The other day, Samantha’s blood sugar was running 200 even though she treated it with insulin. There was no response, which we thought might have something to do with either the Tamiflu she was taking or just the fact that she had the flu.
Anyway, the funny thing about it was that Sam said, “I may as well eat some chocolate because I’m high anyway.” I had to laugh. “That’s not really the reasoning you’re supposed to have,” I said. “You’re supposed to be able to enjoy chocolate or a real Coke when you’re low!” But I have to admire her reasoning. Either way, that girl was going to eat some chocolate, diabetes or not.
Probably was the flu! Bit of a dangerous attitude, but one I can identify with! Sometimes I just think, “sod it!” and go with my feelings. It goes down eventually! Hope she gets better soon! As long as it is not a regular occurrence, she sshould survive! Best wishes. Diabetes is a bummer sometimes!
My son eats chocolate everyday. Sometimes his 15 carb snack will be a half of hershey bar. I usually put one of two of the mini chocolate bars in this lunch. Our nurses and dieticians keep saying ‘a carb is a carb’.
Hope Sam does okay with the study. The first day was the hardest because of the PICC line. Are you driving back and forth everyday or staying in a hotel.?
Will get her to try that dark chocolate. The hardest thing for her so far has been avoiding what she loves: chocolate, ice cream, Krispy Kreme doughnuts! We found the low-carb ice cream. But we live by 2 great ice cream shops we used to go to!
Good idea on the chocolate. I keep telling her she can have a little, just keep it in moderation. (Instead of the way we used to buy the large bars or x-large bags of m&ms!
We’re driving up to Indy today & we’ll see how it goes. Planning to drive back & forth if she feels ok. Really hoping she doesn’t miss a lot of school this week & hoping she can go in the mornings at least. But I warned the teachers that she might not be there.
Who knows? When you have the flu & you’re 200 & you’re taking Tamiflu, anything could be making you feel yucky! But the insulin resistance was a first.
My son also has icecream everyday… For honor roll celebration the kids get a krispy Kreme donut and he has one for that. Although my son does eat these things everyday, his life before diabetes would have been a huge bowl of icecream with carmel and chocolate syrup, and a couple of nutty bars before bed, so he has definitely cut back A LOT!!! But by giving him some of everything he used to have, he never really feels deprived.
Reece missed the whole week of school, we arrived at the hospital around 8am everyday and he was getting infusion by 9am, then 2 hours of monitoring. We usually left the hosptial by noon, so he could have gone to the last two periods of school, but overall he was tired and the PICC line was uncomfortable and since he is only in 7th grade we decided to skip school and let him try to use the time to catch up on the work from all the classes.
So, I just wanted to clarify that although the picc line was the worst of it, it turned out to be a breeze. Having the picc line in was a bit of a pain because we had to clean it and he had to sleep with it, BUT the installation was really simple. Probably the MMTT with no numbing cream is worse than the picc line.
My niece never goes about 140 eating icecream (as tested numerous times on the cgms), with the exception of Cold Creamery which is a disaster. Carvel ice cream cake… no problem. Chocolate, as well, she does not do too bad on (not as even as icecream) but relatively okay. The highs that won’t come down due to insulin resistance from growth hormones, I know what she means. You have to keep increasing basal, decreasing sensitivity and give more for ICR and corrections, then switch it all back again when spurt stops. 200 or not, some times a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. Sometimes your craving can’t be denied. I hope she enjoyed it.
Am I crazy because I’d think the same thing? Miserable with the flu. Miserable with the highs. Why not something that might make you feel better? It’s a good sign that at least she has an appetite, I usually don’t (even for chocolate).
It’s probably the flu. The flu causes ridiculous, unrelenting highs for me. Nothing brings them down. And chocolate isn’t the worth thing you could eat as sweets go. I’ve become a huge fan of dark chocolate.
The flu can bring a lot of insulin resistance. The usual corrections and basals may not be enough to keep her blood sugars down when she has an infection. I often need 150-200% of my usual insulin doses when I am sick, but you want to be very careful to avoid lows. If I see that the 200 has not gone down after two hours, I would correct again figuring that the insulin was not enough to combat my infection-induced insulin resistance.
You may want to ask her endo about increasing her basal insulin while she is sick.
About the chocolate, the logic is obviously flawed, but all I can say is “Been there, done that!”.
Chocolate is a horrible treatment for a low. Unfortunately, when I am really low, there is no food that I really enjoy, its just a treatment to get glucose up so I can function properly. The treats are better worked into the diet with an appropriate bolus. Good luck with troubleshooting the unusual highs. Sometimes I find changing the infusion site helps.
cravings could be due to the high BGLs as well. I know I particularly crave all that chocolaty goodness or something equally as carb-y when I am running high. Make sure she hits the water when the highs come cause that can help with both the cravings and the body getting over the highs. If she is on a pump have her shoot up when the first correction doesn’t work or use a new vial of insulin
I asked my Diabetic Nurse, on one of the few occassions when she deigned to see me, about the hunger when the blood sugars were high and she said that because the sugar was in my blood and not doing what it was supposed to be doing and feeding the muscles and brain etc, then that is when I would be feeling ravenous as the body was seeking energy from another source - namely food!
