There's a first time for everything. That's what they say. I've just reached another first: my first scary diabetes moment.
There I was sitting on the couch, long after dinner. I noticed I was trouble focusing on the captions as I watched tv (I always have the captions on). As time went on, I started to feel, well, high. But how could I be high? My blood sugar was perfectly fine after dinner. I'd just tested at 86 an hour before. I don't *ever* have random highs. Do I?
I checked. 215. What? I wouldn't ever expect anything over 95 at this hour. I even went without basal insulin all day the day before I started pumping, and I was perfectly fine. That was only a month ago! I washed my hands and tested again. 209. I stood up and walked to the office. As I walked, I could smell the high. My meter hadn't lost its mind. I got out my Precision Xtra to see if what I was smelling was ketones. I wasn't thinking very clearly, I admit.
Sidebar here: if you have a Precision Xtra and you've never learned how to use it, do it before you need to. You should have heard what came out of my mouth trying to figure it out. After 10 minutes I realised I didn't need to figure out how to put a lancet in (it was nowhere in the instructions) because I have my own lancing device. Finally I got the giant drop of blood in there. Countdown....then .1. What the hell does that mean? Ok, that's the lowest detectable. Hooray.
I decided to change out my site, but not the reservoir or tubing because I just put it in yesterday and I can't afford to throw away that much insulin (another story). Bad site! Bad! As soon as I took it out, I could see that things were not right. It's too soon for me to tell if it's infected, but I definitely hit a blood vessel (and somehow didn't feel this when it went in), and it sure was angry.
But the high is not supposed to happen to me. I've suspended my pump for hours at a time. I've had pretty consistent blood sugars every time I haven't recently eaten since forever. I'm taking a higher dose of basal than I supposedly need, to preserve my beta cells. I'm still making insulin, right? I know to some of you this isn't much of a high, but in the universe of my diabetes, this is firmly against all the known laws. This changes everything for me. Now DKA is a part of my universe, and all the laws just shifted.
4 comments:
Lili
Sorry to hear about this. I just hate it when I have to change a set because it wasn't placed properly (like you can tell this in advance).
I'm glad you caught it before it went too much higher.
Yeah, I know what you mean with the "but this isn't suppose to happen to me!" thing. I go high sometimes if I miss an hour of basal, other times I can miss the whole day. There's no rhyme or reason.
It is great that you caught the bad insertion site before you got HIGHER ketones. Believe me, ketones are about one of the yuckiest thing out there. Again, people react differently - even when I have low value ketones of 0.2 or 0.3 I feel the pitts. Other people don't react so quickly. I understand that it is scary to go frol one stage to another, but that is diabetes for you. It is always changing. Don't even THINK of staying still - it doesn't happen.
Bernard - Me, too, and usually I can tell immediately if it's bad and move it.
Megan - Yeah, it's not so much that I'm shocked it happened or anything, it's that I'm surprised it happened so soon.
Chrissie - I do feel really sick with ketones even if they're low. That's why I got the blood ketone meter even though the strips are $4 (!) each (!). Yeah, diabetes is definitely progressive. I guess I just wasn't expecting it to progress so quickly.
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