Nothing Gold Can Stay.
 

It’s a common misconception, I feel, that diabetes is supposed to stay the same.

When someone I know is newly diagnosed or recently changed from multiple daily injections to an insulin pump, many times they express frustration with their blood sugars and the dosage of insulin they’re taking (it’s either clearly too much or too little). I always tell them, “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.”

“And then two weeks later, you’ll do it all over again.”

For the most part, diabetes doesn’t change that rapidly. Or maybe it does. I have a tricky time with making adjustments to my basal rates and bolus ratios. I am usually not even aware that there is something consistently wrong with what I’m doing. Even if I do think something might be amiss, I usually point to that one day out of twenty where my blood sugars were perfect and say See! I’m doing just fine.

I do know some people who have stayed remarkably consistent in their basal rates and bolus ratios for many years. I don’t happen to be one of those people, although I am lazy and wish to be. Right now is one of those times. Since March 15, when I went on Metformin, I can count on one hand the number of times my blood sugar has gone over 300 mg/dl. I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve been over 200 mg/dl.

Until yesterday – when my blood sugar was in the 300 mg/dls three times for an unknown reason. I didn’t eat anything out of the ordinary. I’m not getting sick. I’m not PMSing. I’m not doing anything differently, and yet, my blood sugars have taken a 180 degree turn.

Could it be that my insulin is going bad? Possibly. But I did change my insulin and my set, and the next reading was normal. But then it went back up.

Could it be that I haven’t gone to the gym in ages and that’s affecting my insulin? Possibly – but I didn’t go to the gym last week either and that’s when I had my four-in-a-row low blood sugar spree.

Could it be that the sun is in Aries and the moon is in Sagittarius? Well, I’m not expert in astrology but sometimes I wonder!

The hardest part about consistent high blood sugars is not knowing what’s causing them. I sit with my meter in my lap, telling me that my fasting blood sugar is 300 mg/dl and I don’t know why. How can I fix something if I don’t know what the problem is being caused by?

When that happens, sometimes I just pretend there isn’t a problem until a cause is more clearly known. But this also means that I’ll suffer through days – even weeks – of completely random and hopeless high blood sugars. Not a practice I want to encourage, however, seeing as how I’m trying very hard to lower my A1C.

What do you do when you have a series of high blood sugars, but don’t know what’s causing them?

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