Dream Diabetes Device

I am going to use the "wildcard" option for this D-BLog week post.

Prompt:

Back by popular demand, let's revisit this prompt from last year! Tell us what your fantasy diabetes device would be? Think of your dream blood glucose checker, delivery system for insulin or other meds, magic carb counter, etc etc etc. The sky is the limit – what would you love to see?

I would LOVE to see a device that measures the efficacy of insulin.  I want to know if the Arizona sun has ruined the insulin, if this bottle is too old, if a batch is bad, etc.  Much like the "control solution" can tell you if your meter is working, I would love to be able to add a few drops of insulin into a device that would say "Efficacy: 100%.  or Potency: 80% or whatever."

THEN, you could add that into your pump (if you had one, which I don't, but I will someday soon) and have it calculate for you.  Insulin needed: 4 units, efficacy is currently at 75% so I will deliver 5 units so you get 4 fully effective ones.  (If that math is wrong, I'm sorry.) (The pump would do it right, though.) (Probably). And that, my friends, would effectively prevent, or at least explain, some highs.  Also it would cut down on the wasted insulin, because you could use the entire bottle, even it has been open a long time.  Also it would be awesome.

Please pay me money for my idea.

Thank you. :)

Other posts here.

D-Blog Week - Biggest Accomplishment

Ok, so it's Diabetes Blog Week.  I'm supposed to have been blogging about various topics all week.  I haven't been, and I'm OK with that.  The DOC will forgive me - they're cool like that.

This is the prompt for today -
We don’t always realize it, but each one of us had come a long way since diabetes first came into our life. It doesn’t matter if it’s been 5 weeks, 5 years or 50 years, you’ve done something outstanding diabetes-wise. So today let’s share the greatest accomplishment you've made in terms of dealing with your (or your loved one’s) diabetes. No accomplishment is too big or too small - think about self-acceptance, something you’ve mastered (pump / exercise / diet / etc.), making a tough care decision (finding a new endo or support group / choosing to use or not use a technology / etc.

Not to get all mushy or anything, but my biggest accomplishment happened last night.

I found this on YouTube.  Weird Al made my night.  My week.  My diagnosis. You're welcome.  






More blogs on this topic here.

Is it due to a medication change?

So...I really like these ICE drinks.  Today I grabbed a grapefruit one at the store.

Then I remembered I wasn't supposed to drink grapefruit juice while on this stupid statin drug, even though there was probably very little actual juice in it, I decided to forego it, because well, I am little, and don't need extra drugs circulating in my system.

Except.  I went and read about Lipitor and grapefruit juice, and came across the "juicy" little tidbit (ha!  see what I did there?) that Lipitor can raise blood sugar, so please tell your doctor if you have diabetes.

!!!!!!!!!

I should have known this.  I should have read more about this when they switched my statins, whining about how Zocor wasn't doing the trick.  (They were whining about the Zocor, I was just whining about how much I hate statins.)

Personally, I do hate statins.  I think high cholesterol is a fake problem. I argue with my doctors every time.  My triglycerides are always super awesome and that's where I keep reading the real problem is, not with the total number, or even the evil "LDL."

I did not go to medical school.  They know this. I know it too, and so I yield.  I am still bitter, though.

Anyway, he switched me to Lipitor a while back but for some reason the pharmacy didn't get it and so they kept filling the Zocor.  I did not see the need to fuss about this, but when the year mark was up for the Zocor, they said the doc would not refill that scrip and so here's your Lipitor, lady.

Okee-dokee.  I'll be "compliant".  I'll take my pills.

After reading that about the blood sugar thing, and how it can cause Type 2 diabetes, especially in women, especially if your BMI is under 25, I got very curious.  I went back through this blog.  I went back through my prescription history.  Coincidentally, I started whining about I was battling highs constantly and the insulin wasn't working, and maybe some residual beta cells died at EXACTLY the same time I switched to Lipitor. (March)

I pretty much guarantee this'll be brought up at my next doctor's appt, which is next month.

You can also bet that I will not be taking the Lipitor for the next month to see if my sugars go back to behaving, at least as far as they usually "behave." Because seriously, lately it seems like I can't get below 200 to save my life. I am up night after night trying to bring this down. A shot at 10, another at 2, and finally at 4 my sugars are down, only to rise again at 7.  My fastings are terrible.  I have increased my Levemir, I've changed the ratio, I've started exercising 4 times a week instead of 2.  And apart from eating pizza, nothing has helped.

