Have any FUDers ever found themselves going through periods of overthinking or over-controlling your T1D and BG?
When I am on solo duty with my kids, I find any unforeseen trend or number to be much more significant than when I’m not solo parenting my kids. The heightened awareness that I’m not only responsible for myself but two others seems to put a fish eye lens over the information coming out of my Dexcom.
For instance, after wrapping up my basal test tonight, I ate a salad that I have eaten 5 million times. It’s one of those dishes that requires more insulin than you really think it ought to…but past results justify it. So be it. Since I had been fasting 7 hours, and since I always spike super fast when I eat for the first time after fasting, I pre-bolused 30 minutes. And then 30 minutes after eating the salad I felt nauseous from downing a Diet Sunkist (to try to get rid of my caffeine headache from avoiding all caffeine today for the basal test) and scarfing down the salad super fast. And then I got the low alert and was heading down into the 60’s. I waited. I tested. I waited. The Dexcom was right. So I had a juice box. And waited. And tested. And waited. And parented while I waited. It eventually climbed out of the 60’s 30 minutes later. But that was a LONG 30 minutes. The only thing keeping me from feeling more stress than I did was the fact that I had just completed a basal test proving that my basal does not drive me down into some bottomless pit. I just had to deal with the meal insulin. But I hate going low 30 minutes after eating. That feels like a lot to come back from.
Anyway, back to the original question, do you ever feel like you over-analyze your Dexcom? Like you jump the gun on treating a situation that hasn’t played out yet? I feel like I do that too often but I am not entirely sure how to back off of it. On MDI and without Dexcom, I interpreted BG results from my meter so much less emotionally (and irrationally) than I do currently. I think a lot of it comes down to having other humans that I am responsible for…but I cannot rule out that sometimes the Dexcom graph sucks me into some concerns that I would not otherwise have.
I should also add that by all metrics, I’m a safer and more consistent T1D now than before Dexcom. I used to crash into lows all the time pre-Dexcom. But I could feel them then. And I would get symptoms. My lack of low symptoms continues to confound me. As much as I try to “feel” the low when I know I am low, it’s hard to distinguish those feelings from the general anxiety happening at the time.
I’ve been having the opposite problem, being too lax with responding to dexcom alarms and lazy bolusing. I have been very focused on some new activities, maybe over-thinking them, and having higher BGs than before.
For me it was a matter of the new stuff having more priority, or at least me thinking it does. So hoping to work out a better balance to meet both goals.
I think this is more about not wearing a Dexcom than whether you are using a pump or on MDI. I was on vacation for the last week and my sensor fell off as I was running late to catch my flight at the airport. I figured it would be the perfect time to just go without it, but I lasted about 2 days before putting a new sensor on. I found it caused more anxiety as I would test and see numbers higher than I like, without knowing which way I was heading or being able to prevent highs in the first place. I think the problem is now that we have this technology and knowledge it’s impossible to go backwards. Sometimes I think I’m envious of people prior to the 1980s who just took a shot of Lente, went on with their day and never had to think about numbers!
I found this was very easy to do, especially when responding to a rising trendline, with the result that I’d top up with insulin before my initial bolus had really kicked in, and then seriously crash. Nowadays I tend not to stress about a higher line unless it continues to rise above 10 or 12, and instead I wait for the initial bolus to take effect, which can be hard to gauge because I’m not finding Humalog action very predictable these days.
Overall I don’t obsess about my Dexcom. Hours can go by and I don’t look at it unless I get an alarm. Sometimes I think this is a waste of the technology and my money – I should be more actively pre-emptive – and other times I think it’s okay because for me the low alarm is really the only feature I want. Currently I am on holiday and I shut down my receiver for most of last week because my activity was regular and the food was fairly predictable and I was mega-relaxed and really didn’t give a hoot what my minute-by-minute numbers were so long as intermittent fingersticks were okay.
Not to hijack my own thread, but I was apparently nauseous from an impending stomach bug that’s been passed around my family for the last two weeks. I thought we were in the clear. Puked my guts out at 1AM and have been sleeping it off all day. I can’t stand stomach bugs.
I’m in the bad habit of playing out too many “what if’s” when watching my Dexcom and then I outsmart myself and react too soon. It’s getting better but it is a process. My husband has noticed that I’m not overtreating lows as much as I used to, which is good.