Shingles and flu vaccination and basal/bolus dosing

I use pens and have a Dexcom G6. Yesterday I received the 2nd Shingles shot and the High potent flu shot. I didn’t sleep well, feeling hot but no fever. My normal night time BG of around 85 to 95 mg/dl running as high as 145.

I increased my basal about 20% and bolus about 40%, but BG is not responding properly. A similar thing happened after the 2nd Moderna vaccination. I had increased insulin resistance for about 5 days, before things settled down.

An update, My nighttime BG was still high and more erratic but was much better than yesterday. I had a pretty good spike in Feet on the Floor which responded better to the increased morning basal injection.

My bg will randomly go up way above 145 (like 240+) several times a week for absolutely no reason. And if I never go above 170 in a night I would call that a complete success. So would be hard for me to say any one bg is a result of vaccine.

I think a graph of total daily dose, showing a hump starting at vaccination, would be more convincing, especially for folks like you and me who are effictively clamping our bg’s through rapid response to CGM. I’ve never actually looked for that pattern. I might know that I’ve done a lot of corrections the past day but I don’t usually graph it.

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Sounds normal. Your body is reacting like you have an infection. You adjust your insulin ratio temporarily if you are sick. Do do it when you get a vaccine

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That’s what I assumed, I never had much of any physical reaction other than an occasional sore arm from the many vaccinations I received in my life. But the second Moderna Covid-19 knocked me for a loop. I managed to get necessary chores done with the help of some out of date acetomenphen sic. The worst passed in 24 hours. The high BG continued for 5 days.

I don’t know if it was the flu or the shingles shot as I got both at the same time, maybe the combo.

Today is much better, close to my normal.

Interesting, Luis…I had the hi-dose flu shot and my first shingles shot (with the newer shingles vaccine) and while I almost never have a reaction to the flu shot, the shingles shot was pretty bad. Rise in bg’s, but not too much, but my arm hurt almost as bad as from the COVID vaccine. Had these in two different arms, so I know it was the shingles vaccine that did it.

Having a booster COVID shot this Friday…not looking forward to the weekend :frowning:

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Good luck with the booster. I would be getting on, but the Moderna has not been approved. Yeah, I got the sore shingles arm as well.

I still don’t know what to do about shingles vaccine since I never had chicken pox. I had dead virus vaccine when I was 30.

So some doctors think I need shingles vaccine, others have told me that shingles vaccine is a live virus and could introduce the virus into my body, and make it possible to get shingles in the future.

I don’t know I’m the rare case who never had chicken pox. As people age more and more people will get old and never had chicken pox. So I don’t know why we can’t figure this out

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I got the Shingles vaccine shortly after I turned 50 (when it’s generally recommended). I do see a proviso that if you never had chicken pox (or don’t know), then you should get the chicken pox vaccine before getting the shingles vaccine. But you say you’ve already had chicken pox vaccine so I don’t know what the holdup is in your case.

I had Chicken Pox at age 19 and it was the worst. (This was pre-chicken-pox vaccine). I spent a whole week with crazy high bg’s I was barely able to manage with massive continuous corrections because I was barely able to move. In retrospect maybe I should’ve been in the hospital. I certainly don’t want Shingles!

Yes, I purposely got the dead chicken pox vaccine.
They want you to have a live chickenpox vaccine before shingles vaccine.
Although now that we are on the subject.
I was vaccinated for measles, but a year ago when there was an out break I had my blood checked and I had no antibodies.

So I got a new measles vaccine. I also had Covid and lost the antibodies about a year later.

I wonder if I just don’t hold on to the long term antibodies.

I’m told that antibodies are complicated and even though the antibody levels may be falling or zero, that in most cases our bodies would make them if needed. “Memory B Cells” they’re called. https://boundarystones.weta.org/2013/12/18/synagogue-wheels

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@Luis3

I just met with my PCP for my annual checkup. He suggested that I get the “new” (it has been out 4-5 years) shingles vaccination, but specifically warned me that I should wait to get it until a window of time when I could afford to feel pretty crappy (that’s a medical term …) for 2-3 days. He made no such warning about the flu shot.

