[Battling an Unexplained Hyperglycemia (300+)]

As I sat down to write this blog, my Dexcom G6 read 308 with an arrow up. Yup, I’m in trouble. Let’s explore where (and how) I messed up THIS BAD.

Let's Explore.

All day I had near perfect blood sugars. Breakfast, no spike. Lunch, no spike. In between meals? Perfect basal rates kept me steady. But dinner? I had a very similar meal to what I usually eat for dinner. I injected my insulin, waited 15 minutes, and at the 15 minute marker.. my hands were shaking, my lips felt funny, and I had that eerie feeling that you get when you know you’re dropping low. So I did what most diabetics would do in this situation, I stuffed my face like there was no tomorrow. About halfway through I was pretty sure that that initial low feeling was wrong and this might not end well. I slowed down, finished my meal, and had a look at my Dexcom 20 minutes later. 175 slanted up. That was a pretty big jump, so I went for a nice walk to go see the sunset. 248 double arrows up?? A 25 minute walk like that usually would have dropped me 100 points since it was so close to my injection for a meal! As I headed home and contemplated where I went wrong, I see a steady arrow at 240. I could breathe, the walk worked! I get home and I started to feel sick.. so I checked dexcom. Ahh.. not so steady. 278 arrow slanted up. DEFINITELY not a good sign. I started wondering if I even took my insulin! I checked my pump, and it confirmed that I did inject insulin. That didn’t make sense based on my numbers so I then though that maybe there was a kink in the tubing on my pump? Nope. Maybe it was out of insulin and didn’t deliver? Nope, nope, nope! Whatever was going on, I needed to slow it down because I felt nauseous. I started kickboxing in the living room and downed a half gallon of water in my last act of desperation. Check the dexcom? 308.. ARROW UP.

Sometimes you just want to give up.

I decided to take a hot shower (it can cause insulin to work faster, but honestly I just needed to take a moment and relax). At the start of my shower I finally stabilized (again) and then started slowly dropping. Thank God. I got out of the shower, single arrow down. I smiled so big! Sat back down to continue writing, double arrows down dropping 30 points on dexcom per 5 minutes (WOAH). I want to get back into range, but this is WEIRD considering I had a high fat meal. I’m sitting at about 2 hours past my dinner injection, which usually means a slow rise and fall by this point. I still have no idea what happened, and honestly my best guess is that I randomly had a bit of lipoatrophy get in the way and the insulin absorption was delayed after being injected into me. Still doesn’t make full sense though.

What we learned.

All this goes to show that sometimes diabetes sucks for completely unexplained reasons. So where (and how) did I mess up this bad? You can pick apart my story and tell me where you think I went wrong, but I know that based on how my body usually works this should have been another normal meal for me. I had a high fat meal, yet I spiked and dropped like I ate 3 big bowls of cereal covered in fruit. I did everything you are supposed to do to bring it down (outside of actually giving insulin because I wanted to avoid a “rage bolus”). Nothing worked the way it usually does, and yet that’s ok. I had to remind myself that sometimes diabetes sucks. Sometimes diabetes does its own thing no matter what you do. We will never EVER have perfect control, but we can keep our heads up and do our best. I will recover, I will continue. I’ve got this, YOU’VE GOT THIS. Keep up the Fight!

 

Note: I ended up at 160 at 3 hours, gave a correction, and continued on with my life.

 

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LOOKING FOR A COACH TO HELP GUIDE YOU THROUGH YOUR DIETARY AND LIFE CHANGES?

We offer a variety of services specifically for Diabetics which include but are not limited to: Health and wellness coaching, nutrition coaching, diabetic education, fitness training, mindset training, supportive online community of like-minded diabetics, and so much more! Want more info? Check us out here: 

https://www.ftfwarrior.com/the-fearless-diabetic-project/

Keep Up The Fight!

Matthew Vande Vegtestories, T1D, motivationalComment