I said something to Joe, my husband, the other night that has stuck with me ever since. I was complaining about one of my recent BG readings (I don’t remember if it was low or high) and I said “since I’m stuck with having diabetes, I just wish it would at least make sense”. But that’s the thing about diabetes … it doesn’t always make sense. Sometimes no sense at all.
We all know what diabetes is – simply put, our pancreases do not produce insulin and other hormones needed to absorb glucose in order to turn it into energy. So one may think that if we take enough insulin for the food we eat and take enough insulin to keep our BG level when we’re not eating, we should be fine. Think again. There are so many different elements that factor into how our bodies respond to the insulin we take; absorption through the skin, correct calculation of insulin delivered, hormones, stress, sickness, physical activity, time of day, I could go on and on. So again one may think that if all these things are correctly considered, BG should stay in range. One more time, think again. There are those moments when diabetes just doesn’t make sense. Like when you haven’t eaten and you’re not sick or stressed and have an infusion set that’s been working perfectly fine for the past day and a half and your BG goes to 300+ mg/dl. Or when you’ve eaten a meal that contains 45g of carbs, that you’ve eaten a hundred times before to know for sure that it has 45g of carbs, and your postprandial BG is 40 mg/dl. I guess the bottom line is that a person with diabetes does not have a functioning pancreas and as close to a real one as we can come, it’s not the same thing. And is why sometimes our bodies do things that just don’t make sense.
I feel like we are all always trying to capture the illusive dream of “tight control”. I had a CDE tell me once, that people with tight control never take into account the one thing they have that helps them the most-luck. She said she knew many people who tried for tight control and luck just wasn’t on their side. Sure it takes work and it’s stressful, but luck really does play a role in it sometimes. The more you stress over getting the control, the less likely it is. Keep doing what you are doing and confront your doctor.
PS-good luck today!
Well put! I smiled a lot during this post. Heck, diabetes/numbers doesn’t make sense 30-40% of the time. I know when I bolus correctly for something I eat and the number doesn’t come out right, I shake my head bolus and try to keep
stepping. Overall it doesn’t make sense.
So true. It rarely makes sense. Like last night, when I had hardly any carbs with dinner, was 75 pre-meal, and 330 post – even after bolusing at 75. WHAAA??? It drives me crazy… but we all go through it.
So true. I love to reads posts like this that remind me I’m not the only one..
If only diabetes would just make up it’s mind so that we can prepare accordingly. What’s most frustrating is that you can eat the exact same foods everydat, at the exact same time of day, and take the exact same amount of insulin and each day your BG readings will differ. Or how running three miles one day after work will cause my BG to drop and then the next day it may go up with the same amount of exercise at the same time of day. What gives? All I know is that fortunately we have learned to be prepared for all situations, the good and the bad. We’ve learned to be flexible and take the D with a grain of salt, even when that can be oh so frustrating.
Katie from SF, it’s like our bodies were synced last night. I went to bed at 75, which I knew was a little too low for comfort so I set an alarm for 2 hours later to make sure it didn’t dip lower. And somehow between 11PM and 1AM? I went from 75 to 391…For NO FREAKIN’ REASON! Thanks, Stacey. After blaming myself for (…I don’t know…not being psychic?) this was exactly the post I needed today.
The idea of being “in control” of your diabetes only extends so far – sometimes we can’t possibly be in control because there is no explanation and no way to predict! Glad you wrote about this… It’s important for us to remember when we’re to hard on ourselves AND for health care professionals to keep in mind!!
Yep, that about sums it up! I swear it is like balancing on one foot with your eyes closed on the 50-yard line knowing you are gonna get tackled but you just don’t know from which direction it is coming.
Oh did I mention the monsoon that was occurring at the same time?
Stacey – great post – you and I must be on the same wave length today as what dribbled out of our brains onto the keyboard. I’ve been asking myself the same questions lately with controlling my BG’s and am actually can say I’m smiling away at the screen here as I type this out to you instead of SCREAMING in frustration at how I’m trying to deal with wacko BG’s lately. Oh to be the Tinman and have a ….
Stacey – great post – you and I must be on the same wave length today as what dribbled out of our brains onto the keyboard. I’ve been asking myself the same questions lately with controlling my BG’s and am actually can say I’m smiling away at the screen here as I type this out to you instead of SCREAMING in frustration at how I’m trying to deal with wacko BG’s lately. Oh to be the Tinman and have a …. LOL
Its funny I actually think that achieving effective management should be the holy grail when it comes to the big D. but our bodies do not listen to us sometimes and it makes it that much harder, I don’t know call it the ugly side of diabetes…lol