Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Shaking Off The Funk Of Increased Insulin Requirements~

The other day I got myself in a funk - and not the kind with cool beats and a loud base. 
My self-imposed funk was regarding my insulin pump’s basal rates (hourly insulin rate via my insulin pump,) which are still elevated since doing 2 rounds of antibiotics and a round of steroids to combat bronchitis and few other itises back in May
And before the steroids,  my insulin requirements had increased slowly over the previous year. 
Thanks to Gary Scheiner and the wonderfulness of being me, I know that it takes my body longer to process meal boluses than most and I try and take meal boluses 15 minutes before I eat - but that's not always possible.

For now, I try not to let the amount of my daily insulin requirements upset me - I remind myself to be grateful that I have insulin - and that access too insulin.
And I keep moving - walks, bike rides, swimming and body surfing in the ocean until I'm forced to leave the water from sheer exhaustion. 
FTR: I LOVE BODY SURFING!

But every now and then I wonder what if I require more insulin now and forever ... just because. 

  • Because I will have lived with diabetes 38 years as of October 21st, 2015
  • Because I’m a woman in a certain age bracket
  • Because our bodies change and shit happens
  • Because diabetes demands it
  • Because change is a part of life. 

And I worry because of the cost of my increased insulin requirements - I worry about that a lot. 
I’m once again contemplating a secondary injectable to prevent the spikes - I’m not sure which one, but I'm going to be discussing the possibility with my Endo in October. 
FTR: I won't attempt going back on Metformin - my numbers were great, I lost 8 pounds, but my hair fell out in clumps. Symlin caused sticker shock and there was a lot of stops and starts due my travel schedule  - so I stopped taking it. 
I'm also being proactive and scheduling an appointment with my CDE before I meet with my Endo - hopefully 6 weeks before my appointment in October and not during the Pope's visit to Philadelphia - that would be logistically insane!

Lastly, I remind myself that things take time and that my life will always be measured out in units of insulin - sometimes I will require less - and other times (like now,) I will require more. But I will always require insulin in order to live. 
And that things could be a lot worse than increased insulin requirements.

 If any of you out there in DblogLand are or have experienced similar issues - I’d love to hear from you & any advice would be greatly appreciated.  

2 comments:

Colleen said...

No advice but mine are up too. Mostly due (I think) to weight gain as a result of quitting smoking. So, I pat myself on the back for the quit - and I'm trying to work on the weight... But not all that hard - it's on one of my lists.

Mike Durbin said...

No advice here either. Just lots of hugs and good thoughts. LYMI.