When things couldn't possibly get any worse ...

"Hi dad, I'm 31."

It's not something you ever want to hear. That is, unless it was his 31st birthday and he was just calling to remind me.

It's certainly not something you want to hear on the other end of the phone when your son is at a friend's house and you really don't know the father too well are you're miles away from him in a strip mall buying a brass turtle.  

We've only just begun letting him go to friends' homes without us - dealing with diabetes on his own. He's maybe done it three times prior to this one and all has gone well.

A.  He knows to check his sugar if he feels low.

B. He's wired with piercing alarms that go off when he's too low or too high.

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Saturday night, I raised my evening Lantus dose to 16 units and kept my morning dosage at 13 units. I also moved the evening dose up by about three hours, hoping to stop those highs that sent me into sleep at 218 and 241. I also took the plunge and decided to do a trial run of boluses with the pump instead of pen or syringe. And I'm still as perplexed, but this time for the opposite reason.

Within a few hours of bolusing with the pump, I saw a 55 that bounced up to 114, 131, and back down to 93. Several snacks throughout the night left me at a morning number of 130. For most of Sunday, I stayed under 150 with a brief spike after working out. After dinner on Sunday night, I dropped to 84 then 69. And after about an hour, I was 146. But at 4am, I woke to an unexpected 47. I also lowered my evening Lantus to 15 units since I'd seen a rise in lows after the 16 units.

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Lowering my A1c is my diabetes priority at the moment. I'm ready to bump down from the 7.3% that I've been stuck at for the last six months. I'm looking to get back under 7% and head towards 6.5% to achieve another "lowest A1c of all time." But today it hit me that lowering my A1c is really taking a toll on me.

Not only is it increasing my diabetes stress to do everything right (or at least the majority), but it's also creating a domino effect with quite a few other aspects of my life. Things that are "tolerable" but when combined make me wonder if it's worth it. I feel like I'm always in a state of "weighing the consequences:" do I try harder to lower my A1c or do I tolerate the 7.3% and avoid the ill effects?

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I've worked really hard the past few months to lose some weight. I've been eating better (cutting out fast food, "extras" like dinner rolls or second servings, and leaving the snacks on the snack aisle at the grocery store). On top of that, I'm working out about three times a week either at the gym or on the treadmill at home. And I'm proud to say that I've lost six pounds and several inches.

But the past week has thrown a major kink in my progress. I'm too scared to even step on the scale to see how these low and "lower" blood sugars are affecting me. I know my calorie intake has increased between the cokes, snacks, and extra carbs I'm consuming to offset these things.

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straykat on Flickr

The CGMS seems to be working out okay this time around. Maybe my numbers are more stable. Maybe it's just a "fresher" sensor. Maybe it's just the heavens smiling down on me for once. But since Saturday night, I've had very few bumps in the continuous monitoring road.

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brody4 on Flickr

Three of my last four blood sugars have been under 100. Two of those blood sugars have been under 50. I haven't increased my insulin or even eaten much less. I actually decreased my basal overnight because I was 99. By this morning, I was 47.

Because my blood sugars have been so out of control in the last few months, lows are few and far between (for me, at least). Usually, three lows in a twelve-hour period wouldn't be that confusing. Yet I'm perplexed. I haven't started getting back in control consciously so there is no excuse for these lows. Actually, I should be running a little high considering that I'm fighting off a cold.

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