Recognizing My Dumb Mistake

It's not easy to look at your own reflection and say, "You knew better, but you did the dumb thing anyway. Are you going to own it? Or are you going to deflect?" And lemme tell ya, I wanna deflect. "No, I didn't do anything wrong. It was the capricious nature of Fate that made my life so difficult." I could then go on to deny any knowledge of what was happening, blame things on my goofy metabolism, and continue blissfully onward... all the while knowing deep down that I was screwing up.

Wow, that was a good opening. I'm gonna end the post there. I don't want to ruin it with words that might upset me.

Well, obviously I can't just end the post. I used a lot of words, but didn't actually SAY anything.

So here's the scenario: Late in the evening, feeling like I've been a good diabetic all day, I decide to treat myself to things that aren't approved for a diabetic diet. Sometimes it's garbage that is better left to the diets of children. Sometimes it's a serving portion that's slightly excessive. (I'm weird, and a larger bowl of Wheatena before bed appeals to me for some reason.) Because I sometimes play guessing games with the math, I take a dose of insulin that I THINK is going to cover me. And when I wake up in the morning, my fasting blood sugar is abnormally high.

Here. These are my fasting blood sugars for the mornings of September 16, 17, and 18 respectively: 248, 342, 400. (It's so weird to get a number as neat as 400, even if 400 is so bad for me.)

After my realization of what was happening and working things out, these are my fasting blood sugars for the mornings of September 22, 23, and 24: 140, 97, 86.

So where was I going wrong? The easy answer is that I was eating too much before bed. But the evidence against that idea is that I'd stopped that practice altogether on the night of the 18th, and my fasting sugars for September 19, 20, and 21 looked like this: 302, 257, 224. That's because, out of habit, I was still taking just a little extra insulin with my evening snack.

Did you catch that? My morning blood sugars were high because I was taking too much insulin!

"But Rob, that makes no sense. If you're taking too much, your morning blood sugars should be REALLY low!" 

You'd be correct, if not for what is known as the Somogyi Effect. The simplest explanation is that while the diabetic is asleep, they become mildly hypoglycemic. As a result, the body releases glucagon to bring the glucose levels back up. The diabetic never feels a thing until they wake in the morning with all of the ugliness that is hyperglycemia.

How did I fix it? (It's list time!)

1. Stop eating random amounts of carbs before bed. Whether it's three or four "breads" on the diabetic exchange diet, I keep it as exact as possible. That means nothing that requires guesswork, like random amounts of hot cereal or leftover pizza.
2. Calculate my insulin dose exactly. No random additions of "just a few more units to make sure I cover X amount of carbs." Account for what my glucose is at the time of the meal, as well as the carbs I'm about to ingest, and NO MORE THAN THAT!
3. Adhere to these steps religiously. It's a pain in the tuchas. It means relinquishing some of the freedom I've felt since taking a proactive stance on my diabetes maintenance. But if I'm not awake to make adjustments on the fly, I'm putting my overall health at risk. And that means...
4. If I'm going to be a bad diabetic, be bad during the day, when I can feel most of the effects of my glucose rising and falling. Well, mostly rising. Falling, as mentioned in my 20 September post, is becoming more and more of an issue.

Of course, suddenly realizing I've been dumb and waking with good fasting glucose levels left room for me to be silly, which is why I was able to post to Facebook on the 23rd...

I wouldn't throw it away! That stuff is worth

more than gold!

Besides, if I told you how much insulin I took to get that 86 for lunch, you'd think I was attempting suicide by insulin. But that's a topic for a different day.

EDIT: Funnily enough, this post is coming after I've written about the absurd amount of insulin I take for a cup of coffee. I originally wrote this post on 24 September, but then got distracted by other things. My apologies.

And as I end this blog, and this is completely unrelated to diabetes, but...

This is gh0xttherebel.

He's been reacting to my favorite American anime, RWBY. His reactions have been absolutely incredible, and his editing skills are off the charts. gh0xttherebel is the channel's name, so if you want a laugh while watching an excellent show, go check him out.