My blood sugars skyrocketed Yesterday. When I got to 369 on the way up, I decided it must be my set change, took a manual injection of Novolog, and changed the set. I came down a little with correction boluses but not by much. I uploaded my pump data to CareLink and then called my pump coach.
During our conversation she asked me if I had taken any steroids. I told her that I had two cortizone shots for a torn rotator cuff that is inoperable. She said if she had known ahead she would have put me on a temp basal of at least 150% and increased any bolusus by 50%.
I was shocked that an orthopedic surgeon who had just commented on my pump wouldn’t know to warn me! The bottom line is: If you go on steriods your BG may go through the roof.
Ya know Gordie, I have been dealing with steroids for years and never did any one of my docs help me out like your pump coach! Kudos to her for having an idea of how to deal with steroid shots!
I take the oral steroids every day and after MANY years I finally have an pretty good idea those affect me…well, sort of
BUT I also recently got steroids put directly into my knees and I asked the doc what to expect - he said to check a little more often for about a day then everything would be fine…Well, that was not at all how it worked. I shot up and stayed there…after a few days I started changing setting in my pump to accommodate for BG’s that were constantly running high! All for these shots, that were, ya know, only to affect me for a small period of time. LOL, Yeah, not so much.
Now, as the effects are wearing off, I’m noticing my BG’s running on the lower side and just switched back to my previous settings…so far not to bad, but I’ve found that these older setting now need to be tweaked.
I did contact a Nurse assigned to me through my insurance company and she did some research and found a study that showed that, for some, their BG’s don’t return to ‘normal’ until months after getting their steroid shots!! YIKES! You would think with the high occurrence of arthritis in diabetics the docs that treat us would have a better idea how steroids affect BG’s!
