Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Pesky Lows

Since Sunday, I've been battling a nightly low every day. On Sunday I headed over to Duane Reade (Manhattan's CVS) to pick up some stuff for the week at about 8:50 pm. At DR I felt my usual warning signs - oddly my ankle which I had reconstructive surgery on as a junior in high school starts to tingle and my forehead itches (weird) - and thought I should buy some life savers. Since I didn't see any life savers readily available at the check out counter I figured I could make it home no problem. I kept feeling weirder and weirder as I made it back to my apartment and by the time I checked my bs it was down to 42 - my lowest on record. So I took some orange juice and had a small piece of bread and was fine.

On Monday night, I had a baked potato, breaded chicken patty and green beans for dinner; corrected with my normal 12 : 1 ratio but had my bs drop into the 50s again. OJ did the trick again and I was fine for the rest of the night.

Last night I had my most annoying low yet. Courtney brought me Halal from our favorite street meat guys - the cart at 53rd and 6th! I can't tell you how excited I was to have the cart again, if you're ever in the city believe me the 30 minute wait is worth it. We had our delicious street meat and some red wine; I figured the meal had about 70 grams of carbs and bolused accordingly. But less than 2 hours later I was down to a bs of 89 so I had a bite of a cliff bar, 30 minutes after that I was down to 68 and had a glass of orange juice, 20 minutes after that only up to 75 so I had a second glass of oj, 20 minutes later down again to 73! A third freaking glass of OJ!!!! Finally by 11:50 I had my bs up to 99, ate a piece of a cliff bar and went to sleep.

This morning I woke up with a bs of 164 and had egg whites on toast for breakfast with a glass of orange juice. I bolused accordingly and by 9am my bs dropped to 58! I had 3 glucose tabs and now my blood sugar is back up in the 90s. I know I might still be honeymooning but really all these lows 3 days in a row, I just can't figure out what the heck is going on. I e-mailed my endo and cde today to see if they had any suggestions. The weirdest part is my lunch bolus is still working normally, I have a turkey sandwich just about everyday and take 4 units of insulin to cover it - works perfect. So I don't know if my ratios are changing at different times of the day or if my pancreas is just waking up every now and again.

2 comments:

Dances with Corgis said...

Hey, you added labels. Neat. How did you do that? And I like how you have "halal" as a label. Too funny.

Bernard said...

That stinks. Though it could have been worse.

Have you got any GlucoTabs? You can get them at most pharmacies. Each tablet is 4g of carbs and they work quickly. Even absorbing through your mouth. They don't taste great, but in an emergency.

I've also used Gatorade. You have to drink more because the carb count is lower, but for me it works faster than juice.