Sometimes, it just doesn’t work
One of the most dispiriting things about type 1 diabetes is that sometimes, it doesn’t matter what you do, it just doesn’t work.
Christmas is hard work normally as the normal routine and eating practices are binned in favour of having fun. Feasts are consumed, wine (and other liquor) is consumed, it’s hard to take yourself off somewhere quiet to figure out exactly how the unusual food should be bolused for. During this time, I don’t aim for perfection – survival is the game here and after 41 Christmases, I don’t do too badly.
But it doesn’t lose the fact that I am functioning as my pancreas and things don’t always go to plan. Last night was a great example of this.
Tell me all about it, hon?
Er, OK. Having cycled to my local gym, had a swim and headed back, everything looked great. I’d coped with the exercise, food was finally semi-sane and I’d been dry for a couple of days. This could not be said for my blood sugar. My Libre showed a steep climb after tea (a lovely chilli con carne, home cooked from scratch, everything weighed out and calculated in terms of carbs and protein).
High peaks
By 19:30, it was obvious something was badly wrong, and indeed my blood sugar measured 14mmol/l (normally an hour after such food, I would expect to be 10mmol/l) so I gave a correction dose of 10 units – which should have been more than enough to do the job.
By 20:15, I was up to 15.9mmol/l – the correction had not worked at all and it was now obvious that the cannula dripping the insulin into me was not working. I replaced the cannula and retested – now 17mmol/l and climbing by the minute.
I made sure the pump cable wasn’t occluded: that’s blocked to you and me. Insulin was indeed coming out of the end so I reattached and primed the cannula and me. Another 10 units.
It was still climbing with no hint of a slow down. I gave a further 4 units at 20:55 and finally at 21:10 there was evidence things were coming back down. Hypos are typically quicker to treat, so I worked out I probably needed 30g of CHO and had an early midnight feast: toast, ceral and a 150ml of coke.
It was looking great, 5.5mmol/l, so I headed to bed at 01:37 the next morning.
And woke up at 3am with low blood sugar I just couldn’t pick up: my husband did the honours of navigating the stairs when the stores by the bed were consumed.
According to the fit bit I got 5 hours 21 minutes of sleep but given I was below 3mmol/l the whole night, it wasn’t a great night of sleep 😉
Hope your night was easier.
Posted: December 28th, 2018 under Diabetes.