Category: Current Status

I’m still having to drop basal’s, etc. I’m also still not where I was before the change to Apidra and the recent stress attack.

BUT my insulin usage is slowly creeping down, working out is easier, doing everything is easier, but I still am not sleeping through the night, and my energy level is low.

The good news, is that yesterday was our last full day. We’ve got four days of exams, then a checkout day on Friday.

I don’t start my next round of classes until June 6, though I am looking forward to that.

Big yeah, the pool is finally warm enough to swim in — I spent a few minutes in it earlier today, and am planning to go back in a few minutes now that I have a swim cap. One thing I don’t like about the pool is that I have long hair and I spent the summer with it damp.

I went to Sports Authority to get my swim cap and I checked out the weight machines while I was at it. I’m thinking seriously of getting a BowFlex, but I can’t decide which one or where to get it.

What I really like about the Boxflex, is that it is like my treadmill and the bed in the study — it folds up out of the way. I really like the idea of having everything in that room with the ability to fold up and move.

If someone needs the bedroom, I just fold up the treadmill and move it, I can even move it to the living room so I can keep exercising while we have visitors.

I know it is something I’ll use, I use the treadmill at least 6 days a week, and use my free weights at least every other day. And it’s certainly WORTH the money, so I suspect I’ll probably go back and order one to be delivered either next Friday afternoon, or the week after.

Eating the salad without bolusing got me back on track.

We also had some lovely agility runs. It was incredibly hot, which I personally love, but the big black beagle has trouble with. Marcie’s competing at the top level in AKC agility, and does a very nice job of it, and the fun match was no exception.

Maggie did well too, she actually stayed with me through the whole second run.

I was keeping a close eye on the blood sugar, as I really don’t want to freak the girls out by having a low blood sugar crash.

I’m REALLY having to watch things today. Now that I’ve got my food intake under control, and have the blood sugar under control, I’m running a tad low. I was at 116 fasting but by the time I got to school and got some running done, I was down to 95.

I did grab something to eat and am testing every hour and before I get in the car.

Here’s the fun part. Your total daily dose affects your carb and correction factors. This is documented in “Pump Insulin”. As my total daily dose goes down, that means my ratios go up, which means I end up with a lower total daily dose. Which means I have to adjust ratios again, etc.

My basal rate may also be a tad high, though most of the time when I’m not eating and bolusing or exercising, my blood sugar is staying stable, just low.

I’ve gone through this before, and it just means you test more often.

And a very long day. But Thursday’s usually are. I call it my Girl Dogs’ Night Out.

I have dog agility with both Maggie and Marcie (photos are at http://www.kweaver.org/photos/) We drive over an hour to class, Maggie’s class starts at 7:30, and Marcie’s at 8:30. Then it’s about a 45 minute drive home, provided that TxDot or some idiot driver hasn’t fubarred the roads. For some reason, Dallas drivers HAVE to drive 20 mph over the speed limit at that time of night.

There are a couple of reasons we drive that far — it’s pretty hard to find enough land in the city of Dallas to do a proper dog agility class. Second, I’m pretty picky when it comes to instructors.

Anyway, after a full day of class, where I spent the day with my blood sugar cruising around 110 most of the day, and post pranial after lunch at 130, I went off with the dogs. After supper and getting ready, my blood sugar was at 95, so I grabbed Snicker’s minature and a couple of lifesavers. Was still at 95 a half hour later, so did a second dose.

Also hit the temporary basal at -20% at 5:30 and grabbed a hot dog right before class, so I would have a bit of sugar (from the bun, the hot dog is to slow things down) to keep from going low.

When I finished class, I was at 140, and was 125 when I got home, so I hit another Snickers Minature a few minutes ago, so I don’t have to worry about going low in the night.

I’m also going to up my boluses — I haven’t had to correct all day, and have been lower than I like postpranial.

That also means my TDD will go down (TDD = Total Daily Dose).

I’ve been under 65 units for the past 7 days! That’s not bad, considering in end of my crisis I was doing 120+ units.

I had to stop in the middle of my cardio again, with an 85. This time I did turn on the temporary basal. The good news, is that I had not eaten dinner yet, so stopped and ate dinner.

I’ve got my TDD usage down below 50 — not bad when my blood sugar is under tight control again, and I was doing around 100-120 units a day.

Oprah has done a really good show today — I think she called it “The Fat One in the Family”.

It’s a really good show on how beating people over the head with obesity doesn’t help them and in fact hurts them.

Two overweight women with thin families were on and it showed how the thing members of their family were hurting them and sabotaging any weight loss attempts made.

It’s not just that way with weight, but with diabetes care too. Except for the health care team — outside people really can’t help a diabetic (Type 1 or Type 2) take care of themselves — except in the case of youngster’s with diabetes, but that’s another story.

I’ve said this before — I’m lucky, my diabetes did not come on gradually, but suddenly. I have another factor on my side, I know I have a ticking time bomb — 2 generations of my family, my father and both of his parents, were diagnosed with diabetes at approximately the same age, and within 10 years, each of the three of them suffered a severe cardio vascular complication.

I still have to take it one day at a time, and there are days when I can’t deal with diabetes as well as I should. It is going to be that way with all diabetics, no matter what way they are treating their disease. Pumping, shots, pills, somedays it is just TOO much.

And part of the reason it gets to be too much, is that depression is a major complication. It is a part of dealing with most chronic diseases.

The temp bolus at -20%, two hours before my workout worked. Though I did one dumb thing, and that was a correction bolus 30 minutes into the temp. When I finished my cardio, I was at 95, and immediately ate dinner.

It feels so good to have the food cravings gone and to have the GERD attack under control — still have some acid but not like I did, my thoat isn’t burning, for example.

I haven’t posted much about the IR1250 since it was replaced, but I had a bit of a problem yesterday that one of the IR1200 features “fixed”.

I went low during my cardio session, had to stop and eat dinner and then resume to prevent a crisis. What I should have done, was to set my temporary basal about 2 hours before the planned session.

It wasn’t a problem before because my blood sugar was running too high in the afternoon, and I needed the cardio session to help bring it down.

Since I tend to work out about 4:30, I set an alarm to go off at 2:30. Then I can decide if I need the temporary basal or not.

I think it is important when I do go out of control, to figure out why so maybe it can be avoided in the future.

The best thing I could do, but probably won’t happen, is to NOT resort to eating when I’m stressed out. Even better would be to avoid getting stressed out in the first place, but since I can’t control the outside world and this one was outside generated …

If I do get into the situation, I need to make better choices, and if I do eat, avoid carbs. Unfortunately though, the best comfort foods are pure sugar.

The things I did right included exercising. I only skipped part of one week. I also did keep up with my blood sugar.

One other thing that I should have done differently, and would have ended the episode was to increase basals along with boluses.