I don’t know what’s going on this week, but my pancreas working again is back to being haywire. I ate a meal and had a good 112 blood sugar an hour after the meal. Then 3 hours after the meal my blood sugar jumped to 140 all by itself. I took 7 units of fast acting insulin to bring the BG down, but an hour after that, my BG rose to 160. I don’t know if my test strips are bad or what, but usually 5 to 7 units of fast acting insulin brings my BG back down under 100 within an hour. I guess it’s time to ride the glucocoaster again. I just retested to make sure it wasn’t an error. I’m not even going to mess with this anymore as stacking another dose can cause an issue. I will test later and see if the problem has corrected itself. I’ve been having a bad two days pain wise and my oxygen levels are dropping low at times. Maybe that has something to do with this. I really don’t know. This happens to me a lot. I will work around the house and BG will rise to 140 without even eating. All whacked out numbers. It’s so frustrating.
I get your frustration. While your circumstances with a sputtering pancreas is relatively unique, diabetes is filled with inconsistencies. It’s been said that the definition of diabetes insanity is doing the same thing, over and over, and expecting the same result!
To start with, you may not realize the inherent inaccuracy and imprecision of your blood glucose meter. Many meters today are deemed good enough if they report blood glucose within +/- 20% of the actual number. So your one hour post-meal number of 112 could have actually been 90 to 134 mg/dL. So, a 3-hour post meal number of 140 could be partly comprised of “meter noise.”
I say “partly” because there are probably several factors contributing to this. Meals affect the rate of digestion and blood glucose according to their composition of carb/fat/protein and fiber. Carbs by themselves absorb quickly and don’t endure very long. Protein can take hours to digest and only about half of their nutritional content will affect blood sugar. Very little of fat content directly adds to blood glucose but fat can slow the digestion of carbs and protein for many hours post meal.
But meal digestion and the resultant blood sugar rise are not the only factors involved. The liver stores and releases glucose and it could be adding to unexpected blood sugar rises. Stress and other hormones also play a role – as does losing sleep.
If you don’t already, I encourage you to start keeping a diary that includes insulin dose and time, meals, fingerstick BG numbers, exercise, sleep, and any other things you think might influence your metabolism. Right now there are too many factors floating around and makes any analysis difficult at best. Be a student of your glucose metabolism, write things down, and you may start to able to see some associations that can start to shed light on your day-to-day metabolism.
This logging may seem like too much trouble but it has the potential to teach you much more about yourself than any doctor or peer group could. I wish you the best!
@Terry4 - this happened to me also! Meter measured uncharacteristically 180. Took insulin - had seizure. Was happening fairly often so I bought a Wal-Mart meter for less than $20 to double check. Glucometer was OFF BY 90 points!
Seizures are terrifying!
I have the Truemetrix meter from True Track. I know the meter is close to being accurate because I was about to pass out two weeks ago and my BG was 40. That was a real hypo. It feels like you’re having a stroke and losing control of your body. A person who has never experienced a hypo would probably think they’re having a mini-stroke of some sort. But I will try and get some glucose to test the meter. I have two of the same meters. One is a back up. Maybe I will break out the other meter and see what’s going on. Also, I think I have digestive issues. I’m on pain meds; and if I do not take 6 stool softeners and at least six laxatives a day, I will not go to the bathroom. After two days of not going to the bathroom I am full, bloated, and throwing up. I used to go to the bathroom 11 times a day; even on pain meds. But about a year ago, everything slowed down and locked up on me. Sorry for the TMI, but it has to do with some of these issues. My pain might be playing a role as well. I hurt unless I’m sleeping. I have been sleeping 12 hours trying to avoid the pain. Maybe that is causing an issue as well. I also have the stress of not being able to return to work which is hard on me. I used to be a very productive member of society. Now I get side-lined from doing simple household tasks. I’ve been feeling unwell and only eating once a day for the last three days as well. I don’t even enjoy my food when I am like this. Pain affects everything.
