I had my endoscopy yesterday and it went well. It was a rough day BG-wise. I was 3.9 (70 mg/dl) before bed the night before and had to stop eating at midnight. So I had two glasses of chocolate almond milk (which is pretty high carb) and half an hour later was 5.1 (92 mg/dl) and I got all nervous because it was the time I couldn't eat, and I wanted to avoid drinking apple juice. But at 1:00 AM I was 7.2 (130 mg/dl) which was great. I woke up at 7:00 the next morning at 5.6 (101 mg/dl), took no bolus or food and by the time I got to work at 9:00 I was 11.8 (212 mg/dl). I was nervous of correcting so just did a 1/2 correction. An hour later at 10:00 I was 9.8 (176 mg/dl). At 11:30 I was 5.4 (97 mg/dl). But at noon I was 3.4 (61 mg/dl). I tried to leave it and just suspended my pump but by 12:30 I was 2.9 (52 mg/dl) so had some sips of apple juice. At 1:00 I was still 2.9 so had a bit more apple juice but was freaking out because I didn't want to drink too much! At 1:30 we were heading to the hospital and I was up to 3.4 (61 mg/dl), and I kept my pump off. At 2:00 at the hospital I was up to 4.4 (79 mg/dl), so I turned my pump back on but set a -10% basal rate for the next four hours.
At 2:30 I got a bed and changed into a gown and had my vital signs checked. The nurse checked my blood sugar and it was 5.5 (99 mg/dl), and I let her know I had been low earlier and had some apple juice. She said that the IV I'd get would have glucose in it. I made a comment that maybe I'd take off the temporary rate on my pump. She was like, "Do you take this information and just make your own decisions?" I was like, "Uhh, yeah?" and didn't really understand what she meant. What do most people do?? She made some comment about the glucose in the IV counteracting the insulin the pump was giving me. I don't think she had a clue what basal insulin is. I decided to leave the temporary rate going because I'd been low for an extended time earlier and didn't want a repeat. The nurse was happy because she said she didn't want me having "a reaction" (haven't heard the term insulin reaction in like 15 years!) during the procedure.
Getting the IV in me was a huge ordeal. I have the worst veins ever, and this happens every single time I need to have an IV. The nurse tried three times in the back of my hand before giving up. She said it was like my veins were just tatooed onto my skin. I'm sure not drinking for six hours didn't help! I had to wait around a while for a new nurse to come, and she tried once in the crook of my arm and finally got one right in the middle of my forearm. It was a very precarious IV, though, and even with a ton of tape to stop it from shifting at all they were worried that it might not work properly for medication.
My doctor met me as I was wheeled back to the endoscopy room. I got positioned and got the mouth guard and then there was another delay because he was worried about my IV not working. I'm not sure what medication I got but it was very different than other sedation I've had where I've been knocked out completely. I was wide awake the entire time and, near the end, I think the sedation was wearing off. Unfortunately the end is when the doctor dilated my esophagus so that was just horrible. I was gagging and retching non-stop even though I hadn't gagged much earlier (and had gotten a throat spray, which possibly was wearing off as well). That was by far the worst part, although the nurse (who was a different nurse from the original) helped a lot by telling me I was doing great and it was almost over. Other than the last few minutes it wasn't bad. After it was over and my doctor took the mouth guard out he asked how I was feeling, and I said I was feeling totally normal and didn't believe they had given me any sedation. Since I was so alert so quickly, they only observed me for half an hour and then let me go home. My blood sugar was 6.2 (112 mg/dl) after the procedure (although it was me who tested it, not them!) and hovered around 8-10 (140-180 mg/dl) for the rest of the afternoon and evening.
The doctor found two (I think) rings (narrowing) in my esophagus and dilated the whole esophagus. He took biopsies to be tested for eosinophilic esophagitis which he said could cause the rings. He also found a small hiatus hernia. He found no real evidence of acid reflux so said I can stop taking that medication, which is awesome as it was really not agreeing with my stomach at all. I have a follow up appointment in three months with him, and I'm pretty sure he said the results of the biopsies would be sent to my GP, but I can't remember so have to call up next week and ask.
My throat was sore last night and is still a bit weird-feeling today, but they said that's to be expected for one or two days after the procedure.
So getting that over and done with is partly why I'm happy. The other part is that, even though my blood sugars have been a bit up and down over the past week (since I made that post about solving my infusion set allergy issues), I checked my meter averages today. My 7- and 14-day averages are both 7.2 (130 mg/dl) and my 30-day average is 7.7 (139 mg/dl). This is so amazing - I have not had averages this low in literally YEARS. I am so excited to see what my A1c in November might be! Given my experience of yesterday, I think some basal testing may be in order. When I've tried to do basal testing in the past it has been completely inconsistent, I'll go high for one test and then repeat the test and go low. Maybe now that my immune system isn't attacking infusion sets the tests will be more consistent and allow me to make actual changes.