Ok so this question is actually related to my husband's diabetes. So just this past weekend he woke up at 9:30 feeling pretty bad. He checked his blood sugar and it was 354. He's on a pump so he gave the correction dose and then came back to bed. At 10:00 he woke up and checked his sugar and it was 188. So it dropped 166 points in half an hour!!!! I asked him if he was sure that his hands were clean when he initially checked his sugar and got the 354 reading and he said he had washed his hands. So I don't really understand how it could've dropped so quickly. This has actually happened a couple of times before with my husband. So I was just wondering has anyone else ever had their blood sugar drop that much that quickly??? My husband had to go to work and he said he ended up snacking all morning because his sugar kept going low. He said he ate a sandwich, a snickers bar and a regular soda all without taking insulin and when he went on his lunch and checked his sugar it was still 53. Has anyone else ever gone through this???
How much did he bolus? I'm pretty sure that a certain percent of the dose does start to kick in, even in the first half hour. It's just that normally the doses are lower than you would use to correct for something over 350, so you don't start to see the change as quickly. It sounds like maybe the correction bolus is too high, though, because after a half hour there was still a lot more insulin left to kick in, and it sounds like it did.
How long was he running low, though, and was this rapid-acting insulin? It sounds like the activities since he took the dose may have taken more than 4 hours (going back to bed, going to work, testing and eating several times)? Within the lifespan of that correction bolus, it would make sense to me that even low-grade, daily physical activity could impact his BS more than usual with all of that extra insulin still in his system. (I feel like the morning commute is often a BS nightmare for me when I have to take even the slightest correction bolus when I wake up.) If his lows lasted much longer than four hours, though, the insulin should have worn off by then; maybe there was a problem with his site, and the insulin wasn't being absorbed normally? Oh, and I'm not sure what order he ate the foods you mentioned in...did he drink the soda first to correct an extreme low and then eat the sandwich and candy bar in an attempt to stabilize? Chocolate and even a sandwich - especially depending on what was in it - are pretty slow-acting carbs and not ideal choices for treating low BS. It could be they were just taking a while to affect his BS.
I don't really have anything helpful to say other than I have days where I can't seem to keep my sugar up. As far as I can tell days like that just happen.
I agree with Cor. A couple of nights ago I was 106 before dinner, ate dinner and bolused for the correct amount of carbs, and was 48 at 10pm. I treated for the low and 15 minutes later was 46. It took me an hour and a half and about 70 grams of fast-acting to get up to 73. That hasn't ever happened to me that extremely and while I tend to run a little lower after dinner, there was no reason I should have been that low for that long.
In conclusion, diabetes can make no sense at all and is totally unpredictable.
This has happened to me before as well, even with clean hands. I learned that anytime my sugar is over 300, before I take a correcting bolus, I re-take the BS. Often times on the second test the number is roughly half of what it was before. I don't believe it's always an issue of clean hands, otherwise the second number wouldn't be about half. I think the meter places the value within a "range". This is a standard approach in electronic design, (I'm a EE). So the meter sees an electronic value, thinks it has to double it to get it in the proper range, (when in this case it doesn't) and reports an erroneous value. It's just a thoery of course, but the next few times you get a value that's over 350, try re-checking. It may be that his blood sugar wasn't quite that high in the first place.
Keep in mind the higher your numbers are, the more "off" they can be on your meter. For instance, on my OmniPod it will tell me I am running high 300's and on my old Bayer Contour it will say I am high 200's. But once I get my numbers back into a normal range both meters will be reading only a couple points off. I have found this to be the case more than once when my numbers were high and I checked on different meters. Just a thought...
My problem is that when I check my blood sugar and it's really high, I freak out and take way too much insulin to correct it. Which of course, leads to low blood sugar a little later. It's just a constant battle to keep your blood sugar not too high or not too low. It definitely gets frustrating, and some days are worse than others...
[quote user="Cindy"]
This has happened to me before as well, even with clean hands. I learned that anytime my sugar is over 300, before I take a correcting bolus, I re-take the BS. Often times on the second test the number is roughly half of what it was before. I don't believe it's always an issue of clean hands, otherwise the second number wouldn't be about half. I think the meter places the value within a "range". This is a standard approach in electronic design, (I'm a EE). So the meter sees an electronic value, thinks it has to double it to get it in the proper range, (when in this case it doesn't) and reports an erroneous value. It's just a thoery of course, but the next few times you get a value that's over 350, try re-checking. It may be that his blood sugar wasn't quite that high in the first place.
[/quote]I'm really interesting in the technology behind these meters, because I don't get how with our advanced technology we can't get a meter to report an actual blood sugar! I tested Sarah on the same drop of blood on two different meters a couple of weeks ago, and (I don't remember the exact numbers) on one she was right around 100, and the other was around 130. What the heck? Take that down a little; does that mean if she'd tested at 70 on one she'd have been 100 on the other? - because our actions at 70 and 100 are a whole heck of a lot different!
I have corrected my son from in the 300s and 1 hour later he is around 150. Sometimes this means he is headed low, other times he will only go down slight more - to like 130 and stay there. I don't think I've ever checked a correction less than an hour later. He tends to respond pretty quickly to correction boluses.
I am wondering if it was something with the site - like if he was laying on it funny that had allowed the insulin to deliver (so cannula not kinked) but not really be absorbed, so he got the high BG. Then after moving around AND giving the correction bolus, he basically now has a 'double dose' leading to lows for the morning. I have no idea on the plausability of that...
I almost always double check on a different finger if my son is over 300 and I have no good reason for it (like, crap I never bolused for that _____). Most times it is still high, but a few have been due to something on his fingers.
Diabetic saying!!! The person who checks with one meter knows their. BS The person who checks with more than one, is never sure!! LOL That's + or - 20% fun huh!!!
[quote user="Michelle"]
[quote user="Cindy"]
This has happened to me before as well, even with clean hands. I learned that anytime my sugar is over 300, before I take a correcting bolus, I re-take the BS. Often times on the second test the number is roughly half of what it was before. I don't believe it's always an issue of clean hands, otherwise the second number wouldn't be about half. I think the meter places the value within a "range". This is a standard approach in electronic design, (I'm a EE). So the meter sees an electronic value, thinks it has to double it to get it in the proper range, (when in this case it doesn't) and reports an erroneous value. It's just a thoery of course, but the next few times you get a value that's over 350, try re-checking. It may be that his blood sugar wasn't quite that high in the first place.
[/quote]
I'm really interesting in the technology behind these meters, because I don't get how with our advanced technology we can't get a meter to report an actual blood sugar! I tested Sarah on the same drop of blood on two different meters a couple of weeks ago, and (I don't remember the exact numbers) on one she was right around 100, and the other was around 130. What the heck? Take that down a little; does that mean if she'd tested at 70 on one she'd have been 100 on the other? - because our actions at 70 and 100 are a whole heck of a lot different!
[/quote]
I would have to double check, but I think the FDA regulation for accuracy of the meters is supposed to be +/- 20% of the reading. So at 100, the range is 80-120. At 70 the range is +/-14 pts (56-84). Therefore at the higher numbers like 300, the range is +/-60 pts. What I've read is that the meters are more accurate in the lower numbers than the regulation requires but tend to be less accurate the higher you go. So when we correct, I usually aim for the top range of my son's target. (Like if going from 300- shoot for 150 instead of 130) to help prevent a crashing low.