When D-Instincts Go Wrong...

Logbook courtesy of Kevin

My last post talked about a great day I had, and how my d-instincts helped me avoid a major middle of the night low.

Well, I had a not-so-awesome day on that Saturday. Here's the other side of the d-instinct coin.

I woke up low. I had a little bit to eat (about 60g?).

I was heading out to the yard to mow the lawn and do some trimming and edging. These are activities that usually drop my blood sugar and cause a low, so I talked myself into not bolusing for my breakfast.

I went out and worked my tail off in the yard. Trimming and edging, then mowing and bagging the lawn. Twice. Yes, it was really that long.

When I got done I realized I was very thirsty, and my mouth felt dry.

You can see from the graph why...

20/20 hindsight - I should have taken some insulin for breakfast! It took me most of the day to get back on the map, and I didn't break into my target range until sometime after midnight.

When D-Instincts Go Right...

Logbook courtesy of Kevin

I had an awesome day on Wednesday.

Started out a little high (179 mg/dl), dropped into range and stayed there most of the day. I had three lows, two of them at terribly inconvenient times (before basketball and before my drive home). The rest of the day was awesome feedback that I was doing things right.

I ended the day with a homemade fruit smoothie.

That I didn't bolus for.

Yep, that's right. I had over 50 grams of carbohydrates, and didn't take any mealtime insulin for it.

I just had a feeling...I call it D-Instinct.

In this case I felt like I had been fighting lows, that I had not been experiencing my normal mealtime spikes, and that I worked real hard at basketball for the second day in a row.

It worked out great, this time. I started at 88 mg/dl. A little more than an hour later I was at 111 mg/dl. Three hours later I was at 148 mg/dl. I ended up landing at 132 mg/dl much later in the night. Not too bad!

Don't worry though - I have another post coming up soon that covers the other side of this coin...

14 Chips?

Garbage In = Garbage Out. GIGO.

As used in a newsletter from my friend Gary Scheiner's practice, it applies to being able to accurately count carb grams.

If you calculate the wrong number of carbs, your blood sugar will not be where you want it to be later. Garbage In (innacurate carb grams) = Garbage Out (high or low blood sugar later).

The article was done by Karin Sargrad, MS, RD, CDE. I really enjoyed it and encourage you to read it. It is from Gary's Winter/Spring 2007 newsletter, and is available online.

I do understand that accurate carb counting is a very important piece of my diabetes management. I was trying to calculate the carb grams for some baked pita chips (don't fall over, yes, I do realize they are somewhat healthy... more so than Doritos anyway).

The nutrition label said "Serving Size 1 oz (28g/about 14 chips)"

Because I don't have a food scale built into my hand (I have a food scale at home, and use it often. However I was at work - no food scale available (add that to my list of "stuff to buy")), I find myself looking at stuff like this often:



I figure that counting the chips should not be that bad, and I really want my BG to land right back on target in a few hours, so I dig into the bag.

And quickly run into a problem. These are not Pringles...

The chips are all different shapes and sizes. Many are all busted apart in the bag. Some are HUGE. Others are tiny fragments left over after some sort of pita chip brawl. Or maybe they were assualted from the outside by some big bully of a heavier grocery...

I did the best I could do with what I had, and really, can I ask any more of myself than that? I don't think so. But it is still a bit frustrating when I was really working hard at making sure my carb count was not garbage. It's so approximate anyway - is it really worth the work?

What I can do in the future is either get another food scale for work, which might make sense because I do just about as much eating there as I do at home. Another option is to bring the chips home and split them into portions using the scale, and bring them back in baggies or something.

Damn. It's a lot of work to eat with diabetes.

Lighting the Torch...

Are you interested in a conference for adults with Type 1 diabetes?

Yep, me too.

Head over to Allison's blog to take a quick survey that will help make this happen.

The One That Scares Me the Most

I think that most of the people reading this are pretty familiar with the possible complications of diabetes.

I’m not going to dwell on the details of them. There’s just no good to be had there.

What I do want to write about is the one that scares me most, and gather some information from the all-knowing OC.

Most (all?) of the possible complications we might face are silent. No outward signs or symptoms. Many of them can be tested for though – with annual dilated eye exams or routine lab test or filiment test/tuning fork tests.

But what about our heart?

That is the one that scares me the most. The silent heart attacks that cause damage, you may not even know are happening. Then one day, the big one, and Boom – it’s all over.

Are there tests that can be done to see if your heart is Ok? Should I be asking my endo to refer me to a cardiologist? Can a cardiologist do anything to figure out where I am with things?

I think that a lot of my concern stems from the fact that I know my diet has not been “heart healthy” for most of my life. Have I done damage to my heart above and beyond what diabetes does? Do I worry about each and every “twinge” I think comes from near my heart?

Have any of you out there dealt with heart “things”? What have your experiences been? Is it too early (32 years old) to worry about these things? If so, when? How? What should I be doing, or thinking about?

Waiting for the Doc...

I'm the middle person.

A lady in front of me who says she has an 8:15 appointment with the same doctor I am to see. At 8:15.

The guy behind me, I overhear, is also scheduled with the same doctor, at 8:15 too.

So that makes three of us. Wow -- this doctor must be pretty good if he can see all of us at the same time. In different rooms.

So how do YOU spend all that time we spend waiting for the doctors?

Total nap time: about 35 minutes.

One, two, three, four...

Counting.

That might be one of the things that bothers me most.

We're always counting. And it bothers me.

There is some very primal feeling of restriction when you have to count everything that goes into your mouth.

I want to be able to eat stuff and not count a single piece of anything.

'nuff siad.

Now where's that meal plan...