Mar 11
5
High Blood Sugar for Too Long
The Story
I decided to go exercise/running when it was late and almost dark outside. So I tested my sugar before I went and it was a little high but I figured that going running would of course bring it down.
After I came back from running, I felt good, tested my sugar again and it came down; it was 175. I thought, okay, that’s still somewhat high but that’s okay, I’m sure it will come down a little more once my body realizes it had physical activity and that it will stabilize me for the rest of the night. Well, of course, this didn’t happen, hence the title and my reason for writing this and you reading it, and I went the total opposite direction and kept skyrocketing to the moon.
At 175, my pump gave me a couple units of insulin and I didn’t eat or anything. I checked my blood sugar about an hour later and it was 260. I became concerned and didn’t understand. I checked my site and it was fine so the pump gave me a little more insulin.
An hour later I checked my blood sugar and now it was 360. I decided to disconnect the pump and gave a regular shot of insulin by syringe. I gave five units. I waited about twenty minutes or so and I tested my blood sugar again and it was 401! I gave another five unit shot. I was angry, frustrated, and a mess not only because my blood sugar was high but because of what it does to me when I’m that high and how it makes me feel. I was all emotional and what I mean is Uncontrollable Emotions-seriously; you’d have to see to believe, crying/pouting/weeping, hating life, the world, head confusion, spinning, dizzy, cranky, hating myself and the disease, and so on. I didn’t understand what was going on or why this was happening. I did all the positive, healthy things. I ate right, I exercised, up to this point during the whole day my blood sugars were good so what was the cause for this gradual on going spike?!
Assistance/Second opinion
I decided to call my doctor and I updated the doctor of what had happened and been happening in the last four hours and the doctor was unsure and didn’t quite understand why this was happening either. As such though, she told me to give ten units of the “emergency insulin” (I’m not going to use brand name here/medical term for privacy reasons, ultimately it’s the insulin to use if pump malfunctions) and in an hour, if my blood sugar was still over 300, to give five units of my regular insulin.
Progression
Ok, so I did all that and of course and hour later it was still high so I gave the five units of insulin.
At this point I had at least thirty units of active insulin in me working.
Therefore, I had two thoughts and solutions. Either A. if I don’t come down in an hour I’m going to the hospital or B. I’m going to figure out what really is going on and keep giving insulin until it goes down.
Relief-sort of
Somewhere between feeling like crap (terrible flu like symptoms, nausea, horrible headache, head pain, sugary and salty feeling through whole body, indescribable) and trying to stay alive I started to finally come down.
Also, I figured out the solution to why all this happened.
In a nutshell, I ran in severe cold conditions which put my body in distress and then it became dark so I was running in the cold and darkness. At the time though, it didn’t feel cold because I was moving and sweating, there was some light with the lights of cars going by now and then, house, and street lights, and the moon but whatever. During this time my blood sugar must have dropped or been dropping so my liver was pumping out lots of glucose to sustain the stress and strain I apparently was putting it in. So it must have pumped out and excreted a WHOLE LOT of GLUCOSE because it took a WHOLE LOT of INSULIN to replace and supplement what was inside already. There is an even better medical physical training explanation but if you want to know what anatomically happened you can research that yourself because I’m not going to explain that here even though I could because I know but that is not what this post is about and I’m getting off on a tangent already.
By 2 o’clock in the morning I was feeling better and my blood sugar was in the low 200′s. So I ate a small meal with hardly any carbohydrates and tested before I went to bed and it was at a reasonable number.
The next day though was bad though, too, because I had experienced all that, lack of sleep, and whatnot. It’s such an extreme roller coaster when you go either real low or real high. It sucks big time. So for the next 48 hours you feel like crap after just being through crap. It’s basically a crap shoot, pun intended.
There are many analogies I could use on how it feels (for a regular person and their non-disease body) but I’m not going to use comparisons because this is it’s own category and it needs to be addressed and put on a pedestal by itself. Let me just say that people do compare it to being intoxicated with a drug such as an actual drug or alcohol (hang over).
Conclusion-life goes on thankfully
The next day, the doctor called to see if I had recovered or if things had stabilized and I told the doctor of what happened and why it happened and of course, doctors being doctors, the doctor didn’t really listen or believe me and thought it happened because my tube/cannula was kinked but I kept saying it wasn’t but doctors always want to be right, have the answer, and be the hero. This doctor, in particular, has shown me that he/she wants or thinks everything in life goes by the textbook or expects it to, which, in reality, doesn’t work that way and that’s not a good way to be a good doctor. Sometimes you have to know what the circumstances are that you’re dealing with and make solutions and predicaments based on that. This doctor, even being told what the circumstances were, (when he/she chose to listen and not cut me off), still didn’t listen, understand, and made it like he/she solved the problem. There are, unfortunately, very few doctors out there that listen to their patients, believe their patients, and will take into consideration or even do or listen as the patient says. The doctor asked if this had ever happened before and I said no, this was the first time. However, if this were to happen again, the doctor advised to do the same things that he/she instructed to do previously and for me to do what I think. So I gave thanks and that’s the best I could do.