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July 17th 2008 @ 11:26 pm by Michelle Kowalski
Categories: Type 1 Insulin & Pumps Highs & Lows Emotions Real Life
Tags: low blood sugar
Views: 497

I've gotten into the habit lately of bolusing for a meal more toward the middle or the end instead of before. It depends on a number of factors, including what and when I ate last, what I'm getting ready to eat, and what my pre-meal blood sugar is. This mid-meal bolus stems from several instances when I've either gone low or started to go low before I even finish eating. It's pretty unnerving to feel a low so close to a meal.

 

Like today, for example. I tested at 130 not long before we headed downstairs to eat lunch. Since there are few tables for the amount of people who typically choose to eat lunch in the lobby, I went ahead of the microwave-users to secure a place for the five of us.

 

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I started out at 192. I did a correction bolus and a carb bolus. The carb bolus was for four slices of pizza. I used the square bolus over 3 hours, hoping that I wouldn't end up too high.

 

I ate my pizza slices, enjoying every bite. By the time I finished eating, I had about two hours left on my square bolus. That should be perfect, I thought.

 

An hour later, I was 87. I still had almost half the insulin to deliver, so I suspended the bolus and drank a juice. I planned to check my blood sugar again within the next two hours to watch for the peak, then bolus the remaining insulin.

 

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Well here's something I didn't see coming: Sugar-Free Chocolate Chip Girl Scout cookies. I walked into the lunch room at work and there, on the stainless steel countertop, rested this never-before-seen box of cookies.
"Where did these come from?" I asked my co-worker.
"No idea," they said, through a mouthful of crumbs. "But they're pretty tasty."

(I love when people without diabetes can't tell that they're eating something less crammed with sugar than what they're used to.) (READ MORE)

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What you don't want to hear from your diabetes educator is "hmm, good question." That is, unless it's immediately followed by a good answer.
There has been a burning question of ours since Charlie started on the pump back in September of 2006. During that time, we posed the question to several different people along the way, but never really got a clear answer.
So I present this burning question to you - the true gurus of diabetes.
How can Charlie skip a meal if he wanted to? Is this a mythical notion or do people out there actually achieve this? If Charlie didn't eat something two to three hours after a bolus, he would most certainly go low. I'll ask you exactly what I asked the doctor and nurse practitioner the other day. (READ MORE)

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I'm more than a little OCD when it comes to Olivia's diabetes care. Not in the "must log every number and every carb and every speck of exercise" (because, hello? She's twelve and doesn't ask for food any more, she just goes and gets it and exercise? Hah. But that's another post.), but more in a "I need these numbers to be even," way.
It's maddening. Olivia could eat the same thing at the same time and do the same amount of exercise (hah) every day and still have wildly different bg readings each day. And I just want. To. Fix. It. I finagle insulin doses like pieces on a chess board. I obsess and worry over the timing of her insulin dose - should she have that before she eats? After? Dual wave? Square wave? Super bolus? (READ MORE)

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Olivia is planning on going trick-or-treating tonight. She's 13, so a bit old to be doing it, but she's using her little sister as an excuse. Who am I to knock that? I did the same thing all the way thru high school - hey, someone had to take my sister out. My parents were more than happy to let me do it.
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When I heard about the clinical trials that are beginning for a possible cure for type 1 diabetes, I was really excited! I can't imagine not having this disease to lug around anymore but I am willing to give it a shot that is for sure! I would imagine most people with diabetes would.
No more finger sticks and insulin shots. All the calculating of carbohydrates and insulin on board would be gone. No glucose tabs to carry or a medical ID necklace to wear. I can't imagine it but I welcome it. (READ MORE)

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Yesterday I attended a lunch meeting with a company that we are looking at to update our current company's website. When I arrived at the office I checked my BG before I left the car. 135. I was going to correct for it but since it was 11:30 I figured I would wait until we ordered food and take care of it all at the same time.
When I got to the office and met with the web designer we quickly sat down and began discussing our needs. It was a really good meeting and I liked what he suggested as far as some ways to drive more business our way but I started to notice a very foreign feeling in my stomach. (READ MORE)

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Long before I discovered the diabetes online community or even knew what exactly a blog was, my mother introduced us to her neighbor's granddaughter.
She wore something called a pump and her parents used frightening foreign words like bolus and basal.
We were still very much shell-shocked from Charlie's diagnosis. Measuring out units of insulin into a syringe and learning to count carbs was scary enough. What they were talking about was , was , quantum mechanics. It made us very nervous. We weren't the sharpest tools to begin with. We might not be smart enough for diabetes, we thought. (READ MORE)

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It's 10 p.m.; three hours post a high-fat, high-carb meal. At three hours I'm 122. That's an almost perfect place to be at three hours post-meal and right before bed.

 

But the problem is that I'm headed to bed and I know I'll wake up wicked high. Why not use a square-wave bolus, you ask. I just may, but the real problem for me is that I'd like to be able to use a dual- or square-wave bolus up front so I can sort of fix and forget. But I can go almost low around two hours post a high-fat, high-carb meal. Even at three hours I'm in a decent place, but by four hours I've skipped right over the high 100s and am square in the upper 200s.

 

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