Archive for February, 2012

Day 3 with Dex

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My Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) arrived on Friday. I plugged it in for 3 hours of charging and immediately started getting myself connected. He was like a kid in a candy store. Metaphorically speaking; of course. It has only been 3 days, and I have already learned a great deal from the little egg shaped device. What I thought my blood sugar was doing goes about like this:

  1. I take my basal (Lantus) insulin at night keeping me steady for most of the night and my blood sugar would start dropping just before 5:30 AM (when I normally eat breakfast). Except on the weekends when he would wake up at 9 with a BG of 50.
  2. At 5:30 AM, I would take my bolus (Novalog) insulin for breakfast and eat some cereal with milk. Some? His cereal bowl is the one normal people use to mix cakes with.
  3. Around 11:30 AM, I would start to feel a little low and then I would test and I would be some where between 60 and 80. I would bolus and eat lunch. Usually, he skips step 3 all together.
  4. Around 6PM I would make dinner for myself and the kids, bolus (which I always seems to under estimate the bolus needed) and spend the rest of the night bolusing until bed time trying to figure out why my estimate was so badly off.

That is what I thought was happening. Dexcom shed a little light on the situation. Any more light and his nose hairs would catch fire.

  1. I take my basal insulin at night and then steadily drop until around 5:30AM. The trend looks a lot like a slide.
  2. At 5:30 AM, I take my bolus insulin for breakfast and east some cereal with milk. Then, I spike to about 350.
  3. I slowly, but steadily, fall back down to between 60 and 80 at around 11:30 AM. I bolus and eat lunch. Then, I spike to 300 or better and about a half hour later drop to around 120.
  4. Slowly go down to about 112 and then at 6PM I make dinner for myself an the kids.  I bolus (which I still seem to under estimate) and spend the rest of the night steadily climbing higher and higher while bolusing to try to get back off the escalator.

What is that all about? Poor diabetes control? Talk about total shock. I had no idea my blood sugar was bouncing like that. He should really test more. I look at the two lines on the Dexcom my blood sugar is doing everything it can to stay out of them. And what is my Dexcom showing 255 and arrow to the rightbasal doing? Drawing; like on an Etch A Sketch. When I am sleeping, my blood sugar is dropping like a rock and after dinner, my blood sugar just holds steady at 250. Tonight, I had two tuna fish sandwiches and some pork and beans. I would guess about 110 grams of carbohydrates. That is roughly 7 units of insulin for me. That was my bolus at 6:30.  After eating dinner, Dex started freaking out and my trend was raising to the top of the meter. I have been taking 3 units of Novalog every half since and my trend is almost a straight line. Not going up; not going down. At least he has some consistency. Just piling on the Novalog and the line isn’t budging. But I’ll bet if I take my basal dosage, I will be heading back down again. Its like before lunch my basal is trying to help me remember what hypoglycemia feels like and after dinner we are reminiscing about hyperglycemia. Have some ice cream. I’ll bet that will get that line moving. Thoughts? Anyone? PICK ME! PICK ME! Anyone else?

What would you do with a diabetes-free day?

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NO DIABETESEmily Coles on Tudiabetes asked the PWDs of the DOC, “What would you do with a diabetes-free day?” I tried to think of something interesting; something amazing; something that would just be so much cooler than anyone else’s answer. He tried to think. Sadly, I kept coming back to some fairly normal answers.

For starters, I’m sleeping until 10AM. I’m not getting up because my blood sugar is going to be too low if I sleep any more. I’m not rushing to check my blood sugar at 6AM because I usually eat breakfast at that time. I’m not getting up to pee in the middle of the night and wondering if I that means my blood sugar is high. Not only that, but Mamma is sleeping too. I know she worries about me at night especially.

I’m going to eat and play. I’m filling my freezer full of ice cream, and I’m filling my dinning room full of pizza. I’m making up for every birthday party where Papá had to sit down for a second because we played to much, or Papá was getting angry because he ate too much pizza and ice cream. Tata, Squishy, and I are playing until they both pass out from pure exhaustion.

I’m hiring a baby sitter to watch the girls after they go to bed, and I’m taking Mamma to dinner and dancing. That could get ugly. I don’t care. Mamma loves to dance, and he makes the robot look graceful. And it would be nice to be able to give her my full attention when she is trying to show me how, instead of me trying to determine if I have enough sugar to make it through the song.

I’m caring candy in my pocket, and I’m going to eat it just because I want to. He does that already. No, I eat it because my hands and mouth have been working together for so long, they often forget to tell my brain what they are doing. Then, I get to worry about how much I ate, because I wasn’t counting the pieces or Reese’s while I was eating them.

The truth of the matter is, if I have a diabetes free day, I am giving as much of it to my family as possible. I don’t believe for a second that I am the one that suffers the most from my diabetes. When I’m low, I don’t even know I have diabetes, and when I am high, I get so angry I couldn’t care about it. All the while, my family gets to watch from the line of scrimmage. It may be my pancreas that has gone into early retirement, but my wife and my daughters are the ones suffering the most.

Something to Laugh About

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So tonight while chatting and listening at DMSA Live, I was reading the other blogs that I never have time to read and SUM had posted a video with a link back to a previous post.  I’m posting them both so that I never forget them.

Bear