Sweet and Sour- The Type 1 Diabetes Rollercoaster

Sometimes you can do everything right, and diabetes just throws you a curve ball. Why? Because that's what it does. I carb count everything, do the right amount of fingerprick checks, insulin doses- you name it I do it. I'm on top of this diabetes thing, and it was fairly smooth sailing. But that's not how diabetes plays. For the past week my levels have been rising way above the 4-7 target. I was struggling to get a level under 13 let alone 7. I've been up in the 20s for no good reason, taking double the amount of insulin I usually do, but nothing worked. There's not a nice way to say it, high blood sugar makes you feel like crap- beyond crap, crappiest crap to ever exist kind of crap. You're thirsty and nauseous and tired and grumpy and not even bothered to move because that would involve effort. They stayed up despite correction after correction,18+ and not budging on Monday night. In a last ditch attempt to avoid a hospital stay I got up again and ag...

Recently, I took part in a diabetes trial where new technology is being developed. Here's a run down of the current technology I use. This study is aiming to develop a system that can stop insulin delivery at a particular point to avoid hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar). This makes use of sensor technology that can measure your interstitial blood sugar (that's the level of sugar in the fluid in your tissues) and this connects with the pump to tell it what your level is. The technology also predicts what your level may reach, looking at the gradient of your rise or fall. Simply, the pump stops you from having a hypo and alarms when you do. The trial was meant to be carried out in two stages, however as I couldn't meet the criteria for stage 1 I don't get to try out this new technology without doing stage 1 all over again. I was fasting from 11pm the night prior and arrived at the hospital at 7am. I'd been wearing a sensor (who I fondly named glitch). Let me tel...

I finished the HSC today I get my formal tickets and reference when I sign out on the 18th and then that's high school, done. I guess I'll technically be unemployed.... yikes There were some interesting diabetes mishaps throughout the exams, but right now I'm going to sit down and catch up on some sorely missed television Back to blogging after my holiday!

(Forgive me, I'm sick so this might be disjointed. Normal posts will continue when I'm well again!) Lately, I've had some serious problems with my blood sugar being a little high. I got a massive shock a few months ago when my HbA1c came back higher than its ever been, despite my reasonable good levels. I've tried for months to bring them down and finally with the help of my diabetes educator have made some progress. But I found out why my A1c has gone up, and it isn't entirely my fault like I previously thought. My blood sugar meter and its test strips are inaccurate. There are standards not just in America but here in Australia as well that state the accuracy of these test strips must be in a 20% range, meaning it can either be 20% higher or lower than the actual blood level and released on the market. My blood meter was sent to me in the mail from an established company that also manufactures my insulin pump. This meter was sent to all eligible type 1 diab...

This post was supposed to be a rant to end all rants, however, I'm too tired for that and will write it on Sunday. For now, this is what diabetes is like on a bad day. I'm sick, I'm tired, my diabetes educator won't get back to me and my blood sugars are wreaking havoc. For the past few weeks as you can see in one of my last posts  I've had some diabetes drama. High blood sugars all the time kind of drama. Yesterday really was a diabetes rollercoaster, my levels starting moderately high in the morning, crashing down in the afternoon and going all the way up to 21 by night (guess who got up at 3am again). I've talked about how lows feel before, but high blood sugars are terrible. - You're tired - You're thirsty - You feel really sick - Energy? What is energy? - Pins and needles - Dizziness - You blog about how crappy high blood sugars are to distract yourself from the crappy high blood sugars - As shown above, you lose all logical thought I...

I present you the disaster that was last night/early this morning and prompted me to return home and sleep for a solid hour 6pm: Dinner was a bit of disaster, so we had to go and get McDonalds. I calculated approximately 80 grams of carbs for my meal, taking a huge amount of insulin to cover it. 7pm: Blood sugar- 9.5. This was a little low considering the amount of carbs I'd just had. Due to my fear of the dreaded hypo, I decided that I should have a juice box- 30 grams of carbohydrate. However I'm really clever and completely forgot the delayed effect McDonalds has on blood sugar, shooting it sky high a few hours after eating. Now I had anoher 30 grams on board, with no insulin to cover it. 9pm: Feeling pretty sick, but pass it off as being tired from the past few weeks of exams. 10pm: Blood sugar- 24.5 (normal range is 4-7). At this point I was pretty concerned, checking for Ketones (acidic substances that the body produces when there is no source of glucose, meaning...

