From Saturday through Tuesday I woke up each day at 5am. Saturday I woke up early due to the birds chirping in Lake Placid, Sunday to get to the Ironman to volunteer, Monday to sign up for the 2008 Ironman and Tuesday for a flight up to Boston for business. While I would have been much happier staying in bed and waking up at 7 the early days let me learn alot about how my body reacts to environmental changes and made me aware that I experience some dawn phenomenon.
Each night I went to bed with my bs around 100 (give or take a few points) but at 5 am each morning my blood sugar had raised to about 140. Without a correction my blood sugar would drop below 120 by 7:30 am. Had I not had such a crazy schedule I never would have learned that I did encounter a spike in those early morning hours and wouldn't have been able to discuss the necessary pump adjustments with my endo.
By Wednesday I was absolutely exhausted. I had my finance class Tuesday evening and didn't get home until about 9:30 pm; my bs was a mess on Wednesday. I had a reading of 197 after my turkey sandwich for lunch and really had incredible swings. After getting to the gym and returning to my regular sleep pattern my bs has returned to the 90 - 110 range. Have others of you noticed the dramatic effects a chaotic change to your normal routine can have on your bs?
5 comments:
yes, stress and a change of schedule can impact me big-time. I had my best control when I was a high school student with a completely predictable schedule. I wish I were still in such good control as I was then.
The Dawn Phenomenon is a term that gets thrown around a lot in diabetes management, but one piece of advice I would offer you is to make sure it is, in fact, the dawn phenomenon and not something else.
It took me several years to learn when I was pumping to discover that my morning highs were not the dawn phenomenon, but slow metabolism of protein from dinner, yet every CDE and nutritionist told me it was the "Dawn Phenomenon" and that proteins were not an issue. I discovered that was not the case with me, and have had no problems since returning to MDI because I knew what was the cause, and could choose a treatment (namely, using NPH overnight, which everyone said was the devil, yet works great for me).
Anyway, without a long diatribe, just make sure you know what is behind your numbers, and learn from others' experience. It can save you a lot of trouble in the process.
I'm a teacher so often experience complete changes in schedule and routine.
I'm getting better at it, but it still screws up my blood sugar.
Takes a combination of different basal rates, sleeping pills, and just keeping a closer eye on things.
And here I thought "dawn phenomenon" was just another term for morning wood. :-/
I find that if my schedule is disrupted that it does cause me some trouble.
I think in many cases we can deal with it, but when things get crazy with BG's, nothing helps more than to get back on a regular routine.
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