A tragedy of errors with type 1 diabetes - when everything that can go wrong, DOES!

Did you ever have one of those days where everything just seemed to go wrong? Well here's the story of one of my days!

It started late at night when my pump gave me low battery alerts. I was too tired to get up and replace the batteries so I did the next best thing (or so I thought). I turned off my sensor as that was the biggest consumer of battery power. Hello, Fazlyn - NO ALERTS! But I thought, how bad can it be until morning? Seriously? VERY BAD!

I woke up later with a blood sugar of more than 20! Being pregnant, that is NEVER good for the baby and I was still insulin resistant. So out comes my insulin pen and lots of insulin.

It seems that since I had turned off my sensor I did not receive notification that my infusion site was problematic (yes, and I already had limited space because my tummy was no longer an option). So I was getting very little or NO insulin at all and had my sensor been on I would've know this and changed my infusion site. So all of this could have been avoided had I just woken my husband up to get the battery and even put it in or even help change my infusion site (yes, he had to help because I couldn't insert a new infusion site into my back).

Luckily though I didn't go severely hypo after because of the amount of insulin I gave. I tend to overcompensate when I see high blood sugars. It's like all my alarms in my head go off at the same time! But I decided to give myself a break and take the pressure off by saying that my daughter would still be ok (I said a prayer for this) since I don't go this high often. Also, I'm only human and even though I was being very silly and even irrational - these things do happen.

Needless to say I made sure they didn't happen again!

2nd Trimester with type 1 diabetes - welcome insulin resistance :(

Hi all,

It's been a while since I've last blogged but needless to say that I've had my hands and feet full :) My all day sickness (aka morning sickness) eventually subsided in my 2nd trimester and I felt a lot better BUT hello insulin resistance!




Source: http://www.reproduction-online.org/content/140/3/365/F3.expansion.html

I could look at food and it would increase my blood sugar! Even food that I could eat previously, e.g. proteins, without giving insulin now required insulin. Not small doses, actually LOTS of insulin. My gynae was concerned because I showed some ketones in my urine despite taking all precautions to keep my blood sugars normal. 

My HBa1c was still within a normal and safe range but my pump kept beeping for high levels and high predictors almost all times of the day! It was annoying and worrying so something had to be done! 

My solution - I would inject 20 units of Apidra (my insulin) at 11am every day. Failing to do this my blood sugars would run 'high' (e.g. above 8.0) most of the day. So even though I wore a pump, I was still injecting and using a lot more insulin just because I needed so much more to control my blood sugars. 

I couldn't wait until 3rd trimester for my blood sugars to get back into it's usual range and my body to respond in the way it did previously..... only time would tell though as I've learnt that not all people react in the same way and no 2 pregnant women seem to be exactly alike. 

The main thing though was ensuring that my baby was safe and not affected by high blood sugars. So I did what any mother would do - everything it took!