Monday, July 9, 2007

Somethings Up...besides my bloodsugars

I've used my stomach for my infusion site for as long as I've had my pump. I remember trying my thigh and my backside a long time ago, but I always ended up pulling those sites out. Since I've read about so many people using sites other than the stomach, I decided to try again. Last Thursday, I stuck it in my left hip and yesterday, I stuck it in my right hip. Since Thursday, I've had high readings after breakfast - over 200! And I've been having some lows in the evenings that seem to require a lot of food to keep up.

For example, at 9:30 PM yesterday, my bloodsugar was 71. That's not really low, but it's low enough that I had to eat something before bed, especially since I'd been swimming in the lake all afternoon. I drank a can of Coke and ate 2 slices of whole wheat toast with peanut butter. I didn't take any insulin with all of this. At 2:30 AM, by bloodsugar was 142 so I still didn't take any insulin. But when I got up this morning at 6:30, it was up to 212 so I took a unit of insulin. Just now, 2 hours after breakfast, it's 205 even though I ate the same type of breakfast and the took same bolus that I usually do. I could understand my bloodsugars being this wacky if I'd eased up on my running in the last week, but even my running has been the same amount as usual.

So I don't know what to think. Maybe having the site in my hip changes my bloodsugar patterns. Maybe I'm coming down with a cold or some kind of infection and just don't know it yet. Maybe I got too much sun yesterday even though I'm not sunburned (although this could explain today, it doesn't help with the end of last week and the weekend). Maybe I'm stressed about my career change - I only have 2 more weeks in this job before I take 2 weeks off and start my teaching career. Maybe it's the stress of knowing that I'm changing jobs and even though my insurance will still be the same, I'll be without it for a month (don't worry - I'm on my husband's policy so I won't be completely without insurance) and I haven't gotten my new insulin pump yet.

Whatever is going on, I hope I figure it out soon so I can stop having high bloodsugars mid- to late-morning and stop having to eat so much to keep them up in the evenings.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I've tried my hips and thighs a bunch of times and always had higher blood sugars (plus a bit more soreness since I don't have much fat there). Seems like I always go back to my stomach - though I'll go pretty over over close to my side to find new spots.

Congrats. on the teaching! V. kewl.

laura said...

wow, that seems like a major difference, and it's strange that it happens in the mornings, instead of across the board... hmmm! stuff like that happens to me from time to time, and usually i just attribute it to stress and or a change in routine.
also, i have heard that hip/thigh absorption differs from stomach absorption.
thanks for the song suggestions! i definitely won't make fun of you-- i love pink!

VTHokie99 said...

Thanks for your thoughts, marcus and laura! I moved my site back to my stomach today and I'm back to my fairly predictable bloodsugars. I think it must be an absorption issue that happened to affect my morning bloodsugars most since I need more insulin in the mornings anyway. I'm glad to be back to my stomach though!

Anonymous said...

I have heard that injecting into different places on the body will affect the amount of time that it takes the insulin to enter the bloodstream and to take effect (because of the different absorption properties of fat and muscles and differing levels of blood flow). Could it be that when you inject in your hip it takes a different amount of time to affect your blood sugar? If you are high after breakfast and low in the evening, maybe the overall amount of insulin is correct but the injection of the insulin is somehow out of phase with your consumption of sugar and/or exercise cycle.

I'm not a doctor, just a speculating Type 1 diabetic runner. Also, I use Lantus and Humalog and don't even know how the pump works, so maybe my speculation is just way off.