I was sick yesterday. Achy, a bit of a fever I guess, stomach evils. Mostly just stayed on the couch feeling like a turd all day. Any my blood sugar was high, of course. I don’t really know the reason, but being sick and high blood sugar go together like peas in a pod. My insulin total increased by over 50% yesterday, and I struggled to go under 200 mg/dl all day.
This morning, I feel better, but my blood sugar is much worse. I went to boot camp (hour long exercise program) because I was feeling better, but this could have something to do with the absurdly ridiculous highs I’m dealing with now, since boot camp can make me spike on a normal day anyway.
But, I’ve more than made up for it with the amount of insulin I’ve bolused this morning! 16.3 units! Idiotic, even for being sick. I don’t bolus much more than this on a normal day, and so far I’ve only had 25 carbs from oatmeal (okay, maybe I shouldn’t have had that this morning, but straying from my schedule makes me pissy too!) and my blood sugar is 300 mg/dl and rising.
And this is where I start making myself insane:
Is something other than sickness causing this?
Do I have a bad pump site on top of everything? I changed it after my shower this morning, but what if that was bad and my new one is bad too?
Is my insulin bad!?
Am I going to gain a million pounds from all this extra insulin I'm taking?
It's been an hour since my last bolus and I'm still rising... I'm going to rage-bolus again and if I'm not heading toward 40 mg/dl in a few hours, somebody (my pump) is getting murdered.
(Joking/embellishing a bit, but I'm totally frustrated!)
It is the sickness! I can go off the scale with chest infections! Keep taking the insulin (more than your usual and welcome a hypo with open arms!!)
Keep drinking lots of water - and then some, to try and “dilute” the sugar.
Eat something - even if just a plain piece of toast or some crackers. If you cannot eat solids, try soup.
Don’t bolus if it is less than 4 hours.
I do not think you are going to gain a lot of weight while you bolus for sickness! If it does not get better soon, or gets worse, go to the hospital. You probably need antibiotics as well as insulin!
Thanks! I was able to get my BG back down a few hours after this post. I wasn’t 40 (hehe), but I was around 160, which is at least more manageable. It went back up after lunch, but during the afternoon I was able to get down to around 100, then during my yoga class I went low (yoga tends to make me low, and I usually adjust accordingly a few hours before class…but with being sick, argh!).
I’ve been yo-yo-ing a bit since then (lower 100s to lower 200s), but it’s not looking as bad as yesterday…yet…knock on wood!
I don’t feel too sick. Just had the fever Monday. Yesterday and now today, only a bit of drip making me stuffy and itchy throat. I’m a water-drinking maniac, so I’ll definitely be keeping that up.
Hope you’re right about bolusing for sickness not causing weight gain. I’m actually curious about that (bolusing for non-food-induced highs) in general… Mostly I’m just irrationally paranoid about it, but I loathe high BGs so much, no worries about me ever not correcting for the sake of my size…lol.
do you have any stress going on?? (well, other than being sick. lol) that always shoots me up and i hang at 200ish for hours…so frustrating! i hope you start to feel better!
fever could do it. insulin is a protein and the structure of the protein unravels under heat.
which is why you keep insulin out of the heat normally.
my BG goes 250-350 for days when i have the flu with a fever and even with double or triple the usual insulin it won’t come down
Never thought about it that way, marti w! Makes sense.
Myriah, no extra stress, but I am feeling much better other than some clogged sinuses. BG mostly back to normal…each day is an improvement, and today has been almost typical!
