Lows

I said at the end of yesterday's post that diabetes can be kind of scary. You have no idea. Here's what happened.

The doctor told me that by taking insulin shots, I could lower my blood glucose level. So from the time I went in with a 485, and began taking shots, and counting carbs and taking more shots, I had been getting readings of various numbers each time I'd check my blood (and by the way, pricking your fingers 10 times a day, gets OLD REALLY FAST). So my numbers were getting lower, but still kind of all over the place: 246, 187, 312, etc. But they weren't in the 80-120 range that would be considered normal. So I decided to try a little experiment. What could happen right?

I got back to school around lunch time, and I would head to the bathroom and lock myself in a stall every time I wanted to check my blood sugar levels. I knew I wanted to have a snack before heading to track practice, so I calculated the carbs for the sandwich I ate right before I headed out, and decided that the 1/15 ratio just wasn't getting the optimal kinds of numbers that my blood glucose should be, so I took a shot for a 1/10 ratio instead. (Good thing I'm pretty good at math, because I was sure doing a lot of multiplying and dividing lately). I took my shot--which is a whole other story about having to sneak around and take shots because I wasn't ready to proclaim to the whole track team that I was diabetic now. And headed to the track for warm-ups.

Warm-ups that day was a couple laps around the track before starting to work on the hurdles. We were doing timed trials: focusing on starting with the gun and running over the first 4 hurdles. Lots of speed, lots of energy--over and over again. That's how Coach Ray likes it! Well after about six or seven starts, I was feeling not only tired, which is understandable given the workout, but really strange. I was sweating. Not just your normal out-in-the-sun-and-running sweat either, but after I had "cooled down" I was still sweating. But it was more than that, too. I was starting to get like a nervous feeling. I was even starting to feel like I was looking through a cloudy window. The corners of my field of vision where starting to get blurry. And then the nervous feeling again. Then I got the chills.

I remember the doctor telling me that sometimes, if your blood sugars gets too low, your body would react just the way it was reacting then. I told the coach I needed to go and check things out (my Mom had forced me to at least tell him what was going on) and I headed to the bathroom and checked my blood. All the while I am sweating buckets, shivering and seeing blurry. Turns out I had a blood glucose level of 54. Yikes!

During times of low blood sugar or hypoglycemia, you actually NEED to eat sugar. That's nuts, right? Diabetics are supposed to avoid sugar, and yet sometimes that's just what you need to raise your glucose levels so you don’t die! So I got a Gatorade and a candy bar from my bag (mom had made me pack some “emergency sugar” just for occasions like this) and chowed down. It took like 20 minutes before I felt close to "normal" again. I checked my blood again, when I felt better, and it was up to 97--safe.

Turns out that my little experiment with the carb ratio back-fired in a major way, especially since I was working out. Exercise is a natural way to bring blood sugar levels down, but I combined that with taking too much insulin, and it wasn't a very good combo. In consulting with the on-call nurse at the doctor's office that night, I was told to avoid taking insulin all together, or take decreased doses whenever I would be working out. Good to know. Could have used that info a little earlier in the day!

They were actually kind of glad that this had happened, because now I was familiar with some of the symptoms of hypoglycemia. The nurse told me that different people with diabetes have different reactions when they have low blood sugar, but the most common reactions were the nervousness, sweating, and blurred vision. After this episode, mom made me promise to always have some sort of sugar on hand for emergencies. So now my car's glove compartment, my locker, my backpack, and nightstand drawer are filled with Jolly Ranchers, Tootsie Rolls and suckers.

I was kind of freaked out about the whole thing, but glad I know what to expect, how to prevent it from happening, and what to do if it ever happens again.