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.
[…] reactions, all slow to a crawl. Even the seconds on the clock seem to crawl (contributing to the hours). Each blink of my eye seems to draw out, taking minutes. The sounds coming into my ears seem like […]
Yeah man i hear you, anyone ever forget to resume their pump after a shower? Like 3 hours later you get that smell that aweful like 290 smell ughh… anyone out there….
has any one ever tested more then one figure and got diffrent readings for me I can get one very high and the next figure will be slightly under I have talked to my dr about it she didn’t know go with the best one she says
I know that stress afects sugars as well I have a lot of that and their isn’t away to reduse.
I hate the waiting game too because when I am hungry I would like to eat . and lossing weight also seems like a un winning battle
Ahhhh, all of the above, as I waited out another high after lunch today, it is sooooo annoying to me and my mind goes right to vascular damage every time and now I see the freaking highs on my pump because I am using the CGM. I did manage to get it down, but it took 4 hours to get it to normal, then it was time to exercise, carb up and hope for the best, and the high was not after a god awful meal either, grrrrr.
Waiting out the high SUCKS, big time!
Whether they are caused by kinked canulas or a plate of pasta, the high blood sugar waiting game is chock full of anxiety!
k2