Based of that, I’d suggest that you BG spiking was more likely due to the shingles vax than the flu shot.

Based on you experience, I will go into not only prepared to feel crappy, but to do battle with high BG for some period.

Thanks for your discussion.

John

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I got the flu shot and I barely noticed it

Thanks, John, that was my opinion as well. I never had any kind of reaction to the flu shot except in 1970 or 71 when I was in tech school at Kessler AFB, Biloxi, MS. I have family in New Orleans and would go to the Crescent City on weekends.

This one weekend they redlined all our over night leave, requiring us to get a flu shot in the early hours of Saturday morning.

A friend suggested we drive up to Pensacola, I got a bit of a sunburn. Between the flu shot and the sunburn I was really feeling bad. Fortunately I recovered well enough to be in formation Monday and go to classes.

Getting sunburned and unable to report for duty is a big NO-NO in the US military, worth an article 15 at least for violating article 108 (iirc) destruction of government property (your body).

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I had the regular flu shot yesterday, and my glucose levels are harder to keep in range today. My arm is a little sore.

My husband had the regular flu shot and his first shingles shot. He feels fine. He asked to receive the flu shot for seniors along with the shingles shot, but he was told that that wasn’t recommended, so he got the regular flu shot like I did.

I will soon get my first shingles vaccination which I have been putting off. We will both get the third Moderna vaccination when we are allowed to.

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I spoke too soon. My husband who was feeling fine after the flu vaccine and the 1st shingles shot on Thursday is weak, hot and tired today.
My glucose level was around 75 all night long and now after my normal insulin doses, normal breakfast, and 45 minutes of exercise I can’t get below 170. I should be 80-90 by now. I gave an extra 1 1/2 about an hr ago and that didn’t help. Just gave another 1 1/2 units and am back on the bike.

I am not looking forward to my first shingles vaccine. I was off a bit with the moderna vaccines but not for long.

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I think we should pay close attention to any post vaccination like we would on a sick day. Probably the BG of some will not be adversely affected, but others will.

This is the first line of the abstract of the paper: Severity, duration, and mechanisms of insulin resistance during acute infections

Acute infections provoke insulin resistance. These experiments were designed to study the severity, duration, and mechanisms of insulin resistance caused by acute infections.
Severity, duration, and mechanisms of insulin resistance during acute infections - PubMed > Blockquote

I hate it when all I get is the abstract on papers. I want to be able to read the whole thing, myself.

The first round of the shingles vaccination is anecdotally not that much worse than the flu vaccination. I think the discomfort results largely from the minor physical injury caused when injecting the vaccine.

The second round of the shingles vaccination is anecdotally worse. I suffered some mild shakes and chills the night of the day after I got my 2’nd shingles vax.

Of course when I got it in October of 2020, I was about 6 months past the recommended date for the 2’nd shingles jab because of covid. That was also why I got my 2’nd pneumonia jab and the 2020 flu shot when I got my 2’nd shingles jab. At the time no one was worrying about getting multiple jabs at the same time.

I guess I’m an anti-vaxer’s nightmare. :wink: I’ve never worried about getting vaccinated. My feeling is that any reaction to a vaccine is only an indication of how much worse I would feel if I got the actual disease. :upside_down_face:

That’s my thinking as well. I reacted pretty hard to the 2nd Moderna shot. I did not have fever but was alternating between being hot and cold. I had no energy. Fortunately that only lasted 24 hours, but increased insulin resistance for about 5 days. I took that as a sign of how bad a real case of Covid-19 would be for me.

The new shingles vaccine, Shingrex, is NOT live. I have MS and am not to have any live vaccines so could not get the shingles vaccine before. However, now mt neurologist approved the Shingrex for me as it is NOT live.
Best wishes.

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