I got a positive covid test on 30 March and have been ill for the past month with a moderate case. I have been home the whole time except for being sent to the hospital for xrays when I was having trouble breathing, with O2 sat levels in the lower 90s.
I am finally feeling better and more like myself but my blood sugar is really wacky. I understand that because I have been in bed for a month that my bgs will be harder to control-my usual routine is about an hour of strength/running/cycling every day, with longer 15-20 km walks at weekends-but it is so strange. As soon as I eat (or drink coffee) my bg is like a rocket. Even when I make sure to pre-bolus by like 30 or 40 minutes. Then I need loads of correction.
Has anyone else experienced this post covid? Could this massive change be just from not moving as much as before? For the past week I have been walking, starting at 5000 steps, getting all the way up to 10,000 steps today, split up into a couple of walks a day. So it is not like I am not moving at all.
So yes, maybe things are a bit sluggish bc of moving less, but I AM moving and I Am pre-bolusing. BG during covid was great, as I had no appetite or strength to eat.
Today I have upped my basal to 110% in hopes of having more background insulin to fight the spikes. Struggling here. I will be seeing my endo on 18/5.
Hi @pancreaswanted.
It will take a while to get back to your normal activity level, and that is a big factor.
GLUT4 is the transporter for glucose uptake into fat and muscle cells. Exercise helps our GLUT4 expression and our glucose uptake. It just takes time to bring all of that back.
When I had C19, my insulin requirements increased greatly. I couldn’t eat much at all.
It just takes time to bring it all back to normal.
There are a million references to GLUT4 and exercise. This is a very quick summary sentence:
Exercise training is the most potent stimulus to increase skeletal muscle GLUT4 expression, an effect that may partly contribute to improved insulin action and glucose disposal and enhanced muscle glycogen storage following exercise training in health and disease.
Sorry to read about your struggle with Covid-19. I think your instinct to restore your former exercise levels is healthy. Keep up with your efforts and look at each day as another step toward better health.
One thing I wonder about in cases like yours, is what role cortisol, the stress hormone, plays. I know that cortisol creates insulin resistance.
Thanks so much for your response. I am just going to have to be patient and avoid the urge to rage-bolus for now. adding some gentle hatha yoga to my 10,000 steps starting today. Every little bit of exercise counts.
So sorry you had covid and are having the high bg issues. I think it will take time to get back to normal prolly. I would try raising your bolus and basal a lot and see if it helps.
I had double covid pneumonia last April and bg was crashing mostly the whole time, I had to eat constantly and drink juice to try to stop crashing. I did not notice a spike but it took 1.5 months for the first part and now I am a long hauler with lots of symptoms including constant back and rib pain, fatigue, and worse asthma/breathing issues.
Now every time my bg is dropping the weird back/rib pain that first started with the pneumonia gets worse. When I had the pneumonia it was very severe pain, it felt like someone was stabbing my right shoulder blade and or it was fractured. That went on for 1.5 months or more and I had to wear lidocaine patches constantly, heating pad and pk. I still need them now but it is not as severe most of the time. I felt like I had a big rubber band around my chest and could not breath. Then it moved to the middle more and floated around in my lungs. Now it is mostly in the middle, my spine and ribs.
@meee – your symptoms sound excruciating to me. Have you received a Covid vaccination? I’ve read accounts of other long-haulers who found significant relief from symptoms when they received their vaccination. Good luck.
Meee, have your doctors ruled out costochondritis? It can be caused by a virus. When I had it I went to the ER because I thought I was having a heart attack. It can be extremely painful. It is pretty harmless as long as you aren’t showing symptoms of something else. It eventually goes away on it is own, but is very painful. Besides extreme pain in the chest, rib and back area there are no other symptoms. It can not be seen on an X-ray etc.
I believe mine was caused when I passed out from low blood pressure and fell very hard on a wood floor. I am so glad that I don’t have low blood pressure anymore.
There are many reasons for developing costcochondritis including pneumonia.
No, when I had Covid and went to the field hospital I was told don’t come back and unless you’re almost dead. I did end up at the regular emergency room a month later when things are not resolving and had a fast heart rate and high blood pressure which they treated me for. At that time they claimed the pneumonia was cleared out of my lungs but I was still having severe pain.
I had some video visits with my doctor but she really never tried to figure out what was going on. Did prescribe me some painkillers finally at some point. My worse symptoms went on for over a month and a half with still having a fever on and off too.
Due to the pandemic and everything I have not pursued trying to find out what’s going on yet. My father also had Covid in January exposed at the hospital emergency room and has had a very serious reaction with much worse symptoms than mine. I will look this up in fact I think I did read about this at the time and ruled it out for some reason.
I did do some physical therapy for about 2 to 3 months it was so bad which seem to help at first for 1-2 weeks, but then it got worse again after straining my back. Now I cannot even cough or laugh without the pain getting worse. And this is more than a year later. I really believe it has to do with Covid which is causing numerous issues throughout the body for a long haulers.
I’m sorry you’re going through this. A colleague of mine also got covid early on in the pandemic and had limited access to care (and doctors that didn’t know how to treat the illness). He also appears to be a “long-hauler.”
However, I think he’s improved quite a bit since last summer. He has been regularly seeing doctors about his condition.
Now that you’re vaccinated, it seems like it would be helpful to seek out in-person medical treatment for what you’re experiencing. While doctors still have a lot to learn, they have learned quite a bit in the last year.
Thanks. I am taking full time care of my dad now who had covid in January, he was exposed to it at the er by idiots, and his health has been destroyed by it. But I will try to get some help for this again asap. Most people I have asked deny that I even have a problem including some idiot doc at the er the second time. I am still trying to limit activities until he has been vaccinated which is next week hopefully.
I did do an mri and pt after when I was not in quarantine which went on forever due to fever still, but no real diagnosis etc was found, just them telling me it was nothing mostly, the docs at least, not the pt. Not exactly a motivation to go get more help.
Sorry about your friend, I hope he gets some help too.
When you are I’ll or recovering your body prioritized dealing with the illness, your liver will continue to dump sugar into your blood stream. For myself I have found that insulin will not take care of this sugar and the best thing to do is to take your usual doses based on your regime, eventually it will even out and when your sugars return to your normal ranges it is a sign your winning the battle. Unexplained higher sugar can be a good indicator of an illness that is starting up.
