Hi all,
Sorry if this is a dumb question.. I'm very sick (last night had a fever of 102.2) and checked this morning to find I have large ketones. I've never been this sick since Dx 5years ago, just common colds, and haven't had to deal with ketones.
I've been drinking tons of water to try and flush the ketones. What is the common practice for eating while you have large ketones? I'm getting hungry but don't want to make anything worse.
You did not say how high you BG was...? Please share this info. Food is not your problem your body is burning fat and this is producing ketone's because your insulin resistance is so high you do not have enough active insulin to burn sugars or carbs to fuel your body....sometimes your body needs allot more insulin when your sick....call your clinic for some help.
What really matters is your blood sugar. If you have normalized your blood sugar then there is no problem eating. Your body will just dump the ketones and you will be fine. But if your blood sugar is 400 mg/dl and you have ketones, you should not be really eating, particularly not carbs. You just won't be able to properly bolus and eating will likely raise your blood sugar further increasing your risk of DKA. Does that make sense?
Ketones occur when we burn fat. Being sick, it is not uncommon to stop eating and you will burn fat, thus you generate ketones. While you won't usually generate high levels of urine ketones when sick (you might), you may well see marked levels of blood ketones. Did you measure blood or urine ketones?
I measured urine ketones. My blood sugar was 175 at last check. It hasn't been that high at all. I didn't eat much yesterday after noon so I'm assuming that's where the ketones came from.