The Learning Curve...

First of all, I have no idea how other moms manage to write blogs on a somewhat consistent and continual basis. I barely have time to do all of my household chores everyday before I have to get ready for work in the afternoon, never mind sitting down for a few minutes to try to think clearly and write a blog.

So the learning curve. I've had the Dexcom 7 for almost 3 weeks now and it really is interesting. It is certainly a tremendous help to know where my BG is at and in what direction it's going. The one thing that I really wasn't expecting was the sensor's "margin of error". It only has to be within 20% of your actual BG to be considered accurate. So if your BG is particularly high, the "margin of error" just gets larger. I really thought that once I had the Dexcom I wouldn't be checking my sugar with fingersticks often at all, but I find myself sticking to my usual routine of checking all day, up to 10 times per day. I just don't trust the CGM to be that accurate. For me its really important to know exactly where my sugar is when I wake up, before meals, after meals, before bed, and any time I think the CGM is lying to me.

One of the most interesting things I've found with the CGM receiver is just to see the wave of my blood sugar. We all know that your blood sugar will go up and down throughout the day, but it is reallllly interesting to see it plotted out all day continuously. The smaller waves are nicer to see, and the mountains and valleys aren't that fun. I've been struggling lately to keep my blood sugar up in a good range in the evenings around bedtime, which is a big change for me. It's really a new thing for me to need a cup of juice and a bite of peanut butter to try to keep my BG in a safe range when I'm trying to fall asleep. I'm not quite sure why this is happening lately, but I'm not ready to just change my pump settings just yet. I want to see if this issue is going to level itself out or not. We'll see.

I've been changing the settings on my pump to tend to some of the daily issues I've been seeing on the CGM receiver, and one major change that I needed to make was to my overnight settings. I found that I'm spiking around 3am, which I would never have known. According to the CGM I've gone up to 250 on some nights around that time and I was really unaware of the fact that this was happening to my body. Although I think the CGM's readings might be a little exaggerated, I've been able to change my settings to the point where I am waking up slightly under 100 in the mornings. I had been having some trouble keeping my BG in that range for my morning reading and it really does help me start my day in a better mood when my BG is where it should be.

Speaking of moods, prior to being diagnosed in March of 2009, I never really knew much about diabetes and how it affects a person's personality, but I feel like I am a prime example of the possible effects. Prior to my CGM, if I tested and my BG and it was unexpectedly high, typically I was in a pretty foul mood. Angry, unpleasant, cranky, etc. I guess we could call that the effect on a person's personality. If I am low, I get very strange. My wife says that she can tell when I'm low just from the way I act. I'm not sure how she would describe it, but I think I get a little intense, irritable, and disoriented. I'm not quite sure what it's like being around an intense disoriented person, but it must be an interesting experience. I don't have any diabetic friends either, so I've never had the experience of witnessing someone else's low.

Anyway, back to the learning curve. I have found that doing a bolus 15-20 minutes prior to eating really helps to keep me from spiking too severely. I know that a lot of diabetics know this as a fact, but it is really difficult for me to put into practice and make a daily habit. So I've been making more of an effort to try to make sure that I start my bolus insulin a good amount of time before I start to eat.

I just feel like there are so many things on this CGM learning curve I've yet to master, and so many more things on my pre-pregnancy checklist that I really need to get into the habit of doing. But one step at a time I guess... yea one step at a time.