Diabetes Bedazzling

Maybe I'll start leaving them all in, so that eventually it will make a design... Unicorn anyone?

Steroids + Diabetes = Bad Effing Idea

Every spring until end of summer I have to start using steroid inhalers because of allergies. If I don't use them I can't breath. But the interaction they have with my blood sugars for the first little while is aweful. The initial side-effects are gross too...



I feel sooo uncomfortable in my own skin, I wish I could just detach myself from my body. My lungs are burning and I feel like I have sand in my eyes/am parched beyond belief. :_(

The Diabetes Triangle

Yesterday was crap. It was aweful. Some people have problems with highs, I have problems with lows. Bad lows. I hadn't had any really horrible ones since starting the pump over a year ago... and then yesterday happened. It's not so much that I went really low as the fact that I was riding the edge of a low for hours, seemingly regardless of what I ate or altered. And that, to me, is worse than a full-out low, because in those numbers between I get really, really disgustingly nauseous.

I don't know exactly how it happened, but I have a theory: the diabetes triangle.

As you can see from the scientifically calculated diagram below the triangle involves three points (weightloss, overcalculated bolus, recent illness requiring basal adjustments) that combine into the perfect storm. While in this tempestuous state all traditional monitoring and diabetes navigation apparatus breakdown and you must survive based on instinct.

Said instinct usually involves gross amounts of food, coupled with temporary basal reductions. Generally, when emerging from the triangle monitoring systems and sensibility return to previously working states... usually reading high, though yesterday I somehow made it out with the relatively normal 10.0 mmol/L.

After this fiasco, today I was reminded of the horrible lows of the olden days of Lente and Regular insulin... Unfortunately, that also provoked the 'terrified to eat because I'll have to bolus' feelings of said yesteryears.

I changed my mind...

So, I was going to write this blog post about how I've been sick since the start of last September. I was going to talk about the crippling fatigue and joint pain. I was going to describe how depressing it was trying to get to class on time in the morning, but failing miserably because my hands moved more like lobster claws than extremities with digits capable of fine motor skills. I was going to tell you how I've had a thousand blood tests, x-rays and ultrasounds done and all have come back fine. That my family doctor has written me off as 'merely depressed' (ironic considering the amount of anti-depressants running through my system) and given up trying to diagnose anything. I was going to tell you that as a last resort I've turned to my endocrinologist for answers and that today she gave my more results with no answers.

I would have said that every time I have a battery of tests and wait for the results it feels like looking forward to finding out I'm diabetic all over again... and that, without fail, every single time I've gotten butterflies in my stomach, a lump in my throat and may even resort to crying. "I've already gone through this," I think "why do I have to do it again?"

But then, I came home and there waiting was a post by a Twitter friend @rpederse. It said:

As Twitter friend Virtue B. suggested in tweeted comments on my post, focus on the daily stuff makes recovery from a mistake much easier.

And, as I read the post, I thought maybe I should take heed my own words and forget the big picture for a bit. I've been doing much better lately; mostly what is hurting now is the idea that my symptoms will all come barrelling back... But worrying about what might be can be debilitating in its own right. This is a lesson I remember learning through diabetes and all its potential complications-- I guess I just needed the reminder that it is easily required by many of life's other quandaries.