Dear Diabetes, I think we need to sort out a few things, because you really haven't been behaving yourself lately. I've made you a comprehensive list of my concerns and would like a reply and action to be taken as soon as possible. 1) Stop with the high blood sugar levels in exams. Just stop it. It's not nice, I don't like it. Whoever gave you the idea that blood sugars of 15-17 were ok during exams is an idiot, because it's just not. You've been here for going on four years, you know better. 2) Now onto the fake low blood sugars. No diabetes, I'm not low when my blood sugar is 7, stop over reacting. Not being able to treat symptoms of a low is terrible... because I'm not actually low. Seriously, I'd love to eat stacks of jellybeans and chocolate, really, but you're going to have to deal with having more insulin when I do. 3) Ok, I understand that you and pizza don't get along, really at 25 grams a slice I don't blame you. But PLE...

'Out damned spot!' A pretty iconic line in the Shakespearean play Macbeth, where Lady Macbeth experiences night walking and paranoia, washing her hands of unseen blood in her sleep. Now whilst I may not be as murderous as Lady Macbeth, I can understand her issue with having blood on your hands. I promise, whilst it may look as though I've been moonlighting as a hit-woman with my blood-stained hands, this isn't the case. What happened is some more pump mayhem, well cannula mayhem to be exact.It's gross, it's rare and it's terrible- it's called a 'gusher'. I was treated to one of these Lady Macbeth moments a night ago as I changed my insulin set. Usually, pulling out the cannula isn't an issue, it's like ripping off a band-aid. But this time, it was intense. After taking off the sticky white cannula, I was treated to what a stream of blood that wouldn't stop. Once I got past the whole 'AAH I'M HEMORRHAGING' bit, I was ...

Hypo's are no fun, they're the kid that comes to your birthday party, eats all the cake, teases the other kids and leaves without so much as a how do you do. Which in kid speak translates to hypos are evil and will never be invited to your birthday party again. They feel awful, everything spins, you feel nauseous, extra dizzy and if you're still conscious, panicky. You turn pale, you sweat and your eyes glaze over. Not a lot of fun huh? Well, I haven't had a hypo in a few months, which is very strange for a diabetic. But it's got to the point where I'm afraid of having one, that maybe it will happen when I'm asleep and I won't wake up (yeah my brain is such a drama queen, but it is a possibility). So as a result I've been dialling back my insulin at night, you know, just in case this kid comes to the party during the night and knocks over a few chairs. But that leaves me with high blood sugars all day, ranging from 10 to 20 (so much for between 4 and...

Phew, blog week has been pretty demanding so I'm looking forward to getting back to my style of posts! Now I'm meant to link the blogs I've stumbled across thanks to diabetes blog week, and they're pretty amazing! 1) k2 at http://diabetesaliciousness.blogspot.com She's brilliant, there aren't any other words for how amazing her sense of humour is. As always reading her posts has made me smile. 2) Meri at ourdiabeticlife.com is inspirational and gives me a bit of a look into what it must be like to be a mum of a diabetic.  Now that this blog week is over, I thought I'd share todays diabetes drama! RD presents: that time I accidentally OD'd on insulin ... so this happened last night! So it was 10.30 and time for my blood sugar check. I'd been the perfect student, totally prepared for todays exams and heading to bed early. But no, I made one mistake. Typing my blood sugar into my insulin pump, I sat with bleary, glazed eyes attem...

On to day 3 and to quote bittersweetdiabetes.com ' Today we’re going to share our most memorable diabetes day. You can take this anywhere.... your or your loved one's diagnosis, a bad low, a bad high, a big success, any day that you’d like to share.' My most memorable diabetes day? There's so many, but I guess the most memorable is probably the saddest and the most difficult, the day of my diagnosis. We received a phone call in the early hours of the morning of May 5th 2010 from pathology, telling us that my blood sugar was WAY out of range at 40mmol/L. However, instead of directing us to the emergency department asap, we were told to wait until morning and not to wake me. Looking back on that, it's a bit of a miracle I made it through the night. The sense of fear I felt, you can't really explain. I spent the morning questioning what I could've done wrong to have diabetes (after some googling of symptoms it was my first guess). I thought I had ty...

3am- Check my blood sugar if it was drastically out of range (8-12 mmol/L) at 10.30pm. If it’s low it’s time for Nesquik or fruit juice, if it’s high, more blood sugar testing for ketones and water 5.45- Wake up for school, check blood sugar if there were overnight issues 6.30- Check blood sugar and have breakfast, entering my blood sugar level into my insulin pump and calculating the number of carbohydrates I’ll be eating, injecting the insulin as required. Check my pump for battery life and insulin amounts. 7- Leave the house to catch my bus making sure I’ve packed all of my diabetes supplies (testing kits, sugary foods and drinks, back up pump supplies, batteries, back up insulin pens for emergency injections etc.) 8.30- Check my blood sugar at school to see if I need to eat again before class 9- School begins 10.30- Check blood sugar and repeat the breakfast routine. 12.30pm- Check blood sugar and have more insulin if required 1.30- Check blood sugar and r...