Diabetes Turns

I’m exhausted. I’m very much looking forward to having some time off work next week, as I’m definitely in need of a break. But, on the bright side, things are looking very promising here in Australia right now and I’m definitely feeling a lot more settled with this new normal.

I just wrapped up an extremely time consuming assignment which wasn’t exactly difficult, but did entail analysing a great deal of numbers from published financial statements. Super happy to have finished, with one more to tackle over the coming weeks.

I’m also really conscious of how neglected my blog is looking of late, hence this post.

The biggest theme to my diabetes right now would be that it is starting to turn. My diabetes is starting to turn in exactly the same way that the days are getting shorter and the weather is starting to change and I’m wearing trackies and jeans more often. After micromanaging blood sugars for the past couple of years, I’ve begun to pick up on these twice yearly occurrences where things suddenly don’t work as well as they were yesterday.

If I could change one thing about my diabetes, this would be it. It is extremely frustrating having to adapt my diabetes to every single change that comes with life. It’s hard not to feel like the well built foundations of my diabetes (well tuned bolus and basal rates) are crumbling. It does feel hard, having to rebuild those foundations and in some aspects relive the hard work that went into them.

My strategy isn’t perfect. This is only my second year where I am approaching autumn and Winter with some kind of strategy. With the days getting shorter and the weather finally starting to match, I’ve been noticing two very different things.

For starters, I’m waking up to lows during the night. Or rather, my rebatteried Dexcom is doing a mighty fine job of waking me. I run an elevated basal rate from around 1am until I wake up in the morning, and as the nights and the mornings get noticeably darker I’m needing less insulin.

On the other end of the spectrum, I’m finding myself feeling more insulin resistant during the day. After upping my basal rate by around 10% last week, my blood sugars are finally starting to stay where I want them to be and I’m not correcting highs as often.

I like to make adjustments to my basal rates in percentages. It’s just so much easier to reduce my basal rate by 10% at a time when I’m noticing lows, rather than having to obsess over 0.25s and 0.1s and 0.05s. Given that the pattern I had in place before this worked fine, this blanket trick normally works.

I would like to do some proper basal testing next week, but the prospect of going without any coffee or food in the morning is extremely daunting. But I’m writing it down, and I’ll suck it up.

Finally, my world may be pretty small. But the one place I’m most looking forward to visiting once this is all over is sunny Sydney (only because it’s within close proximity of excellent Cannoli…)

2 Comments

  1. […] I’m exhausted. I’m very much looking forward to having some time off work next week, as I’m definitely in need of a break. But, on the bright side, things are looking very promising here in Australia right now and I’m definitely feeling a lot more settled with this new normal. I just wrapped up an … [Read more…] […]

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