I was diagnosed with diabetes in mid 2007. At the beginning of 2008 I started using an insulin pump. Recently I have been having trouble with my numbers high blood sugar. It just got me wondering what my blood sugar numbers would be like if i went a day without my pump. So at 9am I decided to take off my pump and just go through my day normally like I would. So I took it off and checke my blood sugar at the normal times I would if I was wearing the pump. My BG never went below 180. Thirty minutes after lunch by BG was 237. I finally got sick of having it so high all the time that I put my pump back on.
Of course your blood sugar would go high since you weren't getting insulin. If I disconnect my pump and ate my blood sugar would go to 500+ in no time.
I think sometimes we just need to do something like that to prove to ourselves "yep, we really don't make any insulin!". When I first got on the pump (and wasn't as quick to react to the possibility of site failure) I woke up one morning at 175 which is totally not normal for me. But I corrected and didn't test again till around noon (after breakfast but before lunch). At noon I was in the high 300s. I got the message then and promptly changed my set, but I was shocked at how high I went how fast. I now know I shouldn't be shocked by that at all, but at the time it really drove the reality of my D home to me.
I have a friend who has been quite depressed for awhile. She got on meds and the improvement in her mood was remarkable (though not surprising to me). Recently when I confronted her (from 3,000 miles away) about her worsened mood and asked if she had stopped taking her meds she admitted she had and was surprised at the results. But I think she had to do the "experiment" just to believe that. Hopefully she will be smart enough to only do that experiment once, though many people with Depression, let alone Bipolar Disorder have to do it repeatedly to "believe" they suffer from these conditions and that the meds really work.
Fortunately, don't feel the need to repeat my experiment with lack of insulin delivery and hopefully you won't either, Ryan. I hope you resolve the problem of high blood sugar with insulin. Have you tried tweaking basals or your I:C ratios?
Wise move to put it back on. Been on a pump for five years, but I do know a few who went on a "pump vacation" for a weekend. Still have to MDI though. After all this time, I feel naked without the pump. I have never done such a thing, but sometimes when I shower and the sensor and inset need to be changed at the same time it's nice not have that stuff on me. Doesn't happen very often though. Take a pump vacation if you like, but you still have to inject. Oh well.
the insulin pump delivers fast acting insulin-- you should have (at the very least) taken precautions and taken a shot of long acting insulin.
Glad you got sick of high numbers. Now behave!