Friday, January 30, 2009

Like a rollercoaster, but less fun


So as usual, we're still playing the Type 1 game. Last night after real good numbers all day (Adele's sugar readings were between 3.8 and 9.2 - normal values for non-diabetics is between 4 and 8) she started to go down before her evening snack and this kept up as she was trying to go to sleep. 3.3, up a bit to 4.7 then down again to 3.7. I temporarily turned off her pump so that she would not get any additional insulin and go even lower and she ate 20 grams of carbs with no insulin bolus. 1 hour later while sleeping she had gone up to 6.9 - very good. 1 hour after that she had shot up to 18.7! Here are the highlights after that:

10:50 pm = 18.7 (gave her 0.8 units of insulin to hopefully bring that down and went to bed)
12:50 am = 18.6 (gave her an additional 0.55 units to try to bring down)
2:50 am = 20.0 (now I knew she was insulin resistant for some reason, I gave her 1.0 units and was very tired so I just went to sleep and hoped that it would be enough and not too much)
6:45 am = 5.7 :-)

And since this morning she's been in the low 4 range. Good numbers (and normal numbers) for a non-diabetic, but a bit too close to being hypoglycemic which is what happens when sugar goes below 4, especially when she's at school.

So, what caused this sudden rise in sugar last night followed by the sudden drop this morning? Why was her body so resistant to insulin last night and so sensitive to it this morning? I have no idea. It's just part of playing the Type 1 game. It happens to all players. Even a pro cyclist who has EXCELLENT control of his diabetes and is in tip top shape goes through this as well (Phil Southerland talks about his highs and lows in his blog http://philsoutherland.blogspot.com/ *Note - in the US they measure blood sugar in different units than in Canada, to convert values to mmol/L simply divide by 18).

No comments: