The numbers explained:

pbpk weight should be above 180
Fasting & pre-meal blood glucose 80-120
Post-meal blood glucose 120-180
A1C below 7%

Monday, March 5, 2012

Hypoglycemia Alert!

I was there on the streets of New York, walking briskly, everything looked gray. I think I was somewhere near Chinatown, although I do sorta remember passing a church that I thought was further north. My sister was walking with me and trying to explain to me about a revelation of sorts she had had. She was beginning to practice honing in on skills she had, interpersonal skills, or perhaps better explained as psychic skills. She would walk down the street without gloves and try to touch the skin of passerbys and see if she could absorb some element of them, pick up on their state or something like that.

Whatever it was I'm not entirely sure because I couldn't stop thinking about how dang slow she was walking. Here I was trying to get somewhere in a hurry and she was dawdling, always dawdling. I think I grabbed her hand at some point and walked faster, but it was as if we couldn't even get to the corner. No matter how fast I tried to walk we didn't get any closer to our destination. I was panicking and I could feel myself sweating, I looked down at my hands and couldn't even see them. I turned around and my sister had vanished, in fact, New York had vanished and was replaced with darkness. Darkness and warmth and sweat and panic.

I threw my covers off and sat up in bed. My pulse was racing. Just a bad dream? I put two fingers to my neck and tried controlling my breathing. It did nothing. I found my glucometer. Pricked my finger, squeezed out a bead of blood, watched as the strip sucked it into the computer and waited five seconds...

It wasn't the lowest I've ever had, but it was certainly the lowest I've ever had in the middle of the night. In fact, this was the first time I've had to wake up in the middle of the night to check my blood sugar. That in itself is a pretty frightening thought. I ran to the fridge trying to think of something to eat and then reassessed and decided to go with quick sugar and had a whole juice box 24c. Thirty minutes later I had raised 43 points to the safe level of 93. I had a mandarin orange 9c and went back to sleep.

Here's why this is peculiar/frustrating/confusing news. I took my last pills of the night at about 7:30pm. Five and a half hours later when I went to bed, my blood sugar was 208. And yet, three and a half hours later I had dropped to 50? What gives? What was still working? I had eaten a massive 230 carbs with two pills. It's hard to imagine that the Prandin was still persuading my pancreas to work overtime. What then? Was it the 5 units of nightly Lantus I've been taking every single night since mid-December?

More importantly what am I going to do about it? Well, for starters tonight I'm going to compensate for any possible late night lows by eating the equivalent of a juice box and mandarin orange right before bed, 33 carbs, you don't have to ask me twice. Then I'm going to check my morning number. If it's pretty low again I'm going to call my Dr. and ask her recommendation and see if I can't decrease my insulin dose.

Dailies:

4:47 am -> 50 Had a juice box 24c.
5:15 -> 93 Much better. Had a mandarin orange 9c.
(morning)
11:03 -> 86 Took 2 Prandin with V cereal 110c. At 1:24 had an apple 20c. At 2:30 had 3 oranges 27c. At 3:30 had 1/2 a VG donut 24c.
5:08 -> 111 Took 2 Prandin with SOUEN RESTAURANT bowl of white sesame ramen 55c and corn bread 45c (which I was possibly misinformed about its gluten content). At 8:00 I had snap peas 6c and 2 oranges 17c.
11:39 -> 69 Took 2 Prandin with salad 20c, fake coffee 6c, 1 cup wild rice 35c, 2 cups lentil soup 60c = 120c. Took 5 units of Lantus.
2:12 -> 131 Not a bad number, however, to avoid a nighttime low I'm going to have another cup of soup 30c with 1/4 cup rice, 9c = 39c. And Bedtime.

Gratitudes:
1. Katy Pfaffl's voice.
2. The existence of an amazingly delicious Gluten Free Ramen restaurant in New York City.
3. Benedict Cumberbatch and the BBC series Sherlock.

Day 76

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