I've really wondered about insulin resistance, and why I would develop such a thing now.  This might be the answer.

Today.  Sadly, very typical lately.

Hopefully I've found an answer to the high sugars.  Hopefully we can deal with the cholesterol in a separate way.  This is my hope.  Because truly, I do not want any complications, and NOTHING is more frustrating than doing everything "right" and still having the results suck.  I might as well be eating cupcakes and jolly ranchers.

Expensive Days

March 28 was a very expensive day.  I backed into my friend's car, doing damage to both our vehicles, and then I ran my Dexcom G4 through the washing machine.

I am finally wearing a new CGM.  It's been nearly a month. O continuous data, how I have missed you.

(And no, nobody was hurt when I hit the car.  Just my pride.  It was, after all, parked - right behind me.The car, that is.  Not my pride.  That would be odd, yet cool.)

(NOT meant to clean medical devices.  Apparently.)


I went through basically a mini-version of the grief cycle. The first day or two, I missed the Dex desperately, but I was in denial about what I had done and I took to staring at it in a bowl of rice and practically mediated over it to get it to come back to life.  I knew that it would work again.  It survived the snow.  It would survive this. Ipods fall into pools and are fine a week later. It kind of looks like an ipod.  It would be fine, It WAS fine, everything was going to be fine.  It was almost a mantra..

Then, I felt an odd sense of freedom, no device attached - it's almost like I can pretend I'm a normal person with a working pancreas! (Note: not having a CGM does NOT magically make your pancreas work again. Denial is a funny thing.)

And of course I was just really really mad at myself for doing such a stupid thing.  It was a day of stupid things, really.  Who doesn't look behind them and see a car parked in their driveway as they're backing out?  Who forgets that?  (In my defense, there usually aren't cars parked in my driveway when I'm in the garage, but still. That's a stupid defense.)  And then who doesn't check pockets when throwing bathrobes in the washer?  Again, getting defensive here, I usually don't have stuff in the bathrobe pocket, it's not like it's my jeans, but still.  NO DEFENSE.  I am clearly a moron and should not be allowed to have stuff.

Then there was the sadness of not being able to obsess over data, and the guilt over kind of enjoying it sometimes. There was also the frustration of terrible blood sugars and not knowing how long they'd been like that, and lows that I didn't know I was having, and the basic awesomeness of diabetes.

I did lack bargaining.  There was no bargaining.  Running expensive medical devices through household appliances is not covered under anybody's warranty, and really, it shouldn't be.

Even though it totally should be.

And after a lot of phone calls, and re-sending of scripts, and it taking forever to arrive, except once the script was re-sent, it was super quick, so I don't know if I should blame Dexcom for the slowness or my doctor, and I don't really care, because IT IS HERE.

And I am happy.  Acceptance.

Also, I have a new car.  A red one.  So I'm extra happy, although now I have a car payment, where I didn't before.

(It's a Mazda that loves its Volvo.  This makes me laugh).

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.  This disease is expensive.

Who Knew?

First of all, I do not recommend taking a biology quiz while your blood sugar is at 350.  The brain fog is too intense.

That was my yesterday.  I ate my normal fiber bar in the car on the way to my class and while I was sitting there, I felt terrible.  I couldn't seem to stop yawning, and the lecture was super fuzzy, and despite the fact that most of this can be chalked up to the fact that this class is at 7:30 a.m.and the prof has a very thick accent, I decided to check.  352.  I was angry. Pre-meal was 149, and really, there's just no call for that, diabetes.

Fortunately, the correction bolus did work by the time the quiz rolled around, (mostly because the teacher forgot to bring the quiz and had to go print another one out, and he was very concerned that he hadn't brought the answer key, which just feeds my theory that my biology teacher doesn't know biology very well) and I was "only" at 200.

And in continuing with the theme of my last post, high numbers have been plaguing me lately, especially at night, and I am less than pleased about it.  (92 that day at lunch, though.  Boo-yah).

Also, it doesn't help that I ran my Dexcom receiver through the washing machine. (Shocker, right?) It may have survived the leaping out of my purse, but the washer was a bit much. It doesn't work.  I am waiting for a replacement.  It's taking a while, probably because my doctor is slow about signing faxed scrip requests.  Maybe this new one will like me better and not try to run away so much.

