Sloppy, Sloppy, Sloppy (or what is a LADCS bolus?)

What do you get when you get home from work, scarf down a bunch of leftovers, and take a wild guess at how many carbs you ate?

Yes, you guessed it – what do they say? Garbage In, Garbage Out? But, which was it – high or low?

It was high.

I had a pretty good day. It was one of my long days, where I split my shift and play basketball over lunch. It was also a set change day – but I’ll get into that on another post. I was pretty disciplined through the course of the day, and things had gone pretty good. I left work with my blood sugar at 117 (this was at about 7pm). Not too bad.

BUT – That was the L A S T test I did until the next morning. What the hell was I thinking? When I got home there was a bunch of good stuff leftover from dinner. Before I even settled in I had started grabbing stuff off the counter. A few slices of pizza, some crispy crowns and ketchup, a bunch of cookies and milk and who knows what else.

10 minutes later I figured I should probably bolus for this loosely scrapped together “meal”. I had no idea how many carbs I had vacuumed in.

I did a LADCS bolus. This term is closely related to Wil’s SWAG bolus. Rather than “Scientific Wild Ass Guess” bolus, the LADCS (pronounced LAD-kiss) is “Lazy Ass Didn’t Count Shit” bolus. Granted, it doesn’t have the same ring to it, but you get the picture.

road line painted around a fallen branch in the way

So I punched in 80g. A conservative guess, but going to bed soon I would rather error a bit on the high side. If I had any idea just how much on the high side I erred, things would have been a little different.

I went to bed nice and early, but had an absolutely crummy nights sleep. Tossing and turning all night. Never really waking up, but just not sleeping good. When I woke up in the morning, I had to pee like a banshee. I knew right then that I was high, and kicked myself for being so sloppy with everything last night. I tested 300 on the nose (no, I didn’t use my nose for an “alternate testing site” – it’s just a figure of speech), and promptly took my correction.

Starting my day off so high is tough – for one, I’m sleepy as heck, and two, it’s a stubborn thing to get it back down to normal. Seems like I fight it for a long time before getting things back in line.

So, lesson learned (again), and I will do better with my evenings moving forward.

Share this on:

guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

4 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Scott K. Johnson

Patient voice, speaker, writer, and advocate. Living life with diabetes and telling my story. All opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily represent the position of my employer.

Diagnosed in April of 1980, I recognize the incredible mental struggle of living with diabetes. Read more…