[mcgruff]

My wife (type 1, on insulin for a couple months now) had a string of good BG control days---maybe a week or more since a bad day, and then yesterday, it started swinging wildly. I'm taking it as a given that bad BG days are going to happen every now and then although I would hope they could become very rare rather than just once every 1 or 2 weeks. Also, both my wife and I generally know reasons why BG can shoot up or go unexpectedly low and yet it seems inevitable that many BG swings are going to be sort of mysterious.

In any case, whatever the cause, how is the best way to handle this pattern:

Wake up low, like 70. Eat a normal breakfast. Prelunch is super high, like 250. Lunch is normal, and corrective is taken in addition to lunch carbs for bolus injection. 2-hr post lunch is low, like 75. 20 minutes of cycling about an hour before dinner. Predinner is like 250. 2-hr post dinner is about 150, and reading right before bed, taken right before basal injection, is like 165.

One might think the huge drop through meals would be due to insufficient basal and overcorrection with bolus insulin, but her basal injections have been the same over the last week, and they generally produced great numbers over the course of each day.

Anyway, how do you handle this sort of pattern when you start seeing it?

 

[Jen]

Hi -how vexing. Is your wife ovulating or close to her period? Those hormonal swings can definitely have an impact on blood sugar levels.

I don't find her readings in the 70's to be low - they're well within normal range. It's the swings to high numbers that need to be worked out. What is her basal regimen - what insulin, when, how much? Sounds like her corrections are working OK, but the basal may need a temporary change.

Jen

 

[mcgruff]

Hi -how vexing. Is your wife ovulating or close to her period? Those hormonal swings can definitely have an impact on blood sugar levels.

I don't find her readings in the 70's to be low - they're well within normal range. It's the swings to high numbers that need to be worked out. What is her basal regimen - what insulin, when, how much? Sounds like her corrections are working OK, but the basal may need a temporary change.

Jen

She may be close to her period. FWIW, she's on BC pills, which generally haven't been a problem for her BG control although they were when she first started them.

Anyway, she is fairly stressed about the thought of traveling next month, as it will be her first trip as a diabetic. It seems that BG worries cause her to go high, and going high causes her to have more BG worries.