So last night when we headed to a "Spring Fling" carnival at the school and the only food offering was pizza,  I sighed.  I bolused.  I ate.  I prepared myself for another nighttime battle. I mean, if my dinners of grilled chicken salad or cobb salad and tomato soup weren't doing me any favors, surely the pizza of doom would send me over the edge.

Bedtime:149.  Ok.  I decided I wouldn't correct it down, and check in the night.

2:00 a.m.  101.  Sweet.

8:30 a.m. 117.  I haven't seen a fasting that low in a long time.

I've figured you out, diabetes. Domino's for the win.

Warning. I whine a lot.

I think I might have had like one beta cell doing its thing, and now its dead.

I have no basis to think this, except that the rebound highs from lows are spiking over 300, when they NEVER got anywhere near that high before.  And I mean they got that high after I corrected.  Like last night, I went low after dinner - not a terrible one, but still no fun - and I knew I ate too much.  I corrected when my blood sugar hit 135, to counteract the high I knew was likely.  It went up to the 380s.  THREE EIGHTIES.  Fortunately, it responded well to the second correction bolus, and I wasn't up all night battling highs, like I often am.  I guess I should have corrected at 200 when the CGM buzzed, but I figured I had some insulin on board....whoops. But you know, it's hard to know.  I had to ask myself if I wanted to correct or wait, because what if I corrected then, only to go low again?  Even with a cgm, knowing what to do is rough.

Anyone else have a body that says "I don't care if you injected insulin, it's nighttime and I am doing nothing about it?"

I am battling the swing of highs and lows like I've never had to before. For someone who's seen 300 once since diagnosis, (except when I get served real Dr. Pepper instead of diet) seeing it pop up so much this week is very disheartening. Swinging does not feel good, in case you were wondering.  And if I'm not swinging, then I am not coming down post meal like I should.  I get up to about 160-180 after I eat, and just stay there.

I have switched out every bottle of insulin for new ones.  I have adjusted my Levemir to a slightly higher dose. Which for some bizarre reason, that made me feel like a failure, like if I need more basal insulin I am doing something wrong - stupid liver. I still have the dawn phenom and what I like to call "the dusk phenomenon" going on to a degree that is not good.  (I go high in the morning and at night - I don't know what that's about, but I hate it.)  I am pounding the water.  I don't really like water, but I am drinking lots of it trying to keep hydrated, knowing that's crucial for control.

I haven't exercised much this week, my exercise buddy is out of town, and doing it myself is no fun at all.  So that's different, but still.  I have NEVER see sugars this high, and that includes diagnosis.

My next appointment with my endo isn't until June, when I will get prescribed a pump.  I am thinking I should call him and try to get in earlier, but seriously, I know that if I do, I'll show up with 2 weeks worth of perfect sugars because diabetes KNOWS when I call the doctor, and it behaves accordingly. And what's he going to do, really?  Tell me to try more insulin.  Be nice.  Charge me money.

So I am at a loss at the whys and what to dos.  You'd think after 4 years I would know, but I have learned that you  NEVER know, even if it's been 40 years.

I swear a couple of beta cells are dead now, when they weren't before.  I feel like holding a funeral for them.

The D at night.

Dex woke me up last night saying I was high.  Which is not unusual, and what I want to know is, does anyone else go high sometime between midnight and two a.m. fairly consistently?  What is UP with that?

Anyway..I woke up.  I took care of it.  I went back to sleep.

Or so I thought.

Because when I woke up later to pee, I glanced at Dex just to make sure it was all good, and a 352 was staring me in the face.  What the chicken?

And as I thought about it, I was pretty sure I didn't actually dose when it woke me up.  I just went back to sleep, and dreamed about dosing.

Nice.

Back in high school, I used to hit snooze and then dream I was showering, getting dressed, all that jazz, and I was all ready for school, only to have the alarm go off again to show me I was still asleep and going to be late. I hated it, because in my brain I had already gone through the motions of doing my stupid hair, and now I had to do it again?  Blerg...I swear there was one day I "got ready" 4 times, but only the last one counted.  This was just like that.

Maybe Dex needs two high alarms, just like it has two low ones.  Yes, that's what the Dexcom needs....MORE BEEPING.