Hey there all you amazing people my queastion today is:
How many people got there D under contol really fast in the beganing meaning staying in normal range with the bool sugar between 80-150. To only have it shoot back up later and not really ever get it back down again. Is this a thing or not?
This never really happened to me although initially after starting to take metformin, diet and exercise my A1c dropped to 5.9%. But after that it bounced back up. My blood sugars never really normalized until I started insulin.
I was diagnosed in 1977. There were no home glucose meters or A1C tests available. I have no idea if I was in range or not. This went on for many years. A lab BG test once or twice a year is what we got. I’m so grateful for what we have today.
My response is to point out that our bodies change because of age, stress, daily choices and routines change with the seasons, etc. My initial “understanding” (what I thought I understood) was that BS numbers would respond to meds in such a way and boom, all set. What was the truth is that after that first patch, summer came and my routine was different (I’m a teacher) and so my BS numbers changed. I’m a different diabetic in the summer than the winter because of amount of exercise, my eating routine, etc. Also, I had to realize that as I got older, my meds had to fit me. We adjusted dosages, I saw the addition of other meds that dealt with the entrance of neuropathy and gastro problems and those all had a say in my BS numbers. we are not machines, we are these really cool organisms that are just a little unpredictable sometimes. That’s how I explain in my head the occasional bounces.
So control the things you can as best you can (diet, exercise, routine) and work with the advise and help you get (meds and doctor rules) and be patient that you will find new solutions as your body gives you new messages about what it needs as it grows up. I am 57 and have been through ups and down. Right now I’m consistently between 5 and 6 on my A1C and keep below BS120 pretty well. If I have another 3-4 month bounce, I know I’ve done all I can and keep aiming for the best I can and stay positive.
This is a common inaccurate understanding in the diabetes community, including the medical support professionals. There is no one perfect formula to discover to find the best way to treat diabetes. I’m a big fan of Dr. Ponder’s Sugar Surfing. He asserts that our metabolic needs are constantly changing. Instead of cursing that variability, we need to expect it and embrace it. Diabetes is dynamic, not static. It all makes sense when looked at from that point of view.
In our guts, literally, we know that we change from day to day and meal to meal, from season to season and decade to decade. It’s a whole new way of looking at blood glucose movement. We can’t fully expect what our blood sugar level will do next but we can respond in a timely fashion and shape our BGs next move. As we get better at influencing blood sugar movements we can, in effect, steer our blood sugar, to some extent. It’s not a 100% phenomena but at least it gives us some time “in the driver’s seat” instead of constantly worrying what our unpredictable blood sugar will do next.
I think it’s normal for people with diabetes to go through phases where they have really good control and phases where they don’t. There’s just so many variables!
For me, I was doing quite well for a rather long time and then, for whatever reason - be it my fibromyalgia onset (the most likely suspect as IBS-like symptoms are part of fibromyalgia), medications that I was taking for that, or some change in the generic manufacturing of metformin, I suddenly couldn’t tolerate the dose of metformin that I was on anymore. If I took my full 1,000mg 2x daily, it was a guaranteed recipe for not being able to leave the house until noon. So I got to where if I really HAD to leave the house, I just wouldn’t take it the night before, or that morning. Well you can imagine what that did for my BG control! And then when my BG control went, along with my sleep from the fibromyalgia, I went into depression and just didn’t care and it was a nasty downward spiral into the worst HbA1C I’d ever had - higher than even when I was diagnosed!
Well, silly me for not talking to my Endo about it sooner. She lowered my metformin dose and I was able to take it consistently again. And she checked out my Vitamin D and B-12 levels, which were both in the toilet, and prescribed for that. I got those in line, got my metformin back in line, and my next HbA1c was back down to 6.5.
My blood sugars tend to run lower in the winter - aside of right around Christmas. Ahem 
The only thing I can think of is the supposed theory that our metabolism has to work harder to keep us warm, or something like that. I keep the heat at 68F and wear shorts inside, so there may be something to that! I also tend to sleep better when the house is cold, and I know that how I sleep affects my glucose levels.