I’m moving to a more suited website for a diabetes blog…Diabetes1. I’ll be picking up there where I left off here…and I have some news to share. My first blog there (which hopefully will be done tonight or tomorrow) will have a link back to here so anybody new that finds me can start at the beginning…and my news will soon be posted there.
The blog will now be located here.
Hope to see you there…soon!
I had a pretty scary low last night. My sugar fell to 27 before I knew/had any symptoms of a low.
I’m not entirely sure why I dropped but there are a couple of possibilities…all pretty much my fault. I didn’t test when I bolused for a snack a couple hours before the low so I might’ve been below target or even a tiny bit low when I ate and didn’t compensate by reducing the amount of insulin. I suppose I could’ve miscalculated or misentered the number of carbs I was eating but I’m fairly certain I was okay on that front. And then shortly before the two hours post prandial my husband and I…ventured to the bedroom.
It was during our rendezvous that I did finally start to have symptoms. They were very mild (mostly just a nervous/uneasy feeling) and very sudden. I told him I was sorry but I thought I needed to test my sugar. He of course told me not to apologize for that and ran off to get my meter for me and then when we saw it was 27 he ran back off to get my smarties and a glass of milk.
Afterward I was too tired to stay awake but I was kind of afraid to go to sleep since I didn’t really have symptoms of that low. I’m fairly certain that the symptoms I did have wouldn’t have woken me up if I had already been asleep. So now I’m worried that I might be becoming hypo unaware. And really…how do I manage that if I am? I have a three year old at home. He’s not old enough (and doesn’t have the attention span) for me to teach him how to call 911 or to test my sugar or treat a low or anything. And if something does happen to me I fear for his safety while he’d be left unattended…if something happened while my husband wasn’t home.
And then I’m frustrated that it’s difficult to even have a normal sex life because of this stupid disease. It sucks for me and I feel bad for my husband. He didn’t sign on for a sick wife who would sometimes have stuff like this happen. I know he doesn’t care, that he loves me and wishes I were healthy for my own sake but that he doesn’t hold any sort of ill feelings toward me or our relationship because of it. But I just can’t help feeling like he got swindled into being saddled down with all this extra worry and frustration without being given a heads up about it when he had the decision to make.
Ugh. I guess I’m just feeling rather pitiful today. I’ll get over it. I always do.
I woke up from napping with my son about a half hour ago. I laid in bed for a few minutes trying to decide if my sugar was dropping or if I just felt a little strange due to the fact I’m still used to it being dark at this time but it was now light out…coupled with just waking up. Of course I started to feel worse so I dragged myself out of bed and tested. 40.
After six packs of Smarties and 20 minutes I re-tested. Only 58. I feel better. Mostly just have those leftover symptoms you get after a low, not the ones that come with the low but I’m now eating some Cadbury Mini Eggs. I don’t want to overdo it and end up too high (which I’m probably gonna) but I don’t want to do nothing and end up dropping more. My theory is that the candy shell on the eggs will help my sugar pretty quickly and then the chocolate will break down slower and keep me at a steady level. This of course is Denial for, “I need an excuse to eat these and not have to wait to get my sugar up and then figure out insulin and bolus for them.”
I will check in a bit and do a correction bolus at least. Promise.
I just woke up from a bad dream. In it my wonderful Ping had a different feature that it doesn’t possess during my waking hours—an anti-cursing alarm complete with a punishing electric shock. Every time a foul word escaped my mouth the pump would beep loudly and I’d get a jolt. And I don’t exactly have the cleanest mouth.
I was woken up by my alarm clock—which scared the…s**t…out of me. Yikes!
I’m gaining weight. None of my pants (except sweats and two pairs of stretchy-ish pants) fit me at all. With my husband’s help I can get into them but it’s painful to wear them. Guess I need to do some shopping.
I only weigh 140 now so it’s not a terrible number (and I just did a Facebook thing a few weeks ago where I was able to say I still weighed about what I did in high school) but I’m not really happy with where it’s settling. In some areas it’s kind of nice (my boobs, which basically deflated after I had my son, are pretty much back) but in others I could definitely deal without it. My belly is what’s bothering me the most.
I’ve never been built with a flat belly but I remember being kind of soft in all the right places when I was 18 and I miss that. Now I’m just sort of squishy in some of the wrong places. Granted I’m almost a decade past 18 and have had a child (a rather large child) so I’ll never be built that way again but I’d like to get close to it. Problem is I just don’t have the motivation right now to put in extra effort.
You’d think God would make it so that the energy it takes to take care of a newborn/infant/toddler would be directly proportionate to the energy you need to expend to keep your pre-pregnancy body. That kind of nullifies the argument of those that believe God is a woman.
New pet peeve for today: Bruises from injections and/or sites. Would kind of ruin the bikini body if the weight gain hadn’t already.
