Have any of you had fits of OCD when trying to keep your sugars stable?
I was never too fond of testing frequently as a child and wanted to make myself believe I “knew my body”. Obviously this didn’t always work out too well.
Recently my sugars have been the best they’ve been in 15 years - since I was first diagnosed.
But while my sugars are great, my obsessive tendency to test myself to make sure I’m at a perfect level, is quite time consuming and expensive!
So how much is too much? Is it better to over-test than to under-test (hm sounds pretty obvious, no?) - but when does it get out of hand?
Do any of you have actual fears of high sugars? Like a sense of guilt when you have high sugars?
This is why I emphasize healthy eating and excercising. Mental health is important as well, but right now, I’d rather be safe than sorry!
I think too much is when you test just to test, and don’t actually intend to do much with the information… like testing yourself just to make sure you’re still holding steady at 95, doesn’t really do much good, and it shouldn’t be necessary if the rest of your insulin doses are correct (either on MDI or a pump)… you should be able to hold out until you’re ready to eat or drive or something.
Have you considered wearing a CGM? I find that for me it satisfies a lot of the “need to know” aspect of wanting to test more often then is truly necessary, though I still do test a lot - often 10 or more times a day, but it’s not in the OCD way I had been testing before… now I test in the morning, always before driving, before meals, after meals, and before bedtime… so it still adds up, but I don’t find myself testing “just because”.
Guilt, not really. Just try to figure out what spiked my BGs and what I can do about it next time. Today my BG was 208 two hours after breakfast. Same breakfast, same carbs, same insulin. So I just shrugged and moved on.
I have a CGM. I also confirm with numerous fingersticks a day. I have actually developed this as a productive output of my OCD. Before I was on the continuous monitor, I would go through periods of testing every couple of hours. My control was never better. It was not cheap. Even with my insurance springing for 100 a month, I was going online and finding what deals I could. I got some good deals and the accuracy was never a problem. When I see my endo on the 7th I’m going to suggest he give me enough for 6-8 tests a day. I don’t know that you can test too often so long as you are being sane and not every 10 minutes. If you factor in a couple of lows you can burn through a fair amount of test strips in a day.
When I test and my glucose is high I do get a stab of anxiety and guilt.
I don’t feel guilty per se if I have high blood sugars, here lately only because iv had bad sugars for months. I think my new mindset, if I don’t give up from oversleeping, is to go fir a walk next time I have blood sugars. I don’t think there is such thing as to much testing, especially when you throw in testing before after exercise, meals, and sometimes when you don’t feel good. Sometimes I ask myself is it me or my sugar, lol sometimes I get a answer with the number lol.