The hours.
When I find myself with a really high blood sugar I know I am in for hours of fighting. Hours of waiting for my blood sugar to come down, while trying to go on with my day like nothing is wrong.
There is almost no way, in todays age of diabetes tools, that I will be back down to target anytime within the hour. Often times it seems to take half of the day to get things back down to a reasonable reading. It is never a “quick fix” situation.
Is my insulin wrestling with some undigested food that keeps pushing upwards? Is there some trouble with my infusion set? Is there some trouble with the actual insulin? Am I getting sick? Stress?
Or maybe it’s just a matter of bad timing. Carbs that are digesting and skyrocketing my blood sugar far too high and much faster than what my insulin can cope with. Those cases suck because I really don’t want to take more insulin even though the first thing I REALLY WANT TO DO is take more insulin. It’s a tough situation.
We’ve all been hit by the impatient bus. It usually comes a couple of hours after I’ve impatiently surrendered to a rage bolus or serial bolus. It comes by and literally runs me the hell over. No questions asked, no scheduled stops, express route to hypoglycemia. When I get myself up and dust myself off, I swear to never again be so impatient.
But the fog of high blood sugar tricks me into too much insulin more times than I care to confess to. It’s as if I happily agree to experience a nasty low blood sugar later simply to get some relief from the yucky feeling of the high blood sugar. My attitude is usually much different when it’s finally time to pay the piper.
At least at this point I’m done with the high blood sugar, unless I overtreat the low (at which point it starts all over again).
The whole experience is extended and prolonged if I am troubleshooting some technical issue, like a kinked(sp?) cannula, blockage in my pump tubing, bad insulin, or whatever. This happens because I need to try a resolution, then wait and see if it works. If it doesn’t, and I’m still high, I need to try something else, then wait and see if THAT works.
Some might argue that I should take a good old fashioned injection at this point, and in some situations I agree. But I still need to get to the bottom of whatever is going on, and that just takes time.
It is hard to be patient while waiting for things to get back to normal, and that is the first thing I hate about high blood sugars.