Sometimes I jinx myself.
It seems that every time I write a post or just look in the mirror and think “Wow! Things sure have been going well…” my blood sugar decides to go off on wild bumper car excursions. Sometimes I can blame myself for the results–oh yes, I shouldn’t have had that double bowl of chocolate ice cream last night–but just as often it’s just one of those things. It’s a reminder that hard work and good decisions usually lead to good results but that every so often diabetes throws a temper tantrum trying to remind me who’s in charge.
I get oodles of motivation when I do things right and I get good results. However, when I think that I have done things correctly and I get bad results, I am very quick to say “What the hell!” and go off the deep end with bad decisions.
When the numbers are good, it’s easy to think that I am in control of everything that affects my blood sugar. I can take my insulin adhering to all of the preset and tested ratios in my pump. I can show incredible willpower and have an egg and spinach omelet for breakfast when I am starved for a bowl of cereal with bananas and milk. Oh, how I do miss cereal for breakfast.
When the numbers are bad, I usually blame myself. If I take responsibility for the good numbers, it seems logical that I should take credit for the bad numbers. But there are times that I eat a low carb breakfast with an appropriate insulin bolus and my blood sugar soars into the 200’s. If I understand correctly what books tell me, some of these morning blood sugar excursions are the result of hormones screaming at my liver to pump out glucose at the same time they try to interfere with the action of my insulin. But where were those hormones yesterday and the day before when my body thought the same breakfast was hunky-dory and my numbers were great all morning.
Recently I participated in a study that was investigating whether blood sugar rises at the end of the two or three day life of a pump infusion site. Today was the third day of what has been a fine infusion site, but when I was high through much of the day, I changed out the set. My problem is that I usually go high when I have a new infusion set. So I was high because of the old set and then high because of the new set.
So today I am ranting. Highs are much more enjoyable when you have the guilty memory of a hot fudge sundae. But I have been doing a really good job of eating low carb lately and totally ignoring the call of chocolate covered donuts. So this isn’t fair. You mean diabetes doesn’t play fair! Wow, that’s not very nice.
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I’m in this boat right now too. Nothing has changed with my exercise or food, but my numbers have been way higher than normal for about 3 days nows. I think I might be fighting a small cold. It’s the only thing I can think of at this point since I’ve changed insulin and pods. Super frustrating!
It would definitely be easier if we knew why we are high. There are times that I have a bad spell that I never know what the cause was. So it’s hard to learn from that except maybe not to be so hard on myself.
I detest the post-new-site high sugars, and I get them a LOT. As much as I *try* to switch out sites at the most innocuous time of day (like say, mid-afternoon – post lunch and a couple hours before dinner, to give the new site a chance to settle in and hopefully start working) sometimes, you just can’t avoid it. Your pump runs out of insulin = you have to change it, no matter what time of day it is, and no matter what your blood sugar is. One thing I HAVE done to mitigate it happening so often….I keep in the site (not the whole set, just the site) for an extra couple of days when I can. So far (fingers crossed!) it’s worked really well and I generally get 5-6 days out of the same site before I think it might go kaput on me. I know this doesn’t work for everyone (and I’m sure your study may have issues with it) but I like feeling as if I’m saving myself a few hours of crappy sugars every week by doing it.
I’m like you in that I try to change sites at “innocuous” times and definitely try to avoid mornings. I don’t try to go longer than 3 days because I start getting redness and irritation at the site. I don’t ever notice absorption problems at the end of a site and that’s why the study I was in wasn’t at all how I view site problems. My sentence in the post about being high from the end of a site was more a joke because I don’t think that had anything to do with it.
A few more days of this and I will do a basal increase until things level out. And then of course I’ll start having lows and have to reduce them again.:)
Knock on wood – I am lucky in the skin reaction (or rather lack there of) arena. Which is ironic because I am mildly allergic to latex, and ripping off band aids can irritate my skin. I’m having the opposite problems lately with fighting pre-lunch and post-dinner lows that I think are due to basal rates that are too high….but I think that is combined with post-menstrual low-progesterone meaning that my insulin resistance is at a monthly low time right now. Geez Louise, the sh*t we have to consider ALL the time with regards to what might be making us high or low….no wonder we get a bit punchy sometimes!!
You know I never even thought about being high post site change…I’m going to have to start paying attention to that. Do you put any insulin in for the cannula? I always bolus 0.5 after putting in a new site. I’m also curious how the study on frequency of site changes turns out. I have always wondered if changing more often is better or if it’s just the companies trying to get more money out of us. I have found 4 days is usually pretty good for me with infusion sets, any longer it starts to itch some.
I use Silhouettes which require a .7 prime. I always prime 1.0 which is the max prime on my Ping. When I used Medtronic I’d often prime 1.2. It’s sheer laziness that I don’t do a second prime on my Ping. Although I mentioned the old set as a possibility for my high BG’s, I really don’t think it was. But the problem is that often when we have highs, we don’t necessary know why.
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