Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Is It The Lack of Sleep Causing Bitch Blood Sugars Or Bitch Blood Sugars Causing Lack Of Sleep?

This post contains lots of ups and down blood sugar wise and is written by a woman who has been dealing with bitchy sleep/lack of sleep patterns, and bitch blood sugars for the past 4 days - all while dealing with this thing called life. 
Clearly I'm a little punch drunk, but I think (OK, I HOPE,) that some of you can relate.
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The past 4 days have have included 3 early morning lows in a row (even with decreased basal rates before bed,) and increased basal rates throughout the day because who the hell knows. The early morning lows certainly didn’t help with the mid morning highs, and there’s a chance that my scratchy throat and runny nose has something to do with the increased basal rates, too. 
Then there’s whole pre-menstrual hormonal thing going on. Sorry fellas, deal with it and you're damn lucky I didn't sneak in the word menses. ;)
And lets not forget the super miscalculation of Monday night’s dinner that resulted in a long stubborn high spell, combined with increased basals and a less then 20 hour old infusion site crapping out due to subcutaneous insulin overload. 
With all of the above - my sleep patterns have been really off - damn near non existent.
I plowed through yesterday and was exhausted last night. I went to bed at 10:40, (and between you and me,I fell asleep on the couch for 10 minutes at 7pm. And yes, I'm aware that catnap didn't help.) 
I would have gone to bed earlier, but the new infusion site not only kicked in with a vengeance - so did the rest of the insulin that I’d pumped throughout the day and I thought, hadn't worked. 
Sleep followed until just before 1:30 am. Then once again and what seems like a daily occurrence, I was wide awake. I tried to ignore it and even played my sleep app, but nothing helped. I ended up reading articles for a post I’m working on, (and maybe a little face-booking, because, WIDE AWAKE) until almost 4 am. 
I slept through this morning’s alarm, and woke up at 7:30. 45 minutes late and none to happy about it 

I like my sleep. I miss it. I need it. 

And I’ve found myself wondering out loud and on the twitter: Is it the lack of sleep that contributes to the challenging blood sugars or is the blood sugars that contribute to the lack of sleep? Does one influence the other and how the hell do I stop this from becoming a vicious cycle? 


 Also: I’m over it. 

2 comments:

Rick Phillips said...

Kelly: I choose to put this on the TUDiabetes blog feed because I thought it was just fantastic. As a fellow non sleeper I get all your points Bravo

Rick Phillips

Anonymous said...

I'm in my 70s in age, and have had T1 for 74+ years. I need 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night to be on my best for the day. Last night I got a total of 5 hours which were broken into segments of 2 hrs;1 hr; 1 hr: and 1 hr. with time in between of reading and resting in bed. My b. glucose #s were between 112 mg/dl and 78 mg/dl. On other occasions of having a restless night my bg has been all over the place. I have thought that maybe dreams, even though they were not frightening, influenced my numbers. I use an insulin pump, and take 15-20 units per day, which includes 4.3 of basal. I'm interested in knowing if there are connections of glucose numbers and lack of sleep or dreams. Waiting to hear.