Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Sniffles equals... low?

Once again, diabetes has managed to confound me. In my experience, illness has almost always led to higher than normal blood sugars. Except, of course, when Elise is riding the vomit comet.

But over the last few days, Elise has had a cough and the sniffles. Nothing terrible. A few nights she did cough so hard that she threw up, but otherwise she's acting fine. The only other thing she's been complaining of is a tummy ache. No ketones, thank goodness.

And I haven't been able to keep her BG above 100. She hovers in the 80s. And when I bolus her for her meals, she's usually in the 50s at about 2 hours post-meal. Last night we did a temp basal of -50% for almost 4 hours. And she woke up at 96.

Have her insulin needs plummeted across the board all of a sudden?

Is the illness causing the low?

Is the tummy ache trying to tell us that there's something else going on that I can't even bring myself to think about?

I just did a pod change and I'm very curious to see if that affects her BG at all. Plus I under-bolused her for her snack. It's times like these that I really miss the dexcom!

If anyone has any thoughts, I'd love to hear them!

12 comments:

  1. No ideas here. But Matthew tends to run low when sick. I know I'm gonna freak out when he's sick with high BG. Anyway, I hope she stays in range!!

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  2. Bean has no rhyme or reason with her BGs and days when she's not quite 100%. She's not generally a kid who gets sick, just a little cold from time to time and I'm thankful for that.
    Sorry, that totally doesn't help!!
    I'm not feeling it's an 'across the board' thing, maybe just a temporary decrease. Bean does do that from time to time...she'll have a few days in a row where she's ultra sensitive and I'm doing lower temp basals and scooching down the bolus amount and then there will be a few days that it seems like she's pumping water.
    Ah, D...what a pain in the ass!!

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  3. blech...diabetes has been wearing me thin lately with these darn lows, and mostly at nap or bed time, cruel indeed!

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  4. Is her pod in a different place than where she usually wears it? Isaac seems to be lower/take less insulin when his pod is on his leg..as opposed to his abdomen/arm or lower back..Especially when he is more active(because the pod is near a larger muscle).We haven't faced a major sickness since diagnosis(thank the Lord) so I do not know how that really affects his bg. Hope things level out for you all :)

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  5. she may be having the tummy ache from the lower than normal bg's. don't worry unnecessarily about the "c" word that shall not be named. Ava has had a stomach ache for four years. We can't find anything wrong. Hope this passes soon. By the way, we start podding on Thurs 8am!

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  6. Maddi and I both seem to run lower just before the illness is full blown, then higher when really feeling icky.....I hope it
    Levels out soon!

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  7. ditto to everything Denise said...Emma does the same things. Although I do have to admit with the sniffles and colds she is usually higher...diabetes is so random I hate it. Hope she is feeling good soon and numbers stay up a bit!

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  8. Just as Kelly said, our son runs lower before we have symptoms show. Once symptoms show we remain low then out of the blue bs go through the roof and he remains pretty resistant. Good luck!

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  9. i totally agree with the previous comments, my son runs low when fighting the illness, and high once you can see he's sick.

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  10. :-/ I hope she feels better soon....lows (and sniffles!) are no fun, esp around the holidays!

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  11. My thoughts -- if the lows cannot be explained by exercise or stomach virus -- are that it may be possible that the theory that their beta cells can keep producing some insulin, and the autoimmune attack kills off the beta cells immediately (a/k/a Fausman) may be correct. Although I believe "can possibly manufacture some" is the correct wording. In the almost 7 years she has had D, our DD will occasionally have these weird lows, but never needs basal reduction of more than 50 percent. She did have a month period of highs, then a solid month of lows (plus other symptoms) before being diagnosed with Hashimotos. It is scarey, but I am hopeful for the long-term implications this implies.

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  12. I know she is kind of young for this, but has she been checked for gastroparesis? I was having the same issues; serious lows two hours after a meal and obscene highs 8 hours later. I'm not a doctor, just someone who has been along a similar path. Hope this helps.

    Maryrhatigan@hotmail.com

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