Type 1 Thursday – Unexpected high blood sugars? 🤔

…it could be THIS!

When you’ve done everything you normally do to keep your blood sugar healthy and stable, and your blood sugars all of a sudden rise to the point that you have to drastically increase your basal dose or rate.

You’ve eaten low carb, taken insulin & other meds you may be prescribed, hydrated, moved, supplemented, not stressed too much, changed insulin vials, stuck to your routine – all to no avail. Your blood sugar is stubbornly and unexpectedly high anyway!

In thisType 1 Thursday, I will discuss a possible reason why, based on my own very recent experience.

Watch the video or read the transcription below:

https://youtu.be/qafwdTm4tqQ

Have you experienced something like this? Leave a comment and tell us more!

Transcription

If you prefer reading the information, here it is:

Today’s topic is actually a bit of a personal note, because this is something that I’ve recently experienced. If I’ve experienced it, there may be others out there who experienced the same and may need help with similar situations or at least help figuring out what it can be.

If you live with Type 1 Diabetes, you know that some days are just weird, blood sugar-wise. It doesn’t matter what you do, your blood sugar’s either high or it’s low, or it’s whatever where it shouldn’t be. Usually it is a little bit on the higher side, and if you have frequent lows, you just think that you’re cured for a split second!

When you have those stubborn high blood sugars, to the point where you do a basal test to find out how much basal you should be taking. And that actually shows that you’re taking too little basal all of a sudden! It’s not due to hormones, if you’re growing or a woman or anything hormone related. It is not due to the seasons, because whether can involve insulin resistance, too. It’s not because you’ve changed your diet, you’re eating the same thing. Basically, you keep everything the same. Just all of a sudden, your blood sugar’s up, and you need more insulin overall.

“Oh, okay. Have I not exercised enough? Yes, I’ve done that.” Check off the list. “Am I coming down with something? Am I getting a cold or a fever? Is there something like that going on? Nope.” You feel fine as a little baby bird, just maybe apart from the high blood sugar situation? Hmm, what else? “Am I injured somewhere? No, not that I know. And have I been drinking enough water and I’ve been taking my supplements? Have I been eating low carb enough?” It can also of course, be stress, it could have been stress in my case, definitely. And it could have been a bad insulin vial. But as this kept going throughout insulin vials and stressful periods and stuff, I figured out it wasn’t that. All these things that will checklist of lifestyle factors that do influence blood sugar. Everything is in check. What the *bleep* is going on?

Well, this, as I mentioned, did happen to me quite recently. In the past few months, all of a sudden, my basal requirements increased with, I kid you not, 30%! This is, of course, it’s just a number and you have to use the insulin that your body needs. But to me, it felt very weird. Wait, what could this possibly be that is going on? I didn’t think more about it. My blood sugar was then back to their stable, wonderful self, with the 30% extra basal insulin requirement.

But then I started getting a tooth ache. We were traveling at the time, and I was like, “Oh, no, I have to like find a dentist!” I’m not too fond of dentist, as it is. I contemplated finding an emergency dentist where I wasn’t notat home, and didn’t really speak the language. And I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know where I am and all the stuff. I’m like, oh, what am I gonna do?

But I made it. I could soothe the symptoms until I got back to my normal dental hygienist, who happily took an X ray of my lower jaw on the left side and noticed, “oh, you have an abscess underneath that tooth that was hurting.” I’m like, “oh, okay, so it was an inflammation. I just couldn’t feel it at the time!” I had walked around with an inflammation, which is known to cause high blood sugars and insulin resistance (or both, which is probably the case here). I was very jolted when she said that it has to be surgically removed.

Now, I’ve had a fair amount of dental work done. Especially when I was still in my high sugar eating days, my teeth started crumbling a little bit. I didn’t know why, because I was eating the way I was supposed to. Since going low carb, I haven’t had any problems at all. So for a long time, I haven’t had to go to the dentist, I’ve only gone to the dental hygienist to get my teeth cleaned and and she checks my teeth. If everything is good, I don’t have to go to dentist. Yay. Happy me. But this time, she’s like, “well, you know, you can’t really remove this on your own, it won’t go away. So we have to actually surgically open up your gums on the lower left side.” This sounded lovely. (If you’re sensitive, please just fast forward!)

“We have to open up your gums on the lower left jaw and we have to dig out the inflammation by hand because it won’t go away.” And I’m like, “No, this is terrible!”, feeling my stress regarding dentists as it is, my blood sugar immediately went up a little bit. I wasn’t very happy about that (but that wasn’t the point of the story.) The point of the story is, that when I finally managed to get the courage to make that appointment, and the dentist was allowed to cut up my gums (and ended up doing a lot of other work that I just don’t even want to remember, because it was terrible.) Then, when the inflammation was out, and I had started healing, look at that, hey, presto – there went my 30% basal rate that I had added on top! My basal rate went back to normal. It was that inflammation.

The moral of my terrible experience and story is that if you do have unexpected highs and your basal rate does go up, it doesn’t have to be anything that you’ve done or that you’re doing wrong, or that you’re not being “compliant”. That’s a terrible word! It can also be something that is going on in your body that you don’t even know about, as in my case, it was a dental inflammation, a dental abscess.

I don’t recommend it to anyone. But if it does happen to you, make sure that you get it taken care of, and go check it out. And this is why it’s actually quite good as a diabetic to get your teeth cleaned quite regularly so that someone can see the differences going on.

Have you ever experienced anything similar to this? Anything that all of a sudden raise your blood glucose values or all of a sudden raise your basal rates?

Let me know and let me know how you sold that in the comments and we’ll be happy. I’ll be happy to do chat with you there.

I hope this story hasn’t put you off! It did me for a good while, but I’m happy that it’s now over and I can look forward again.