We just had a nice reminder that the Flu (Influenza A) is no fun, and when you mix it with diabetes it is even less fun.
It was a strange trip this last week. It started with 60 hours of almost no movement, just lying in bed with a 104 degree fever that ibuprofen and baths would only break for an hour or so. During this time his bg was actually easy to control despite that fact that over the first 48 hours he could only manage to drink a few glasses of water and 4 ounces of Gatoraide.
Then his bg went wild, requiring his basal to be doubled and multiple shots of insulin to bring it down for a short period of time. Large ketones present that we could only knock down for a few hours before they would come back…
Now on day 6, he still sleeps 12+ hours per day, but his blood glucose is finally under control…whew.
@Chris, I am so sorry to read that, poor kid We went through the flu last school year and we had a hard time. For us, we found that staying super hydrated was helpful.
Keep the faith, this must be exhausting for you two as well. Keeping these ketones at bay is key, I think, but that means sometimes really frightful corrections.
If you guys get too tired, let us know if you want some spelling on Dexcom Follow. We can serve as a phone relay possibly?
Thank you all for the kind thoughts, we are managing, but it isn’t fun. And yes, the ketone corrections are more insulin than we are used to injecting.
Our endo group recently changed their advice, due to the old way be a TDD calculation and now they just say to double your correction. It goes without saying we were using syringes to deliver that much insulin, it was way more than our pump would be able to deliver easily.
Not any ketones, just Medium to Large, or Large ketones. But yes, the old rules were calculate a % of your TDD, and they realized that double the dose was about the same in most instances. In any case, when he had large ketones, double didn’t even come close to bringing it in range.
Hope you guys are doing well, Chris. Keep your kiddo safe! There have been more casualties this year than any before it to my knowledge, from the flu. Thoughts are with your son and family as you guys fight this period.
Oh my! I was so sad to read this. I’m glad he’s on the mend and I hope he’s making a speedy recovery.
It went around my mother and uncle and I earlier this month and it was awful while I was out of town. I didn’t bring it home to EH - stayed away longer than I’d expected. It makes me not want to leave the house ever again to catch type A (we had B).
My mom (who had A, then pneumonia, which she’s still dealing with 2 months later) was told by her doc there are 3 A strains circulating these year (none covered by the vaccine), so she told mom pretty much don’t go to the doctor/ER/urgent care unless you’re at deaths door, because you could catch another strain on top of the one you already have.
Oh, I’m so sorry that your son and family have gone through this! Fingers crossed that he is well on his way back to good health now (and that no one else has caught it). I fear that the dominos have started to fall in my house - our live-in babysitter got sick last week and my younger daughter was diagnosed with the flu last night. Lots of hand washing and Lysol-ing going on here.
At what point do you throw in the towel and head to the ER? Those ketones would have scared the business out of me and I’m not sure that my husband (or I) would have known what to do with them. Sending healthy thoughts your way! Jessica
We didn’t go to the ER, because he wasn’t throwing up, but we did go to the urgent care and get some prescriptions to ease his suffering. We felt like we were doing ok since we could knock the ketones down with extra insulin once his bg started to go up, but living with them for two days without being able to give as much insulin as we liked was nerve wracking.
Fortunately, on day 3 or 4 (memory is kind of blurry) his bg started soaring and we were able to give more insulin, which made us feel better.
Fortunately, he is on the mend now, and back in school. The only sort of nice thing in there, was that we had some unusual snow storms and school was cancelled for three days last week, so he was able to lay in bed and not worry about the homework piling up.
@Chris, it is also our turn. My son has been laid down for the past 2.5 days, violent cough every 5 seconds, throwing up, basal up 60% (and not enough), large pen injections every couple of hours etc… So far he is able to keep some things down so we are not too worried about lows. It looks like a week of tough times to me—so we are following you on this path, although not quite as badly as Cody.
Oh man, I really feel for both of you @JessicaD@Michel, that really sucks and I so wanted our infection to be the last infection of the year. Hang in there, it wasn’t easy…
We went through the flu last school year and we had a hard time. For us, we found that staying super hydrated was helpful.
Glad to hear he’s on the mend. This flu season has been rough.
