I had my insulin dosage down to a science. That is, until a week ago, when I hurt my shoulder. Then, my fasting BG's went up-- by 50 pts. So, I changed my insulin dosage to compensate. But I wondered if this increase is because I am in pain and not sleeping well, or coincidence? Any thoughts? Thanks.
Bea
That sounds like inflammation from the injury, pain, and possibly lack of sleep, too. Even allergies increase BG.
Yep, I agree. I notice that if I have asthma or an allergic reaction I almost always have high blood sugar afterward, and if I can't sleep due to allergies I almost always wake up high. Any type of stress, physical or mental, can raise blood sugar by a lot.
I have heard that for many, stress, pain, inflamation can all raise BG. Personally, I see little, if any result from pain (as experienced recently with a tooth problem), but I see significant results from stress. Difference kinds of stress affect me differently. For example, anger raises my BG; however, emotional stress tends to send my BG plummeting. I have t obe very careful of lows when under a lot of stress. For most, however, I believe that BG goes up with most kinds of stress. (I think that's why a response to low BG is shaking - it's a result of th body releasing adreneline to raise BG. Unfortunately for me, it has the opposite affect.)
Concentrate on getting the shoulder healed and well - the BG's will get more controllable when that is managed.
Stress itself will raise me, whereas nerves will definitely lower me. I spent the week before the MCAT in the 70's (not low but fairly low for me), and the week before school started in the 70's, too. During finals I'm always high.
What is the difference between stress and nerves? To me, they both seem to raise my blood sugar. I often go high before job interviews, during exams or other evaluations, during stressful events, etc. I often FEEL low before I do things like chairing a meeting or public speaking (shaky, sweaty, etc.), but I don't think it actually lowers my blood sugar (although usually I try to make sure I'm a bit high, as part of my nervousness is that I'll go low). I'm part of a panel presentation at a conference on Friday, so that will be a good chance to test and see, now I'm curious ...
I can go up or down from stress etc. When I'm sick I almost always go higher.. I often attribute unexplained highs to my body fighting off a bug.
OK, folks. I will adjust accordingly and not panic. Eventually, this will pass.
Well, stress is when you have two papers and three exams in the same week. Nerves are when you're supposed to be speaking in front of 100 people.
I associate stress with lots to do and nerves with being worried, scared, or nervous.
I drop before and throughout a job interview. I wear a CGM and have to make sure it's silent before going into an interview - it almost always goes off on the low end before the end of such a meeting!
Ah. I tend to think of them as short-term and long-term stress, although I can see the difference. I'm pretty sure both make me rise, but I've never checked. I'll check this Friday when I actually will be speaking in front of 50-100 people and see what my blood sugar does.
Not a coincidence AT ALL!
It's really interesting that different types of stress have different BG effects on different people. In general, stress of any type will raise BG levels. It comes down to the fight-or-flight response to stress, where hormones like epinephrine and cortisol are released and raise blood sugar to provide energy to run away. PWD don't have enough insulin, or the insulin isn't able to work effectively enoough to lower high blood sugar levels from stress. Sometimes people tell me that their stress levels increase even more when their BG is high, which compounds the problem. Which brings me to a question: what helps you reduce your stress levels, or manage stress effectively? For me, a run or hike outside is one of the best ways to lower stress.
Bike ride sometimes helps. Weight lifting or pushups can help. At times... nothing seem to help, though!