Feelin' low

Diabetes is a confusing disease. It sends missed messages to me. For instance, today before lunchtime.  I didn't pause for a mid-morning snack, as I should have. As a result, I dropped low. When you drop low, what does one do? Eat or drink sugar. So, I ate glucose tabs. These particular tabs are grape flavored. They're like a gigantic Sweet Tart. Each one contains 4g of carbs, so you eat about three of them to get your sugar up. Then you wait 15 minutes, test, and if all is well you go on your merry way.

"So, wait a minute. You get to eat candy when you're low?" you must be asking, because that is exactly what I think every time I go low and have to eat tabs, or drink juice or whatever. That seems like an incentive to stay low, don't you think? But it's not. Being low isn't fun. Not everyone has the same symptoms. Mine are sort of a quaky feeling -- jittery, especially in my hands. It makes it hard to test because my hands have a tremor kind of thing going on and I've dropped strips as a result. You don't want to do that because those pesky things are crazy expensive!

Plus, going low makes me tired. I kind of want to nap after a low. But then again, I kind of want to nap most of the time anyway.

Because I'm so inconsistent with managing my diabetes, I usually run high. I can't really tell you how that feels, because it's so normal to me that it doesn't feel weird at all. Every time I go to the doctor and my A1C is high (this is a test they run to get your 3 month blood glucose averages), they will change my dosages and say, "we'll get you feeling better." I want to say to them, "I feel fine!" I kind of wish I did feel crappy, as that would be more of an incentive to be diligent.

I could save myself from most of these highs and lows if I could just stick to a healthy diet. Which is not to say you never have wacky sugars when you eat healthy. All kinds of things affect (or is it effect? I can never remember) your sugars. Stress, infections, menstruation — any kind of sickness, really. And that opens a whole 'nother can of worms.

Here's one of my favorite stories of going low.

I was in Indy visiting a friend of mine. We were in a Marshalls and I was at a clothes rack when I felt myself going low — quickly. I actually felt like I had tunnel vision. I knew if I didn't treat it soon, I could pass out. I went to the restroom and tested. I was at 37 — which is pretty darned low. My niece had told me to carry one of those little gel tubes of cake icing. It is high in sugar and less expensive than the glucose drinks they sell at the drug store. I fished my hand around at the bottom of my purse and found the icing and unscrewed the top only to find that the thing needed to be snipped with scissors. I ran from the restroom, icing in hand. All of the scissors that were for sale were encased in plastic and were of no use to me. My friend saw me and said, "is everything okay?" I explained my dilemma and she said, "I just saw some tree trimmers!" I followed her over to the gardening section (I didn't even know they HAD a gardening section) and she pruned the top off of the icing. The tip went flying somewhere and I sucked the gel stuff out of the tube. Gross. I ended up buying a Coke and drinking it at the Homegoods store next door.

So, I try to always have a fast-acting sugary thing with me at all times. Now I have a glucagon syringe with me. I showed my friend Molly here at work how to administer it. She gave me that look like, "please don't ever make me do this." A glucagon syringe is only used when you pass out and can't ingest sugar on your own.

So, there you go. Highs vs. lows. It's all bad. Trying to get back on track is tricky, but considering the alternative helps. I really like my feet. And my eyesight.