I recently told you about glucose spikes that seemed immune to my attempts to rein them in. Well, guess what? I finally did it…all it took was more insulin than I’ve ever injected before. Much more….
Last time, I injected 3o units over several hours. This time, I injected 42 units over 75 minutes. That’s right…a whole freaking whack of fast-acting insulin over a little more than an hour. I did not die. I didn’t even go into hypoglycaemia. After recurring jabs of eight units, then 10 units, then eight again (and so on), my glucose gently drifted down to normal.
The spike came, as always, out of the middle of nowhere. I had not been eating anything. I think I was resting, watching TV. I caught the beginning of it and starting correcting. The fact I was home, safe and focused, allowed me to concentrate on this endeavour without too much danger. Spikes like this can happen at night while I’m asleep, or during work or while I’m driving when I can’t inject insulin without giving the results my full attention.
I’ve been diabetic (Type 1) long enough to know what dosage I can safely start with. Ten units is what I may use under normal circumstances for a sharp correction. It’s sometimes excessive, and I might wish I’d used eight instead. When 10 isn’t enough, I’m a bit alarmed. It turns out these stress spikes (or whatever you choose to call them) are the Godzilla of glucose reactions. They are unpredictable and rise up out of nowhere. They need an appropriate response from my insulin pen, but what is that dosage?
I ignored my new Omnipod Dash on this occasion. I’m not interested in using a pea shooter when a cannon is required. I’ve tried cranking up the Dash dosage to deal with these spikes and all I do is drain the pod over a couple hours. The Omnipod is great when things are normal. These glucose spikes require an extraordinary response.
I wish I had an endo that gave a damn. I did send an email asking for a phone consult but heard nothing back. Somehow I thought a patient injecting 42 units of Admelog insulin over 75 minutes would get a response. Nope. I don’t have a family doctor so there’s really no medical professions to lean on.
I sometimes wonder if doctors have an adverse reaction to situations where they haven’t got a fucking clue what to say. They don’t want to look stupid. They want to have answers. But a patient who takes on a stubborn glucose reaction with a glut of insulin may not be something they want to deal with.
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