Tuesday, July 7, 2009

300 to 1

On Sunday that's how I felt during my 3 hour ride/ run brick combo. Since eating at a 4th of July BBQ, my body and stomach just felt off. My blood sugar was low for a good portion of the night on July 4th, which usually happens after eating way too much protein (but how can a guy turn down ribs!) but sky rocketed throughout the night and into the next day. I went to sleep with my blood sugar up around 190 and woke up with my blood sugar in the 200s, no amount of insulin seemed to want to bring that number down.

I set off on my hour and a half ride in Ipswich, MA with a blood sugar of 270, throughout the ride I experienced some pretty bad stomach cramps so I took in about half the nutrition I normally would while taking in twice the amount of water. After the 25 mile ride my blood sugar was 280 as I set out for my 90 minute run.

I downed my 2 fuel belt bottles of nutrition during my run but I could tell something just wasn't right. My stomach was killing me, I felt lethargic and basically just wanted to lay down in the grass and take a nap! I pounded my 2 fuel belt bottles filled with water, put my head down and ran - there was pretty much no other option to get back to my car since I was in the middle of nowhere. When I finished my run my blood sugar was 350.

For the rest of the evening Kim, who had her own traumatic experience on the 5th witnessing an awful car accident, took great care of me. Once she realized how sick I was on the couch with a blood sugar that didn't want to go below 300 she did everything she could to help me out - basically keeping the TV at a low volume and helping me find a food that would help settle my stomach while being easy to bolus for. I decided on a grilled cheese sandwich and some soup, about 12 units of insulin later my blood sugar finally started to decline and I happily went to sleep with a bs of 90.

I think the combination of dehydration, too much protein, perhaps insulin that had been out of the fridge for more than a month and a lack of sleep combined to create an army of blood sugar gremlins. I had once had a dream that if the world ran out of insulin, all type 1 diabetics would have to live in hamster balls, constantly running to keep their glucose levels in check. Unfortunately I found out on Sunday that my hamster ball theory just doesn't hold true.

5 comments:

Anne Findlay said...

If I am running high, I will try to cut back on the nutrition until I can see that the blood sugar is coming down. It's tough when you're exercising and hungry, though.... Also I've found that if I notice several higher BG's than normal, I will up my basal rate in combination with a correction bolus.

Sorry you had such rough day. High BG's really take it out of you...

Kim said...

glad i finally opened up my eyes to realize how sick you were and was able to help you out. hopefully the BS will be back in check this week and you will have a kickbutt race on saturday!

Kirk said...

I’ve had a couple of unexplained highs in the past few months and I’ve found that injecting a correction bolus directly into the muscle (my shoulder) works well to bring my BG down much faster than waiting for my pump bolus to kick in. This is my new method of choice for anything over 300. Take care man.

PJ said...

I do what Anne does - lay off the food until the BS goes down. I think I ate a total of 500 calories during Ironman (bolus after bolus just wouldn't bring it down). It's not fun but it's better than that high blood sugar/queasy stomach/cramping/lethargic feeling..

Hope it goes better for you this week!

jimpurdy1943@yahoo.com said...

lay off the food until the blood sugar goes down ...

I agree with that statement. I have Type 2 diabetes, so I have more flexibility, but I still try to be careful about not eating when my sugar is high.