I got my A1c results today. 7.2!!!!! That’s still a little higher than I’d like to be but for getting it down from 12.6 just three months ago…and some of that time was still without ratios, some was just on injections and less than a month was actually on the pump. I was hoping to be in the low 8 range so this is really exciting for me.
For anybody that’s unfamiliar with the hemoglobin A1c, it’s a test given to estimate overall how your sugar has been doing over a period of about three months. 7.0 is considered controlled by the American Diabetes Association but below 6.0 is normal. A non-diabetic would likely be in the 5s. So, to be best controlled and to reduce the risk of complications as much as possible it’s better to be in that normal range, not just “controlled.”
Even though the pump makes it SO much easier it is still frustrating some days but getting this new number kind of renewed any lost resolve to basically step on the diabetes and not let it get away from me.
My diabetes pet peeve for today is running out of strips for the good meter you prefer to use and having to use your back-up meter until you get new strips.
A couple of weeks ago I found out that the device I like the most out of those I’ve tried isn’t being made anymore and the one I had has a crack in it. Lucky for me a handful of folks from IP were kind enough to send me theirs as they have a different preference. Now I think I have five One Touch Ultrasofts stockpiled.
I also found out that a lot of diabetics use the same lancet for months at a time. Some even only use one a year. Personally I think you’re all nuts. lol All I can think about is how dull that thing would be after so many uses. And I don’t even test as much as some. I generally test 6-8 times a day, a lot test 10, 12, 14 times. No way would I use a lancet for so long.
The only time I re-use is if I didn’t get enough blood and have to stab again immediately or maybe if I have a low and know I’m going to be retesting in a few minutes. Otherwise all I can think is that it will get dull, even rusty and that any traces of blood on it could affect readings. As so many do things this way I’m sure my fears are unfounded but hey…some people are afraid of zombies. haha
All this leads me to a pet peeve: Accidentally turning your lancet device up to the deepest setting and not noticing until lancet hits bone or comes out the other side. (I may or may not be exaggerating a little.)
I put in my first thigh site yesterday and I think I hate it. It’s uncomfortable. I can’t lay on that side because the pressure on it makes it sore. I like to have my sites covered by some material when I sleep but I rarely where shorts or pants to sleep in. Instead I wrapped an ace bandage around it for the night. That wasn’t great but it made me less nervous about somehow catching it on something during the night.
The tubing is JUST long enough to get my pump into the sports bra I wear to bed to hold it. I wish it were a little longer but I know that during the day the longer tubing would drive me nuts and get in the way.
So, I’ll be mostly avoiding the thighs, I think. I’m sure I’ll use them from time to time and even get more used to them but I’m going to stick to the belly, hips and butt the most. I think the hips are the most comfortable places for me. I just have to watch that they’re not going to be right at the waistband of my pants.
I started today. It wasn’t as overwhelming as I thought for the most part. The controls I really need to know how to use on the pump are much easier than I anticipated and I don’t think the advanced things will be much harder.
Of course for me the most nerve wracking part was the insertion. I had to build up the nerve to do it and I released it away from my skin first so I could see it in action. I’m still not sure whether that was a good or bad idea. When I finally did it I was pleasantly surprised. I felt the movement of the spring action but felt absolutely nothing of the needle/catheter. I kind of froze a moment wondering where the pinch was, waiting for a delayed reaction. lol
This will take some getting used to. I’m still a little unsure about the umbilical cord, as I’ve heard it refered to. I’ll have to play around to figure out the best sites for me and places to wear the pump. There will need to be some tweaking done to my rates and ratios, of course. I’m still uneasy about this in some ways but not nearly as bad. And I’m sure that will ease even more over the next couple of weeks.
I got my ratios and stuff. i:c is 1:11 for now and my ISF is 1:41 (or maybe it was 40…I know she told me to use 1:10 carb ratio for now because it’ll make the math real quick and I’m thinking she might’ve said the same thing for my ISF). I’ve been using the Ping monitor to test and calculate insulin so I’m getting more comfortable with that.
I don’t feel AS uneasy about it now. I saw a video of manual insertion of the cannula and that didn’t bother me too bad. I thought I might want the spring-loaded deal (which is what I have right now) but I do better with injections when I can see what the needle is doing and guide it in slowly so I might prefer manual. The spring-loaded idea scares me. haha
I’m anxious now for Tuesday. I’ll be terrified for the first insertion (and probably a few after that, too) but I’m excited about everything else.
I think I might have to contact the Animas rep that got me my pump. He sent…Inset? infusion sets that are 90° and 9mm. I’m pretty thin and think I’d do better with 6mm. Plus I’m curious about the 30° deal, whether that’d be better. And of course me thinking about manual insertion. He told me that if I don’t like the inserts he sent that he’d give me different ones.
But yeah…wish me luck!
