Hi All,
For the last year I have been having these ridiculous random high bld sgrs. There’s no pattern and no reason for them (as far as food or illness…). I have not been able to find the kind of help that I need. I have a GREAT Endo but still… Really no answer or way to avoid this from continuing.
My background: I am 41 yrs. old. Have had Type I Juvenille for about 30 yrs. 10 yrs on pump. And…10 yrs ago had a heart attack that led to an angioplasty w/ 2 stents placed in my arteries. The heart attack is irrelevant other than the fact that psychologically I think I kinda freak when my D is outa my control. Oh, by the way…when I had the hrt attck my HBA1C’s were in the 6’s and Ive always had good cholesterol, normal weight/BMI, very low bld pressure, am a vegetarian, and was a boxer! Yikes, huh!!!
When these random highs occur (in the 300’s) they are unresponsive to insulin. I’ll change my pump sight and always inject w/ a shot. My blood sgrs continue to rise even after a shot… this goes on for hours. I feel so sick from the highs. There’s no rhyme or reason & I feel like I have no control, my D has taken over my body temporarily like a monster. I’m sick of “making excuses” like…maybe the insulin wasn’t fresh (I change pump sight every 2 days), or maybe its where I am wearing my pump sight… Always looking for that “magical” explanation. =(
I talked to some other Diabetics in a group setting and 2 said that they’d been hospitalized for this. They were senior citizens & I am assuming they’ve had the disease for a long time like I have (?). They said that there’s a theory that it is the liver putting out extra glucose. Don’t know why or what to do about it. I would really like to avoid another hrt attck and/or other huge complications.
Does anyone have any thoughts or advice about this? Thank you!!!
Sounds very like your liver is wading in and trying to ‘help out’ to me. Any chance you might be missing hypos (which then trigger the liver to go into ‘emergency mode’ and dump glucagon)? The ‘unresponsive’ nature of the highs might be down to the continuing release of glucagon, so even without eating any carbs your BGs would be rising.
Some days my liver seems to dump nothing at all, other days I can get a rise of 72 which stubbornly refuses to go back down.
Not sure what you can do about it though (unless it is down to a hypo rebound in which case avoiding them is the key).
Just gotta keep testing I guess :-\
Hi Everydayupsanddowns ~ What you said makes sense. This was suggested by a couple of other longtime diabetics who had a similar problem. I often do have lows but I treat them immediately. Not sure about when I am sleeping though.
When these high BG’s occur, it takes hours, about a 1/2 day to become stable again. Crazy!
I test about 8xday but when this situation occurs, I test non-stop like a maniac… Bottom line - how do I prevent this from occurring? Its affecting my life/living. I need to start looking for a job but can’t have this interfere when i start a new job, ughh!
Thanks for the great suggestion…I think you are pretty accurate.
Do you test your basal? That’s another thing that can help explain ‘random’ BG behaviour for me. Just a unit over the day either too high or too low can cause all sorts of erratic behaviour from meal boluses for me. Oh and of course you’ll know that your higher your BGs are the less response you’ll get per unit of correction.
Never easy is it 
Everydayupsanddowns~ I do have some extreme lows. But not as much w/in the last month yet this craziest happened w/ the high bg just a couple of days ago. I can’t pin point it. I have not tested my basal rates. I just saw my endo in Jan and she reset them slightly (due to some hypos that I complained of). I just started using the Bolus Wizard feature on my pump a while ago so that is why I was having some drastic hypos. But…this issue w/ the random Highs has been occurring for a lil over a year (randomly).
Do you think I should test my basal rates?
Have you changed the Canula depth? I recently had this same problem where a site seemed to quit working like i was not receivibg any insulin. I went to a deper canula and this problem went away. But when having High BG levels due to site problems, remember that you are missing basal insulin so you probably need to bolus both for the high and 2 or 3 hours of basal - then will still take a couple hours to correct. If you only bolus for the high BG, then it might take 6 hrs or so to correct.
I was using 9 mm Cleos, but switched to AccuChek infusion sets. I started on the 8mm canula and the site would work fine for 15 to 30 hours and then it was like a switch was turned and no insulin was delivered. Changing the site helped but was slow to respond so I increased the Bolus to include 2 hrs basal. I then ordered teh 10 mm canulas and all is well so far.