I had one of those great aha moments this morning.
Weeks ago I developed a stabbing pain in my stomach every time I bent over. It felt as if there was a syringe needle lodged about a couple of centimeters into the flesh (full disclosure: flab). As it was next to a sink-hole of lipohypertrophy caused by years of injecting into the same site, and the rest of my stomach was black and blue, I thought maybe it was time to be a big girl and try alternative sites like my upper arms and thighs and give the stomach a chance to recover.
So that's what I did, and I basically thought no more about it. Except that I hate the bruises on my arms, especially as T-shirt weather is here, and the needle marks on my legs look like mosquito bites. I know, vanity thy name is Jane, but it does bug me (pun intended).
Well, it looks like I'm going to have to suck it up, because last night I injected my Lantus in my stomach and the BG # this morning was 458!!!!!!!! And that was when it occurred to me that the reason my BG has been so good recently, on the low side even, is that it's actually getting into my blood stream rather than being absorbed by the scar tissue or the layer of fat I have accumulated over the past couple of years.
I know that the stomach is supposed to be the best absorption site but perhaps that's not always true. And maybe it was just a crazy anomaly, but the number was fine before I went to bed last night.
Anyway I am not about to conduct a scientific study here because I never want to see a BG score like this morning's again. Instead I took half the amount of Lantus and injected it into my arm and got the BG down to a reasonable 230 by lunchtime. I'll take my normal dose tonight, inject it in my leg and then we'll see.
Life with diabetes, it's so exciting.
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2 comments:
Isn't it funny how we all (well, a lot of us anyway) look at that number as a score, as a judgement on how well we're managing (or not, as the case may be) this damned disease. For me, the daily bg readings are the test results, the a1C is the final exam score.
Sadly, I'm getting Ds right now. *sigh*
I don't see how we avoid it, when we are forever testing. And I'm a perfectionist, I want A+ every time. But I'm also pragmatic enough to know that however "good" I am, "scores" are affected by a bunch of variables in addition to insulin/carb ratios. I've been trying to look at the numbers on the OneTouch meter more as a pointer to how I should manage things (should I take more or less food/insulin, change the injection site etc) rather than how well I'm doing. Tweaking rather than judging.
Anyway, I'm going to the endo for my finals on Monday. Suffering from pre-exam stress right now.
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