Day Of Diabetes: Take Two.

It started with a tweet from Kerri (blogs at Six Until Me) about doing another day of diabetes, and that was it: members of the diabetes online community started to come together saying they would do one too. The date was set (last Thursday (April 10th)), and since it had been a while since the first one I did, I decided to also participate. Here's a look at my second day of diabetes (well, not my second day of diabetes, because that was over four years ago now, but my second #dayofdiabetes).

6.9mmol on waking - great! And I'm a huge fan of the pre-bolus. It's not always convenient (like when I'm grabbing lunch between classes) but where possible, I like to pre-bolus. Usually, I find less of a spike after my meals. However, recently, I've had trouble just getting my blood sugar levels down into single digits. The change in routine that comes with being back at my parents' is having a huge affect on my blood sugars. 

13.9 after breakfast - not a reading I was happy with. But went for a walk in the hope that it would bring me down a bit, which it did. I was at 11.1mmol before lunch. For lunch, I played it safe with a salad and some mango and added my correction bolus to the bolus for the meal. Frustrated doesn't even begin to cover how I felt when my blood sugar clocked in after at 14.3! 

I've played with the settings on my meter so that when I get a reading of anything above 14mmol, an hour later it will alarm to remind me to re-test my blood sugar. The 2u correction dose I took for the 14.3 was taking effect, as an hour later I was at 11.3. 

I was at 8.6mmol before dinner. Seeing single figures made me so happy! I carb counted my dinner and the bolus wizard on my meter suggested 12 units of NovoRapid. I tend to find that split doses work so much better for me in the evenings, so I took 8u before dinner and the remaining 4u after. 

9.30pm rolls round, and it means it's time for me to take my levemir. I take 10u once per day, and usually inject it in my leg. Following this, I also did my post-dinner blood sugar check. Once again, I was high, and that feeling of frustration settled back in. I took another correction dose hoping that it would bring me down some before bed. For me, the problem with correction doses close to bed time is that I then need to set my alarm for 3am. Well...I say I need...it's kind of my own ruling - if I have to eat something to bring my blood sugar up a bit or correct a blood sugar, I also check my blood around 3am to make sure I'm still within range - I'd much rather deal with broken sleep than I would the hangover-like feeling after a hypo or the lethargic feeling that come with a high. 

I was down to 12.4mmol before bed. I set my alarm, feeling (you guessed it) frustrated at the highs, reminding myself that tomorrow is a new day and I can try again. And again. And again, if I have to. 

And that's exactly what I'm doing, trying to get these highs under control for the next 7 to 10 days, after which I'll be back in Norwich, and hopefully more stable blood sugars will feel more within reach too!

You can check out all the tweets from me, and many other people by searching for #dayofdiabetes on twitter.