Has anyone ever experienced the burnout/stressout from diabetes and had their blood sugar rise as a result of it? I’m a very stressed out person in general, and I’m thinking that my blood sugar is in the constant 200s. My only normal numbers are in the morning when I wake up. My endo also me that you can’t “correct” for your stress. Could I also be honeymooning?
What I"m also having a hard time with is I recently moved from Seattle to Minneapolis and had to switch endos. My current endo switched my carb ratio and ever since then I feel like I’ve been a lot higher.
I’m curious how others deal with the stress of being diabetic and if it has effected their BGs.
Right now, I’m taking 5 units of Lantus at 10am, and doing 1:10 for my Humalog.
Stress plays havoc with BG. You’re not alone there. Don’t understand what your endo means by you can’t correct for stress, unless he’s saying that you can’t factor it in by pre-empting it with dosing.
Honeymooning is characterized by lows when your own insulin kicks in sporadically, not by highs.
Since your new ratio isn’t working, why not use your previous one?
You certainly can correct for stress. I do it all the time. What you can’t do is up your “basal” Lantus to correct it, because it is not a constant. And the more problems you have with the BG, the more stressed you will be!
I have always believed that my endo is only necessary for updates on technologies and prescriptions. I am the only one who can make the D thing work. More than likely, the endo is not D, has never experienced any of our trials personally or felt our level of frustration. Go with your knowledge of how your body works and how your D works. If the ratio isn’t right, change it. Try for a few days and see what happens. If that doesn’t fix it, try something else. Just do it in small steps, so you do not have lows to deal with.
Diabetes is a stressful disease. You can’t eliminate the stress. But you can look your D in the eye and say “I am not going to let you do this to me!” Good luck!
I suppose I haven’t gone back to my old ratio is because I’m weary of not taking a doctor’s advice. I used to be on six units of Lantus and that seemed to work out fine. Ever since the switch to 5 it’s been really screwing with me.
There are days where it’s so stressful, but other days I don’t even notice it. I think stressing out with non-diabetes related things is making me more stressful about food in general. I’m burning out, but I also try really hard. It’s a weird toss up. I’m going to try to go back to 6 units instead of 5 - that seemed to work out great for me!
You can absolutely correct for stress (and anger too)! I do it all the time. I have a really hard time with my BGs increasing whenever I get stressed, angry, or upset. I have found at work that if I start getting really stressed about something, I need to up my basal rate by about 50% to keep my BG in normal range (I use a pump).
Have you considered a pump? I will say that it’s much easier to correct for any situation using the pump.
As for not taking your doctor’s advice…D, particularly T1D, is all about trial and error. Sometimes you have to just try something and, if it works, go for it. You know what a “normal” BG is and that’s your goal. From there, you have to do whatever works to stay within that range. I have found that when it comes to dealing with T1D, endos are marginally helpful. I do a lot of self-management via logging and small adjustments, as do most people with T1D. The good thing is that if you’re checking your BG regularly, counting your carbs more or less accurately, and taking insulin, those small adjustments aren’t going to kill you. At most, you’ll end up a bit high or low. It takes some time to figure out what impacts your BG and how.
You know what works best for you. If you’re high at 5 units, going back to 6 seems the right choice. I take doctor’s advice on dosing as a starting point only.
Exercise is a huge destresser for me. It also seems to be advantageos for me as it has become necessary to anticipate BG several hours ahead of time so I can be ready for action, no IOB, enough food in the tank, etc. Today is off day and I’m a little jittery about it, trying to think of an excuse to ride my bike somewhere for no particular reason other than that the sun is peeking out for the first time in a couple of days.
Did your current endo switch your carb ratio because they were uncomfortable? If you weren’t uncomfortable or having problems, I’d tell them to buzz off. I had some issues w/ some ratios and the nurse who was emailing me was being sort of Nurse Ratchety about “change this, too many lows” but then my pump blew up and I think that it may have been “overpumping” a tad bit while it was on the fritz, before it blew up as I’ve cranked it back up to sort of where it was. I also emailed them my Garmin log of running & biking to give them something else to consider and they kind of calmed down and said “we’ll see you in a month”. And then called to reschedule b/c she’s off to a conference.
He said that he wanted to keep me from having lows. I would usually get low about once a week…but my A1C at that point was 6.8…I was hardly in the 200s at all. Now it seems out of control. So now I’m trying to figure out if it’s the stress or his carb ratio change. My understanding was I could get low at times and that was part of being diabetic. He said “when we adjust your lows, then we can focus on the high numbers.” I thought it was weird.
I think they might have been uncomfortable and trying to cover his ■■■. I got the “you’re low too often,” which was maybe around 70ish once a week. I didn’t see any problem with it, considering I felt great and had had the same carb ratio for about 8 months. Just trying to figure out if my stress is making me high or his/my new carb ratio. Hermmm.
That’s what I thought! I thought it was really bizarre that all of a sudden he would switch me after having such a good record with numbers and whatnot. The last A1C I got was 7.2 and that was back in April. I have no idea where I’m at now probably because of his adjusted ratio. Le sigh.
I talked to my doc about this very thing and she gave me a book called Diabetes Burnout. I’ve been diabetic since 1985 and I just was OVER it. I did get on a pump and that has helped a whole lot. I don’t feel like a slave to diabetes anymore. It’s not always perfect, but it’s much better. And my blood sugar did go up because I just was completely tired of paying attention, and it felt like no matter what I did it wasn’t working anyway. But it’s better now. It will get better for you too. I always like to remember that if I had been born in another era (before injectible insulin) that I would just be dead. It puts it into perspective for me. Good luck.
