My wife and I are planning to thru hike the AT in 2017

04302014

What, other than food, can affect my blood sugars?

Living

If I wasn’t living I wouldn’t have diabetes.

Also known as STRESS

I learned this after 14 days with no power in the Great Ice Storm of 1989. One week after normalcy was restored my blood sugars would not go down. I kept an appointment with my diabetes educator and she relayed to me that all her diabetic patients were dealing with the same issue.

After a stressful event the body goes back to normal and all those hormones that we dump into our systems to survive can cause blood sugar spikes.

Exercise

Exercise can cause my blood sugar to drop and also to go high. During exercise sessions longer than 20-30 minutes I normally get a drop. Running and Hiking can be a pretty sever drop. Swimming can cause an initial spike and then a drop. Sometimes I get a spike an hour or so after mowing the lawn or a light run but it’s not a situation that occurs consistently. Why? No clue. What I have learned is that regular exercise must be regular to help control blood sugars. I’ve found my numbers rising on a rest day at the time I would normally be running so you need to keep that in mind as well.

Your body CAN adapt to regular stress.

Allergy Season

I have allergies and in the spring and the fall I have a couple of weeks where life can be quite miserable for me and my blood sugars will rise.

The Weather, ie Summer coming on or Fall

I’ve noticed over the last few years that in the humid Summer I need more Lantus (the long acting insulin) to keep my blood sugars normal. Since I’ve moved to Florida, my body thinks that Summer begins in March (I lived almost my entire life in the great, cold state of Maine). When weather gets cooler again then I decrease my Lantus because I will wake up in the 50’s for blood sugar readings for like a week before I make the correction.

Medicines

Nyquil anyone?

Time of day

I have a blood sugar increase around 4am. I get up almost every day at 3am and take 2 units of Novalog to keep my numbers where they need to be. If I do not do this then I’m usually in the 200’s. By this inconvenient method of prevention I have better blood sugar control than if I try to manage the roller coaster.

In my early days of diabetes I actually fasted and took my blood sugar readings every 30 minutes to learn what my base line was and saw the spikes and lows. I’ve had to learn the rhythm of my body which takes time and attention and a day or two off to listen and learn.