One of my biggest issues in my diabetes management is "knowledge." I don't mean that I don't know what I'm doing or enough about the disease. Trust me, I've had that covered for awhile now. I'm talking about the simple facts of knowing how I am in this disease.

My bad habit is to skip a blood sugar check because I know I'm high. There, I said it. I confessed.

I'll give you a blatant example. I bought a cake yesterday. So I had a pretty big piece last night after dinner (a very low carb dinner, I might add). I bolused for what I figured it might be. And I went on with my evening.

A few hours later, I knew I was still riding high. It wasn't that I had any major symptoms. No signs of ketones. But I just knew. I could feel. So instead of stopping and checking, I just kept pushing through the night. Since it was bedtime, I didn't do any more Humalog. But I made sure to take my Lantus on time.

I woke up in the middle of the night and decided I'd finally check. I knew it wasn't going to be pretty. Maybe a 250, perhaps even a 280. I couldn't fool myself. It was 332. So I did 3 units of Humalog and went back to bed.

I did roughly the same thing this afternoon. I had a big breakfast (I've been incredibly hungry lately). I took a giant Humalog bolus and kept my Lantus on time and at it's 27 units. But I still wasn't sure that the Humalog would be enough. So a few hours later, I was feeling that nagging high again. But I didn't check. I didn't want to confirm what I already knew. Yet I took insulin anyway.

I know it's incredibly dangerous to not check even if I "know" I'm off. There have been times when that "knowing" was just wrong. And I ended up low from a bolus that I didn't even need. Or there have been times where I've ran high for hours just because I didn't want to know how badly I screwed up.

I guess that's it. This boils down to guilt. I feel guilty for having a piece of cake and eating a big breakfast. I feel guilty that I'm not carb counting down to the tiniest last morsel. After seventeen years, it's more of what I think and not what I confirm. Who cares if the package says it's 50 carbs for 1/12 of the cake? I KNOW what I'm doing!

But the truth is that I don't always know what I'm doing. Sometimes the cake that I make is a lot different than the one that I buy in the store. Don't ask me why the grocery store cake has double the carbs, but hey, sometimes it does.

I need to get better about this. Not only do I need to check when I think I know or when I really do know...but I need to work on why this happens. The guilt wouldn't get to me if I worked proactively. No, I don't like taking large amounts of Humalog. But if it stops me from jumping to 350 then I'm all for it.

I just need to remind myself that checking and seeing the number on the screen is better than doing too little or too much insulin. Staying in tighter control is better than playing the guessing game that diabetes can so easily become. It's so much better in the long run too.