My Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) arrived on Friday. I plugged it in for 3 hours of charging and immediately started getting myself connected. He was like a kid in a candy store. Metaphorically speaking; of course. It has only been 3 days, and I have already learned a great deal from the little egg shaped device. What I thought my blood sugar was doing goes about like this:

  1. I take my basal (Lantus) insulin at night keeping me steady for most of the night and my blood sugar would start dropping just before 5:30 AM (when I normally eat breakfast). Except on the weekends when he would wake up at 9 with a BG of 50.
  2. At 5:30 AM, I would take my bolus (Novalog) insulin for breakfast and eat some cereal with milk. Some? His cereal bowl is the one normal people use to mix cakes with.
  3. Around 11:30 AM, I would start to feel a little low and then I would test and I would be some where between 60 and 80. I would bolus and eat lunch. Usually, he skips step 3 all together.
  4. Around 6PM I would make dinner for myself and the kids, bolus (which I always seems to under estimate the bolus needed) and spend the rest of the night bolusing until bed time trying to figure out why my estimate was so badly off.

That is what I thought was happening. Dexcom shed a little light on the situation. Any more light and his nose hairs would catch fire.

  1. I take my basal insulin at night and then steadily drop until around 5:30AM. The trend looks a lot like a slide.
  2. At 5:30 AM, I take my bolus insulin for breakfast and east some cereal with milk. Then, I spike to about 350.
  3. I slowly, but steadily, fall back down to between 60 and 80 at around 11:30 AM. I bolus and eat lunch. Then, I spike to 300 or better and about a half hour later drop to around 120.
  4. Slowly go down to about 112 and then at 6PM I make dinner for myself an the kids.  I bolus (which I still seem to under estimate) and spend the rest of the night steadily climbing higher and higher while bolusing to try to get back off the escalator.

CGM reading 255

What is that all about? Poor diabetes control? Talk about total shock. I had no idea my blood sugar was bouncing like that. He should really test more. I look at the two lines on the Dexcom my blood sugar is doing everything it can to stay out of them. And what is my basal doing? Drawing; like on an Etch A Sketch. When I am sleeping, my blood sugar is dropping like a rock and after dinner, my blood sugar just holds steady at 250. Tonight, I had two tuna fish sandwiches and some pork and beans. I would guess about 110 grams of carbohydrates. That is roughly 7 units of insulin for me. That was my bolus at 6:30.  After eating dinner, Dex started freaking out and my trend was raising to the top of the meter. I have been taking 3 units of Novalog every half since and my trend is almost a straight line. Not going up; not going down. At least he has some consistency. Just piling on the Novalog and the line isn’t budging. But I’ll bet if I take my basal dosage, I will be heading back down again. Its like before lunch my basal is trying to help me remember what hypoglycemia feels like and after dinner we are reminiscing about hyperglycemia. Have some ice cream. I’ll bet that will get that line moving. Thoughts? Anyone? PICK ME! PICK ME! Anyone else?