Friday, February 29, 2008

Blood Sugar - Why Do You Taunt Me?

During a week when I wish everything else in my life could have remained nice and easy, my blood sugar of course decided to act up again. After 16 consecutive days of workouts my blood sugar, understandably was low all day on Tuesday. Rather than fight through what would have been a feeble swim I decided to fight another day and treated myself to a nice bowl of whole wheat pasta for dinner. Last night however, one of my most frustrating experiences with blood sugars occurred.

Excited to return to some sense of normalcy and get my my mind off of Moose I headed to 63rd and Lex for my second swim practice with the Terriers. My bag was packed, swim trunks, swim cap and goggles all ready to go, and then I tested. 128, 10 minutes before I was supposed to get into the water. WTF!?!?! For dinner I had one of my favorite Middle Eastern dishes, donner kebab (essentially lamb gyro) over rice pilaf with coban salad and pita bread. My basal rate was decreased to 10% 2 hours before I tested and I had eaten an hour and 15 minutes prior to the finger stick. I didn't bolus for my dinner so I knew the carbs were somewhere in my system but they just decided not to enter my blood stream yet - perhaps there is some beach in my stomach that carbs like to hang out on, grab a nice frozen cocktail, catch some rays and then hop into my blood stream.

Anyway, I knew I had ingested 55 to 65 grams of carbs and that any additional energy gels or sports drinks would have been a disaster. At some point I knew that my blood sugar was going to spike and I didn't want to be in the 4 or 5 hundreds when that spike happened. So I went to check on my sister who happens to live on the same street as the Equinox; she's been having a tough time with Moose's diagnosis. So as I sat on her really uncomfortable couch I tested 20 minutes later - 131, hmm weird. Finally at 9:30 some 3 hours after I ate my blood sugar spiked to 230; where was that 2 hours ago when I was supposed to work out! I know the lamb has alot of protein in it and the vegetables may have delayed the absorption of the carbs somewhat - but seriously 3 hours to get into my system is just insane - looks like my stomach is going to have to put a time limit on that carb beach so those things get into my blood stream faster.

1 comment:

Metal said...

Hello Wingman, happened to stumble on your blog.I admire the way you have stood up and fought against the disease.I wonder if you have tried Yoga to keep things in control, trust me it helps a lot.Cheers