Recovering blood glucose - honeymoon phase phenomenon?

#1

Happy Easter, everyone!!

I’ve got a what-is-my-body-doing question. I’m still new to being type 1, so I’m a bit confused still about why my blood sugar sometimes does what it does. I’ve been waiting for my first hypo episode-- as I’m kind of nervous and just want to see what it feels like and get it over with-- but whenever my blood sugar goes near being low (e.g. 70), it just bounces back up again. So I’ll be sitting there with my glucose tablets, psyching myself out about what its going to feel like, and then WHAM, I’m at 125. I understand that your body makes efforts to raise your blood sugar when its getting low, but is this a reliable effect, and does it go away after you’re out of the honeymoon phase (I’m def’ly in the honeymoon phase)? Can you just hang around in the 70s and never go low?

Also, if you let yourself go a little lower (and I don’t mean LOW, I mean like 70) does this mean you often end up with higher blood sugar because your body is trying to compensate? I’m just trying to figure out how all this works, and sometimes it feels like reading Greek (I don’t know Greek).

What part of my physiology is doing this and is it going to follow my beta cells into oblivion?

Any insights are much appreciated!

#2

Actually an ironic thought is that stress can raise your blood sugar-- so perhaps the stress you feel at 70 makes it go up to 125 (I don’t actually know if this could cause that significant raise).

Your liver kicks out glucose when your blood sugar starts to go low. When a diabetic actually has a low, that means that the glucose supplies in the liver have been exhausted… so perhaps you just haven’t reached this point yet.

But that’s only my best guess— others???

#3

Laura,

For most people, the answer is that if they keep dropping low after a while their body adjusts and they no longer get that counterregulatory response that pushes up the blood sugar as you describe. Then they will only have that happen when they drop lower.

BUT, that is MOST people. I have a kind of diabetes that seems to be accompanied with a permanent counterregulatory thing that never quits. I’ve been using insulin for over 2 years and I still bounce up any time I go low. This isn’t bad. OTOH, I can’t get my fasting bg to be normal no matter what I do. But this reaction is rare, as is the kind of diabetes I have (“Type weird” or 1.5).

#4

Yes, I’ve heard that anxiety does funky things to your blood sugar, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was it! Hey, maybe being nervous about lows isn’t a bad thing (like having an internal sugar source)?

#5

Hmm, that’s interesting – so the lack of counterregulatory response seems to operate on a similar principle as hypo-unawareness? that is, your body feels it enough it stops reacting to the low glucose as abnormal? its nice to know that your body can bounce back and that this isn’t just a honeymoon phase thing. Thanks!

#6

Laura,

It is very much part of the same system as hypo awareness, so you don’t want to keep flirting with that 70 level so that you keep your counterregulatory response and/ hypo awareness

One thing I noticed is that you mention you use a TrueTrack meter. Those may not be accurate enough for a person with Type 1. My partner was using one as he isn’t diabetic (family history, though) so he was paying for his own strips. It never matched my Ultra–which is a very consistent meter–and there was no pattern to how it didn’t match.

If your meter isn’t accurate, you may be lower than you think, and that wouldn’t be good. So you probably want to spend some time looking at how many carbs you ate, how much insulin you used, and tweaking the relationship until you don’t get that bounce any more.