Monday, February 26, 2007

Damn Monday!

I am not a big fan of Mondays, the weekend is over and there is no sleeping in (I am not a morning person, despite the fact that I like to get up and use the day fully when needed). Today has just been a prime example of a damn Monday!

I started the day on the high side. I attribute this to the fact that yesterday was a genuine lazy day with no virtually no exercise (the weather killed the motivation to get outside). Because of this I continued by lazy-day-basal until mid-morning today. By that time my BG seemed stable and in range.

I am still trying to get to the bottom of the work piles I have at work. Today this meant sitting in front of the computer all day, gathering results from one of the projects. I had my usual afternoon snack around 3 o’clock, and continued working on these result. At 4:00 PM Jimmi sent me a message, asking when I would be coming home, and I answered him that I would just want to finish those results and then I would be heading home so that we could have dinner together before he would leave for a general assembly in one of the unions he is a member of. Around 4:30 PM I finally finished the gathering of results, and mailed the resulting excel-file to the PhD-student in need of them. I was satisfied having finished that off, and started getting ready to go home. This implied a test: 1.8 (32). Damn!

I drained 1/3 of a bottle of OJ (ca. 100 ml), and called Jimmi to let him know that I was getting ready to go home, but that the BG was holding me back. 15 minutes later I retested, hoping to see the BG going up. No such luck, it had dropped even more, now giving me a 1.5 (27). More juice, some chocolate-covered raisins and more waiting and testing. Almost an hour after the first low reading, I had had a whole bottle of OJ (330 ml) and a lot of chocolate-covered raisings, and frankly, my patience was up. I wanted to go home. I would normally not get on my bike with a reading below 4.0 (72), but I made an exception today, as I figured that at least the BG-trend was heading upward and I should have plentiful carbohydrates on board.

When I got home, Jimmi had started eating because he only had 15 more minutes at home before he had to leave for the general assembly. I tested: 3.1 (56) and sat down to eat. I didn’t bolus until after the meal, but still 90 minutes later I was 2.6 (47). The low trend apparently continues, and I am still awaiting the anticipated rebound. Maybe it will come during the night?

I am up for a test before bed time. I am looking forward to see if this damn Monday will continue, or if I have finally managed to get the BG up in safe range.

4 comments:

Scott K. Johnson said...

What a yucky and persistent string of lows there!!! You must feel absolutely wiped out!

I hope that things even out for you soon, and that you don't have to worry about this for at least another week... :-)

Chrissie in Belgium said...

It must have been really frightening to be that low BEFORE your bike ride home! The day seems to be screaming one thing - exercise, both lacking it AND gettting it, can totally destroy diabetic control. Exercise both helps us and destroys us.....

Heidi said...

Scott - yes, I was exhausted by all these lows last night. I can't remember having seen such a persistent pattern of lows in a very long time, so hopefully I will not have to go through this again in a week :-) I had a reading of 8.9 (160) before bed, so I added a little insulin. The rebound from all the lows and the huge amount of carbs may have come during the night anyway, because I was 10.8 (194) this morning. Now it seems like the level is evening out, though.

Chrissie - well, I didn't really think of it as frightening to be that low before my bike ride - at least not considering that I caught it before starting the ride. Most of all I felt so annoyed by the fact that the D had taken command, preventing me from doing what I wanted to, i.e. to go home. And you are right, exercise is definitely a major factor in the picture of yesterday. Actually the timing of the first low fits nicely with my general experience about the delayed effect of exercise (approximately 8 h post exercise insulin sensitivity will increase, sometimes dramatically). Still, I have no idea as to why the effect apparently was so significant yesterday. My bike ride to work was nothing out of the ordinary, so I wouldn't expect the effect of it to be so dramatic.

cc said...

wow. what an awful monday. i hate mondays too.

reading about how exercise effects your d is really helpful though. i have to admit, i do high intensity exercise all the time, but i kind of am not so scientific (and perhaps a defeatist) when it comes to actually trying to figure out WHEN lows will happen because of exercise, when highs will happen, all of that. but, since you seem to know a bit about your body and how it works, you are giving me a bit of motivation to figure it out and maybe even conquer exercise and bg!?