.

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DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor, nurse, certified diabetes educator (CDE) or any medical professional of any kind. (But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express!) Therefore, please do not use any of my postings as medical fact. I am simply a blogger expressing my highs and lows (pun intended) with diabetes. For changes in your medication, exercise regiment, or diet please consult a qualified physician.

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My name is Holly and I live in north Alabama with my hubby, two cats, and a dog.