I've been on an insulin pump for 2 years now and LOVE it! However, I randomly get highs that are unexplainable and are only corrected when I change out my set. It has happened twice this week alone. Am I the only one?! I'm on my second pump and it is only 6 weeks old. Monday morning my blood sugar went from 90-280 in an hour while fasting. This afternoon I had been at the doctor with my baby and had not eaten all day, from 3pm-4:30 my blood sugar went from 76 to 270 and I got very sick feeling like I was going to throw up. Changed out my set and now all is good. Thoughts?
Skipping meals is always problematic. The liver might come to the conclusion that you need carbs. In this case it will release glucose deposits raising your blood glucose very quickly. For me the most problematic meal to skip is the breakfast. Because for most of us the morning dosage will cover the dawn phenomen too. Your muscles can also initiate that glucose is released. Fasting and high muscle activity is a good recipe for these processes to happen. Another side effect of skipped meals is that every injection will influence the following hours. This might be much longer than the insulin activity of your insulin is suggesting. I will need much more insulin for lunch if I had to skip my breakfast for example (by the factor 1.5).
Try to have a regular schedule - at least with your meals: same hour, same amount of carbs, same type of food etc. Persistence is the key to repetitive patterns. Repetition allows the easier identification of typical mishaps - wrong I:C, insufficient basal rate, miscalculated carb count, different activity, clogged catheder and so forth.
For pumpers the clogging is a very challenging problem. Different insulins seem to have a different risk of clogging. This might depend on the current temperature as well. The insulin is then creating bigger crystallized structures in the catheter reducing the flow rate. Apidra seems to be more problematic but this might as well depend on other factors.
I agree with Holger. I had some highs yesterday that may have been from fasting although usually I can skip meals and stay pretty stable, not the first meal. But today I had highs that made no sense. In your case I'm guessing something is wrong with your infusion sets and you weren't getting insulin so that caused the highs. Or something was wrong with the insulin. Prolly the first guess.
If it is consistently corrected by changing out the set, I wouldn't look elsewhere for the problem. I would keep varying your infusion variables: completely different parts of the body, different types of sets - if you use plastic, try metal, different technique - I once reread the directions and realizing I was doing a minor thing wrong. Someone on here suggested inserting your set while standing and that produces more consistent results for me. Pay attention to any continuing pain after insertion even if minor. If you are continually bending and stooping with your baby, maybe using your stomach area isn't good as it gets moved, etc.
I completely agree, if I skip breakfast I will need to increase my bolus for any carbs at lunch by a factor of 1.5. Also once the carbs start to hit my system it raises my BG about twice as fast as normal. It like the body recognizes that it is starving and hords and processes any carb it can get. My body mass is pretty low so not sure if i had a higher body mass if the effect would be the same.
Rising almost 200 points in just 1 or 1.5 hours is astounding. I like the above theories of low carb metabolism/fasting and/or problems with your sets/sites. Unless your sets are coming out bent, you may want to try new sites.