Well, my fasting sugar is 90. So the problem corrected itself during the night. RN, Seizures are no fun. I would be scared to have those. I don’t need to hit my head while on blood thinners. Terry, my resistance changes weekly. It’s just really weird. I will be on a 2:10 ratio for weeks at a time with no problems. No hypos. Hitting my marks every time. Then all of a sudden, I will have a hypo with no change in diet or exercise. Then my ratio will be 1:10 again, then resistance will hit the next week, and I might go back to a 1:4 ratio for a while. Nothing is set in stone. The only medication that affected my BG levels was Paxil. It caused me to be more insulin sensitive. Paxil and Prozac are good at that. They are even looking into using them in diabetics. I stopped using the meds because they were making me batty. I think I already have diabetic neuropathy as my blood pressure is high when standing and other issues. Maybe that is affecting some of what’s going on. I will start keeping track of everything and see what happens when my BG numbers start to act all wonky. Thanks for the help. I know you two have been dealing with this a lot longer than I have. It does get frustrating. Like yesterday when I just let the BG stay at 160, because I was too tired of fudging with it. I can see how some people get frustrated and just give up. I will never give up on this though. I’m not afraid of the complications of the disease. I just have so many other diseases that cause cardiovascular issues, I can’t afford to neglect any of them.
J
Please click on this link for some possible reasons as to why BG rises:
@blizzard2014: 2 more things. When my meter was off by 50-90 pts, it wasn’t CONSISTENTLY off. Just 2-3 times a week.
Also, had bronchitis past 5 days and readings consistently high on 5-600 calories/day of
10 carbs.
You have remember one thing…you are being asked to MANUALLY control something that is supposed to be down automatically by the body like breathing. Most of us would not be alive if we had to manually control our breathing. So don’t be so frustrated if its not near perfect let alone perfect. Our bodies respond to things that we don’t even know that is happening
Well, my BG continues to be completely normal. I munched down almost 140 carbs in one meal and my BG only hit 119. I don’t know what to make of this at all. It’s like the fog has lifted. It kind of makes me feel like a fraud picking up my monthly insulin and meds. I’m going to continue to take the Metformin for now, and if my BG remains stable for another month, I will stop filling my scripts for Novolin R and needles. I’m back on a low calorie lower carb diet now. I have mainly been eating 1 1200 calorie under 60 grams of carbs per day meal. I will bump that up to two meals under 100 grams of carbs per day and 1200 to 1500 carbs a day. I just switch one course of the meal out with a healthy salad and instead of two sandwiches, I eat one massively stuffed sandwich, or two Philly cheesesteak sandwiches with 1 bun. I make one sandwich from the top bun, and one from the bottom and only eat 46 grams of carbs for that meal. I have had not even a reactive hypo for all this time. I don’t know why this happened. Maybe I didn’t have diabetes and only pre-diabetes. I’m not eating a lot because I’m detoxing from pain meds and it’s been rough on my gut. I hade absolutely no hunger for three straight days. I only ate one bowl of serial in all that time. Maybe the long periods of intermittent fasting is helping the pancreas as well. I will keep you all posted. Thanks for all of the support.
I know what you mean about managing something that your body is supposed to manage/regulate on it’s own. I’ve been doing that with the thickness of my blood for over five years now. I have to do a balancing act with my INR. I thought that was difficult until I had to inject insulin twice a day. That became so daunting that I elected to eat only one meal a day with carbs and only have to deal with that balancing act for my dinner meal. Those of you who have to do it three to 6 times a day are really strong fighters. Your struggle is real. I know I will be back on the needle eventually. So, I will enjoy my current borrowed time for now. I salute all of you LADA peeps. Keep up the good fight.
I have tested my meter and it seems to be accurate. I guess I will trust it for now. Thanks for all of your help. I really appreciate it.
Thank you for this!