I start getting nervous when my meter says “HI” to me!
Constant state of freak-out here, but then, my son is just 4 and his BG profile is complicated by growth hormones, picky eating, whirling-dervish mindset, yanking out his pump site, and, well, heck, even the freaking breeze seems to put him into a high or low. I’m hoping I survive till he’s an adult. I have no doubts that he will, he’s a gosh darn force of nature.
My new endo told me to freak out if I go above 300 and can’t get it down. That’s what almost killed me last year, and my former endo never noticed. That’s why he’s former!
As long as a correction starts it going down, I’m OK. I may need more corrections as I go, but as long as I can see the trends, I don’t worry. It does need extra testing and watching, and that’s a nuisance, but I think it just goes along with having diabetes. Not that I would have chosen to! 
A lot of times, I “cheat” and take the CB and take the dog for a walk, to kill 10 or 15 minutes (we have a nice set of short loops…). It seems to help get it going in the right direction pretty nicely.
Its ONLY a number and not even remotely high, or in the least tiny bit “negative”. Nothing wrong with venting, but the expectation is FAR, far too high. A single reading of 200 anything should not be on the radar. It is a common mistake to get too hyper focused. Don’t get wound up by tiny stuff… It will make you crazy.
You are not a rabbit… you can and should eat. Don’t let yourself get crazy with ANY numbers… cope, find patterns and correct as necessary. But if you get upset by them, you’re too emotianally attached to the results. Set the emotions aside. It does not help anybody to get upset.
All of my numbers are on my radar.
I agree, and the thing is the meters themselves are not totally accurate. With the percentage up and down that they can be off, no telling what numbers are true and what are not.
Diabetes is a chronic condition and no matter who you are, there will always be variables you have to contend with.
The people I have seen get into major trouble (mainly type II but still) are those who neglect their eyes, or wounds on their feet or things like that. They consistently ignore what they actually have the power to take care of (if they have the medical abiliity to pay).
Not only the numbers, but EVERYTHING is on my radar. Maybe I’m OCDiabetes (As my dear AR calls it), but if I’m gonna go down, I’m gonna go down fighting.
But that said, I don’t get emotional about it. I just say hmmm, gotta correct that. In a way, we have to be dispassionate about the D, because emotions just get in the way. But it’s really hard to tell someone not to have emotions – they’re there, so what do you do about it? Not dismiss it, but try to help the person NOT wig out?
203 is nothing to me (fairly common). I don’t even raise an eyebrow until 280-300+ (fairly rare) then just bolus. When over 250 I bolus 10% extra, over 300 I add 20%. It always comes back down. My last A1c was 6.2% and that is more than good enough for me.
It’s funny that I randomly read your post because I didn’t even know you’d referenced my meltdown… I have meltdowns a lot though. Just had my 15 year anniversary as a T1D and I would probably kill someone to have the control that you do. To see a bloodsugar of 203 would be an improvement for me. However, letting yourself freak out is necessary… I don’t know about you, but other than this website, I have no one that understands in my life. Even my parents are sick of me crying about it. But what else can you do? This disease f$@king sucks.
I agree, I used to be really happy with my blood sugar under 200 and being stable when I was in school (I had a horrific fear of getting a bad hypo in class) and my usual day looks a lot like T1Forever’s freak-out day but it’s getting there. I freak out about meter inaccuracies and blood sugars over 250 if there’s no reason.
I’m really glad this topic was posted. I’m very emotional and I freak out all the time about my diabetes not working with me (especially late at night when I start thinking about the future) and the few type 1’s I’ve known in real life don’t seem to freak out and seem to have an easier time controlling their blood sugars, making me wonder what the heck I’m doing so wrong. This website has been great in showing me that I’m not alone despite having zero support in the “real” world and that we all have horrifically bad days and complete meltdowns sometimes.
My top Diabetic freekouts:
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Moving my insulin. Don’t even move it from one side of the room to the other. Not knowing where my insulin is will cause me instant levels of untold stress that I think most people just cant understand.
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Pump failure (motor error). Another huge stress creator. The one time my pump failed my BG shot up 120 mg/dl even though I got my pump functioning properly again in about 5 minutes.
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Rapidly rising BGs with little or no reason. I guess high numbers dont really freak me out because we all make mistakes and the action to fix the hyper is pretty self explanitory. But when my BG starts climbing like I went out to eat at an all you can eat chinese buffett and left my pump at home, I freak. This likely stems from the feelings of not knowing why my BG is out of control and fears that I may not be able to correct it.
I experience this quite often and I always get freaked out. I am on MDI so my first thought is oh my goodness did I really take how much insulin I thought I did? Or did my insulin really come out? Or did I forget to take it at all!? lol I end up just exercising and correcting it and moving on.
I get freaked out when my CGM says I am rapidly rising 3 pts or more per minute when I KNOW I took the correct amount of insulin. Especially since I am 5.5 months pregnant and I know that every single high effects my precious baby, it is a lot of pressure to have perfect numbers knowing your baby depends on them to be healthy.
Oh, dont worry. The other day I was 388 (my highest ever) at lunch and had no idea why. I got worried, but I didnt cry about it, because it would hae gone higher if you stress about it. All you can do is correct and drink water. Yep, sometimes your gonna have bad days. Sorry this happened to you.
Wow. You have great numbers. Most type T1s hit 200’s quite often. Over 300- now thats a concern.
I would be really concerned about a 388. What if you can’t get it down, and it just goes higher, and you end up too stuporous to do something about it? Did you call your doc about it and at least let him know? Obviously you got it down again (or you wouldn’t be posting!) but please be careful!
I think some of us dont feel 300’s. A high BG has never made me sick in any way, and thankfully always goes down.
Unfortunately, sometimes it goes down really really quick and once in awhile much slower.
It depends where it came from. A piece of candy might send it up and rapidly back down, where something severely loaded with carbs will take awhile and will take more insulin than usual.
I’m with Mark-that seems to be my specialty.
203 was a very high number for me. I spend a lot of effort keeping stable BGs-and I know some others here who do also.
I am concerned about the number of posts from people who regularly have high BGs–200 to 388! Isn’t that a bit scary, especially if it happens regularly. Of course you do not have lows, but what impact does carrying that high BG regularly have on your boday and future complications? What do your endos say about that?
Yeah, I was just starting off my vacation with my aunt and uncle and I didnt want to get them scared if I showed that I was. I was like “Well, I guess I will skip lunch and drink up.” I drank 6 LARGE glasses of water and ended up peeing on the side of the road on our way to their house. By 2:30 it was in the lower 200s. No, I didnt call the doctor, cuz I knew how to handle it. Surprisingly, this was the day after I got out of diabetes camp. Yeah, I will be careful and I know its not good when I spike like that. But one time I was at my other aunts house and before lunch it was like 245 or something. I started crying in front of her, and that made her freak out, so I guess I learned my lesson not to cry in front of uneducated people 
Anyway, its kinda hard to get your numbers down if your doctors wont give you the privilege of a sliding scale. But, yeah I’ll be careful