Perception Versus Reality

I wake up to treat a low. I have five glucose tabs, wait until my BG is back up, then fall back asleep.

81V2VQh4DkL._SL1500_I’m low again thirty minutes later. I go downstairs and exercise great restraint by eating just one bowl of Lucky Charms (that’s hard to do even when I’m not low…). I pass the time by reading some blog posts, and once my BG is back up, I go back to bed.

An hour later, I’m up again. Low. Again.

In a fit of frustration, I eat way more than I need to treat this low.

If I would have caved into the urges to eat the house down on the first low, I would be sleeping.

My perception told me I was not being rewarded with calm and steady blood sugars from treating my lows sensibly. Just the opposite, in fact. I perceived that I was being run through the ringer that night and that I should have just over-treated in the first place.

The reality is that my basal rates need tweaking, as do most of my other pump settings. I should have also taken into account the basketball from that afternoon and made some adjustments.  When everything is working right (pardoning those occasional diabetes-goes-crazy times), a handful of glucose tabs should do the trick.

It’s all too easy to get lured into the trap of negative thinking when it’s 3:00 AM and you’ve been up treating lows three different times. But negative thinking usually leads me into negative behavior, and negative habits, like over-treating all of my lows.

I’m glad that I didn’t let myself fall into that trap.

At least that night.

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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…