How I Handle “Roller Coaster” Blood Sugar Days

February 21, 2020February 20, 2020 mollyt1dLeave a comment

“Roller coaster” blood sugar days happen to the best of us. Wild fluctuations from high to low and back again are sometimes just part of life with diabetes, but that doesn’t make them any less frustrating. So how can they be handled without losing your mind?

The answer is simple, and probably a bit unsatisfying: I just take the highs and lows as they happen. Rather than dwelling on the literal big picture of ups and downs that my CGM displays, I decide to treat each instance uniquely and have faith in the fact that everything will stabilize eventually.

How I Handle _Roller Coaster_ Blood Sugar Days — Honestly, give me high and low blood sugars over the twists and turns of a real roller coaster any day of the week.

For example, a recent weekday started off wicked badly for me when I had a low blood sugar at around 4 A.M. I did the thing that you’re not supposed to do and totally over-treated it (whoops), resulting in me having to take insulin to counteract the carbs. Well, I didn’t take quite enough insulin, because I was pretty high still when I woke up again a couple hours later. I took an aggressive bolus for the high and did my morning exercise routine…

…which backfired on me because soon after completing my workout and eating a quick breakfast, I was dropping like crazy. I’m almost certain that most other T1Ds would agree with me when I say that having a low blood sugar right after eating (and taking insulin for said meal) is SO obnoxious. I knew my carbs would kick in eventually, though, so I opted to suspend my insulin and went about getting ready for work…

…only to be sky-high again when I arrived to the office. I took another big bolus, knowingly stacking my insulin but not caring because I just wanted to get my blood sugar down…

…and that absolutely worked like a charm! By lunchtime, I was low again and literally eating frosting out of a Tupperware container (don’t @ me). Usually, I have zero restraint when it comes to sweet things like frosting and I was worried that I’d gone overboard with my spoonfuls of it. But magically, the low/high roller coaster stopped for the rest of the day after that! In fact, I was level between 90 and 110 for THE REST OF THE NIGHT.

I’m not saying it was worth it to deal with the incessant ups and downs all morning and part of the afternoon; rather, I’m trying to point out that I just did what I could in order to get off the roller coaster ride and it paid off by the day’s end.

Sometimes, with diabetes, it’s more important to focus on blood sugar in the moment rather than stress about what it did or what it’s going to do. That way, I find that I can help treat my diabetes the way it needs me to treat it then and there rather than trying to anticipate what it might do later on. It’s all about perspective and remembering to keep it simple, even if it doesn’t always yield the fastest results.

My Diabetes Hates Weddings

August 14, 2019August 12, 2019 mollyt1dLeave a comment

So basically everyone in my life right now is engaged, or on the fast-track to getting engaged.

And that’s awesome! No, seriously, it’s an exciting time for a lot of my family and friends. And I’m happy to be part of it all because I like going to weddings. Who doesn’t love to celebrate love?

Well, I can tell you what doesn’t love to celebrate love…MY DIABETES.

My diabetes effing hates weddings.

My diabetes hates weddings SO much that I’ve yet to go to one where it doesn’t act up in some way.

My New PDM (1)

I was naive enough to think that it would actually be a good diabetes day during the last wedding I attended. And it was, for the most part: I woke up, had a Dunkin Donuts sandwich for breakfast, got dressed and made-up. I showed up for the ceremony with a slightly low blood sugar that was swiftly corrected with a mini box of raisins (oh, if only I knew how many more I’d consume that night…).

I was fine, right through the cocktail hour and the start of dinner. But that’s where the troubles began. You see, there weren’t many passed hors d’oeuvres during the cocktail hour, and I could’ve really used some because I hadn’t eaten anything besides the sandwich and the raisins all day long. By the time dinner started, I was ravenous and basically shoved anything within arm’s reach into my mouth. This included a lot of cheese, meats, and pieces of flatbread.

If I’d actually been thinking about how my blood sugars usually respond to slow-acting carbs in things like flatbread, I might’ve actually wound up okay. But over the course of the next several hours, as wedding guests were whooping it up on the dance floor, my blood sugar was making a slow and steady climb up into the 300s! When I finally realized this, I started taking correction boluses that, apparently, were far too aggressive…because when I finally ended the night in my hotel room around 1:30 A.M., I was in the 70s. And dropping.

My lowest blood sugar was 43 that night. I ate multiple packs of raisins, 5 or 6 glucose tablets, a FiberOne bar, and half a pack of peanut butter crackers. All between the hours of 1:30 and 4 in the morning. It was exhausting. I was tearful and sweating so badly at one point that it looked like I had just come out of the shower. I even wound up sending my sleepy boyfriend down to the lobby at one point to buy me an orange juice, because I was running out of low blood sugar remedies. I drank half of it and was relieved to see my CGM showing, at long last, a diagonal up arrow. I couldn’t believe that I’d just spent the last few hours hovering below my “low” threshold on my CGM, but I didn’t waste any more time thinking about it – I was extraordinarily tired and happy to finally go to sleep.

But now that I’ve had time to think about it, I’ve realized that I need a new strategy for myself and my diabetes when it comes to weddings. I’m going to be my cousin’s maid of honor next month, for goodness’ sake, so I want to do everything I can to ensure “decent” (i.e, blood sugars under 200 but over 80) for the special day.

A key to success, I think, will be regularly scheduled meals and making sure that I avoid an empty stomach at all costs.

What’s Worse than High or Low Blood Sugar?

September 7, 2018September 4, 2018 mollyt1dLeave a comment

High blood sugar and low blood sugar are both incredibly draining. One turns me into a grump who can’t drink enough water and the other turns me into a shaky, sweaty, slurring hot mess who can’t string a simple sentence together. Needless to say, neither situation is fun.

But there’s one even worse than that: the roller coaster situation. It’s best illustrated using a CGM graph like this:

7594B528-CBC7-43AD-8A55-CF1600A950D6 — I added the little graphic of psychedelic teddy bears riding a roller coaster – it seemed to illustrate my point well.

It’s what I use to describe blood sugar that won’t level out to my target range. It just goes up, up, up, and falls dramatically – just like an actual roller coaster – once the high is corrected. And boy, does that drop down take my breath away.

But then wait, there’s more! After the crash and the inevitable need for lots of sugar (and fast) is satisfied, the blood sugar soars back up again, leaving me frustrated as I take another bolus to fix it…

…only for it to happen again. And again.

Get me off this ride!

When I’m stuck on these blood sugar roller coasters, it’s mentally and physically exhausting. I question my every action over and over again as I try to do the “right thing” and make my numbers level out, only to end up berating myself for getting into this situation in the first place.

I’ve never been a fan of roller coasters in real life – they make me a combination of anxious and nauseous that I’ve dubbed “nauxious” – but I’d rather ride one that goes upside down than experience the T1D roller coaster situation again any time soon.