Basal Testing and the Sickies SUCK with D

Basal rate: The amount of insulin required to manage normal daily blood glucose fluctuations. People constantly produce insulin to manage the glucose fluctuations that occur during the day. In a person with Diabetes, giving a constant low level amount of insulin each hour via insulin pump mimics this normal phenomenon.

The bolus dose is what you take to cover meals, per carbohydrate count.

Basal testing- Checking blood sugars every two hours during a fasting period to see if insulin pump doses are set correctly from hour to hour. If you see an increase or decrease of the starting blood sugar number of more than 30points in either direction you MAY be able to adjust the hourly dose to keep blood sugars more stable.

Recently Scott posted on his blog about basal testing. OH…Ummm...Ya. That reminds me. I guess I should check my own basal rates since I haven’t done so since my surgery in October. –Sigh- If you can count on one thing in the DOC, it is knowing there is someone out there to set the example, we all keep each other accountable! Thanks for the reminder Scott!!! (and influence!)

So here are my results from last night:

10pm 62 .1 insulin active 12C sweet tarts
1030pm 108 zero active
1230am 132
3am 138
5am 134
6am 128

I’ll take it. The only problem with basal testing is that ONE night is not all it takes to verify that your basal doses are set right. Two, if not three basal testing nights is ideal and will show you a better picture. So, I gotta check at least one more night to see if this was a typical night for my blood sugars or not. Fun stuff. Basal, bolus, IOB, ISF, digestion, illness, activity level,weather,hormones..insulin is extremely difficult to manage people!

You’d think that I occasionally check myself overnight since Im up checking Maddison anyway. Not so. I tend to be very stable overnight, (as long as I haven’t eaten high fat meals or treats before bed and didn't slave to chores during the day) so I typically only check my own blood sugar if Ive had a correction for an out of range blood sugar result before bed. Otherwise, I’d rather not have another set of numbers floating around in my brain overnight and I just don't see the need to check myself when Im up checking Maddison. Usually. Its just too many numbers sometimes. The WORST part is, I tend to confuse my number with Maddison’s number when Im sleepy checking us both. SCARY! Ive often had to recheck my finger poke to verify who's number was which! Sleepy brains managing numbers is a BAD combination sometimes!

Last night Maddison’s numbers were quite equal to mine. Stable. Amazingly. Night time for her is still unpredictable at this point. Im STILL making changes little by little. Maddi woke up at 338 this morning, which almost NEVER happens (because Im busy being the correcting queen all night!) so I knew she was gonna mention that something hurt or she wasnt feeling well as soon as she woke up. YEP. Sore throat and a headache. You can see it in the numbers!

Poor thing. As if it isn’t sucky enough to be a sick kid at school without high blood sugars making you feel even worse. Im always very saddened when Maddison is sick. My heart hurts because Diabetes is tough enough on normal days, but on sick days Diabetes can be totally overwhelming, draining and just crazy exhausting. I know how she feels, and its SO not fair for our kids to have to deal with both at the same time!

My blood sugar hit 388 yesterday (old site, no ketones) SO this was a BAD ONE for me and I just about thought I would die. (High for me is not usually over 250-260's) The computer screen at work was a billion times too bright. Thirst was gonna make me scream out loud, and my mental capacity was a fraction of what it should be. My body ached. My head was floaty. I felt low (weird how that happens) and I was grumpy, with burning eyes and nausea. I wasn’t even dealing with the sickies. Just high blood sugar. I can imagine how Maddison is feeling today while fighting the sickies AND high blood sugar.(Nurse said her first morning check was 210) So not fair. Sickies with Diabetes might just be the suckiest thing EVER. Chasing numbers seems to be my life sometimes.