LifeAfterDx--Diabetes Uncensored

A internet journal from one of the first T1 Diabetics to use continuous glucose monitoring. Copyright 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

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Location: New Mexico, United States

Hi! I’m William “Lee” Dubois (called either Wil or Lee, depending what part of the internet you’re on). I’m a diabetes columnist and the author of four books about diabetes that have collectively won 16 national and international book awards. (Hey, if you can’t brag about yourself on your own blog, where can you??) I have the great good fortune to pen the edgy Dear Abby-style advice column every Saturday at Diabetes Mine; write the Diabetes Simplified column for dLife; and am one of the ShareCare diabetes experts. My work also appears in Diabetic Living and Diabetes Self-Management magazines. In addition to writing, I’ve spent the last half-dozen years running the diabetes education program for a rural non-profit clinic in the mountains of New Mexico. Don’t worry, I’ll get some rest after the cure. LifeAfterDx is my personal home base, where I get to say what and how I feel about diabetes and… you know… life, free from the red pens of editors (all of whom I adore, of course!).

Friday, May 04, 2007

View from the top

Today I was on the top of the world. Not in a good way, either. ParaPump’s sensor screen maxes out at 300, so when you are above that, you get a flat line along the top of the graph. Reasonable enough. T-1s aren’t supposed to be up there. On the bright side, the Sensor Glucose number readout goes at least as high as 386. Probably higher, but I’m in no mood to test that particular theory.

I’m on my way back down the mountain now. I feel like I got beat-up by a biker gang. Or a group of Russian Sailors. Or a Canadian Ice Hockey team. I’m flushing the ketones out with glass after glass of water.

So with all this wonderfual technology at my disposal how did I get into this predicament? Good question. But it was not an ambush. I was able to watch the train wreck happen in REAL TIME.

I took bolus after bolus after bolus until the ParaPump was nearly dry. Just as I was thinking an ER visit was in my future, the ice broke.

The lesson? Even with the best of gear at our disposal, sometimes diabetes is what it is.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Glad to hear you're getting off the mountain top and things are improving.

Since a CGMS is not yet covered by my insurance, I have been reading about and watching the experiences of people like you. The information that you get is fabulous, but just because you see what is happening, you can't always fix it.

The time delay of infused/injected insulin and then the 3-4 hour insulin on board prevent us from fixing every glitch in blood sugar. And then there are all the unexplained blood sugar excursions that don't always respond to insulin and the lows that seem to hang around for no reason.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

1:18 PM  
Blogger Scott K. Johnson said...

Any idea what happened? Infusion set problem or something like that?

3:22 PM  
Blogger Bernard said...

Those are just horrible.

I had one on Friday (only up to about 260) where I bolused more than I could imagine as my readings climbed past 160 and went all the way up to 260 and pegged there for a while.

In the end I changed my infusion set out, and still had problems getting it down.

I'm glad you got your high fixed. Somehow (to me) it seems worse that you have to watch the high coming and feel unable to fix it.

5:34 AM  

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