Thursday, June 21, 2007

Out the Door

About to head out the door to MA class. Had to adjust my dinner insulin to compensate. Last time, I tried subtracting 2 units, and had a low during class and another around 2am. So this time I'm subtracting 3 units and eating a graham cracker right before bed.

Thing is, when I went to go test, I was only at 83 tonight... which I'd usually take 2 units for.

So that means... no shot tonight. And maybe half a granola bar.

How odd not to shoot up before a meal.

It feels downright scandalous.

2 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

David Moles said...

And that actually works? I mean, the point of insulin isn't just to get the carbs out of your system, it's to let you get some use out of them, right? Or does the long-acting stuff take care of that?

Kameron Hurley said...

Yup, it works. I was 150 when I got home, and resisted the urge to give myself a shot of any kind because I'd just biked home. I woke up with a 61 at 1:30 am, ate some jellybeans, and tested at 74 this morning.

With no dinnertime shot whatsoever.

It's weird. Apparently, your muscles are able to take out glucose from your system and use it for fuel *without using the insulin.*

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MDR/is_3_10/ai_n16130886

So your muscles suck up glucose and the insulin continues to suck up glucose and deliver it to your *other* cells. Bizarrely enough, the two systems accomplish similiar things but in different ways. So if you exercise and take insulin, you'll get double the amount of glucose taken out of your system.

*But* - if your glucose levels are already *too low* before you exercise *heavily,* your glucose levels will rise because your body releases adrenaline and glucose... from somewhere. This happened to me a couple of times during really intense MA classes when I'd test after class and instead of being at the expected 100, I was at 230.

This is why diabetics before the advent of insulin were able to live a little longer on low carb, high exercise routines. Glucose that they couldn't get out with insulin could get drawn out of their system and into their muscles.