My summer hasn’t gone as I imagined it would.

I’ve had a lot of unexpected shit to deal with. I prefer not to get into details, because too much of my time and thoughts have been preoccupied by aforementioned shit. In the grand scheme of things, though, I have enough common sense to acknowledge that the shit I’ve dealt with isn’t too terrible…I’ll be able to learn and grow from it, ultimately.

In fact, I’ve already started taking in a lesson it’s taught me about diabetes and stress.

Before all this stuff started happening, I knew that stress could affect blood sugar levels. But I guess I never gave much thought as to how long or how dramatically it could affect blood sugar levels.

Unfortunately, I found out firsthand how much havoc stress can wreak on blood sugars. I received some stressful news one Monday afternoon and had to combat high blood sugars between then and dinnertime. Into the evening, I was munching on a bunch of different snacks – I tend to stress eat – so I chalked up the resulting high blood sugars to my lack of restraint.

When the high blood sugars continued for three straight days, though, I knew something was wrong. I’d eat meals that I’d had plenty of times before, and contend with elevated blood sugars for hours after. I’d give myself bolus after bolus, sometimes even stacking insulin, and my blood sugar would barely budge. It was maddening, seeing my levels hover stubbornly in the 190-240 mg/dL range. It was only when I started bolusing very aggressively for food and increasing my temp basal that I finally got a reprieve from high blood sugars.

This whole ordeal has taught me that I’ve grossly underestimated stress when it comes to its impact on diabetes management and blood sugar levels. Not only does stress drive my blood sugar levels up, but it also makes it that much harder for me to confidently manage my diabetes, overall. It’s very sneaky in how it attacks blood sugar and, frustratingly, there’s never any surefire way of telling when my diabetes will calm down again when I’m undergoing a stressful situation.

Maybe this is a sign that I’ve got to find a better way to cope with stress. Meditation, yoga, exercise, more self-care…I’ve definitely been slacking on all of that lately. Just like I won’t be underrating how stress affects my diabetes any time soon, I’ll also remember to take into account how beneficial it is to just…relax.