I’ve been careful avoiding the Covid-19 virus. I was vaccinated twice last spring and I wear a mask in any public indoor setting.
My daughter married last weekend and I felt a need to let my guard down for this special occasion. Her wedding and reception took place in a backyard setting and that helped ease my concerns regarding the virus. But I was fully cognizant that the delta variant can be carried by vaccinated individuals. This is an increased risk from the variants that it replaced.
My plan, following the wedding day, was to closely monitor my glucose with my CGM. I also figured that I could monitor my blood oxygen levels with my fingertip pluse-ox meter and watch for any substantial degradation of my blood oxygenation. And if my glucose levels rose to levels above 180 mg/dL and resisted correction, I would then go get a PCR test.
I normally eat two meals per day, one around 11 am and another around 4 pm. Yesterday, my glucose trace on my CGM was well behaved between midnight and noon. I started a new infusion site at 9 am.
The glucose effects of my first meal started kicking in just after noon and rose to the 150-180 mg/dL range, higher than usual for me. I corrected twice during that bump with a 4-unit pump bolus and a 4-unit Afrezza bolus. The glucose trace finally responded to my corrections and I thought everything was back to normal.
Here’s yesterday’s trace.
I decided to skip my second meal and I was lucky that I did. My glucose trace started to steadily march up from 135 mg/dL at 6 pm to 228 mg/dL at midnight. I had gone to bed at 9 pm. At 1:30 am I woke up and my CGM surprisingly showed my glucose at 220+ mg/dL. A follow up fingerstick read 253 mg/dL.
I thought to myself, “this looks like a hyperglycemia event likely started by a Covid infection.” As much as I would have loved to roll over and fix things in the morning, I could not turn my back on this level of hyperglycemia.
I figured that my hyperglycemia could be caused by more garden variety triggers like a failed infusion site. Since I had just installed the current site at 9 am the previous day, it was possible that that site just did not gain full traction. I swapped it out. I injected 4 units of Apidra as an IM shot into my shoulder muscle. I also inhaled 4 units of Afrezza.
Here’s today’s glucose line.
Luckily, I was able to return to sleep after this rude 30-minute interruption and I slept until 6 am. As I was falling asleep I thought that if my sugar did not respond to the corrections I made, then I would get a PCR test in the morning to confirm a Covid infection.
When I woke up, my CGM read 100 mg/dL. So that undermines my Covid infection hypothesis. My pulse-ox meter consistently showed oxygenation in the 96-98% range.
The mystery to me is the fact that vaccinated people can catch and transmit the virus without feeling any symptoms. If I didn’t feel any symptoms, does that mean that my blood glucose levels would not be impacted either?
Looking at today’s glucose trace, I give myself credit for getting up in the middle of the night and swapping out the infusion site, taking the two corrections from an external source and drinking a full cup of water to thin out the glucose sludge in my blood vessels.
My corrections were not perfect as I did have to add a few glucose tabs around 7 and 11 am, but I count as a success the fact that the glucose level did not bounce to the high side after my corrections.
While I was up treating my high BG last night, I found myself sneezing more than normal. I do have seasonal allergies and I was sleeping with my windows open. So I just wrote the sneezing off as my usual seasonal allergies. But then I was reading this morning that sneezing is one of the top three symptoms that people infected with the Delta variant report. Should I go get a PCR test?
