Operation Blood Sugar fail

And the drama continues. So you know how excited/relieved I was a couple of days ago to discover that maybe I’d been drawing my insulin out wrong, which could have been the reason for of all these nasty high blood sugars I’ve recently been experiencing, which meant that it could be fixed, and I’d soon have those much-desired, oh-so-perfect blood sugars again. Well, after two more days of bad blood sugars, I’m really starting to believe that maybe, just maybe, it’s not me that’s the problem at all.

And so, this morning when I woke up with an in-your-face BG of 16.7, I went into Operation Blood Sugar mode.

Normally my days consist of three meals, plus a whole lot of snacks: 1 to 2 snacks in the morning, 1 to 2 snacks after lunch, and 1 snack/dessert after dinner (what can I say, I love food :D) but today I went snackless to see how long it took for my meal bolus/BG correction to bring down my blood sugars or if it did anything at all (And let me just say, a hungry girl is the equivalent of a spurned girl … apparently I was a little, uhm, snappish. I was starving!). I tested my blood sugars every hour. At 9:30 (2.5 hours after breakfast) they were 14.4. At 10:30, they were 12.4. At 11:30, they were 11.7. At 12:30, they were back up to 12.8. Awesome. I had my regular lunch to which I have the exact carb counts for) and gave myself yet another BG correction on top of my carb bolus. At 2:30, my blood sugars were 14.6. At 3:30, they were 13.2. At 4:30, they were 12.7.

It was time to give Animas another call. Not like it did me much good though. They don’t seem to want to believe the problem could be anything but me. The woman I talked to today asked me a ton of questions (Am I pregnant? Am I getting my period? (sorry if that’s TMI folks, but she asked) Am I on any new meds? Am I eating any new foods? Am I stick thin? (yes, she did actually ask that) Are my infusion sites irritated? Are my infusion sites leaking? etc., etc..) And my response was a continuous no. She didn’t go through the pump settings as the rep I talked to on Tuesday had done that already. She asked if my site areas had scar tissue, to which I said no, I’m pretty diligent about rotating them. But because I told her I pretty much stick to my abdomen, hips and back, she found an in. It must be scar tissue, she told me. It couldn’t possibly be the pump, oh no, it has to be me, or my body, or my process. I got to say, it’s times like these where I feel seriously tempted to enact on my pump what I did to my last iPhone, except this time there will be a hammer involved. Maybe then they’d agree it wasn’t me!

Needless to say, while I still don’t agree I’m the problem (how can I be when I’ve been so perfect for so long?) once I got off the phone with the useless “helpful” Animas rep, I spent a good hour reading Pumping Insulin (an insulin pumper’s bible) trying to figure out the math for adjusting my total daily basal (ongoing insulin) dose with hopes of finally putting the highs to bed. If I’ve added everything up right, and let’s hope I have, I’ve increased my daily basal dose by 5 per cent. Previously my total basal dose was 13.275 (0.625 from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m.; 0.525 from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.; 0.600 from 11 p.m. to 12 a.m.). Now, it’s 13.90 (0.650 from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m.; 0.550 from 6 a.m. to 12 a.m.). Please let this work!

Again, if anyone has tips, please do share – this princess is getting desperate!