Getting sick with T1D

If there is something worse than forgetting to take your insulin shot it would be getting sick. You not only feel terrible from the infection, virus or simple cold but you also have to run the gauntlet that sickness will make your diabetes run through.

I have had viruses and colds that have no effect at all on my BSL however I have also had them cause  absolute havoc. I have had times where my BSL has dropped and because of the vomiting there was no way to have sugar to correct. I removed my pump and still no increase. The solution in the end was a trip to the hospital to make sure things didn't go bad. Ultimately it was a case of medication to stop the effects of the sickness so that I could maintain my BSL.

Other times my BSL has sky rocketed and it has needed to increase my insulin intake by 100% to get through.

As with T1D the way to tackle sickness is get back to basics and increase the monitoring. While on MDI (multiple daily injections) I was always told to have small amounts of normal lemonade as the ability to eat normally would be limited. This did work and kept me out of trouble a lot of the time. It kept small amounts of glucose flowing to make sure the insulin I was still taking. One thing I was always told was to always try to maintain taking the regular shots. This was in the days before carbohydrate counting and having shots for what you eat so things will have changed but back then that was the way things were done and to tell you truth it worked. Now being on a pump and being able to count the carbs it is more to do with managing the basal rates to make sure they aren't to high or too low and adjust where needed.

One of the important things to do is test though. Even though extra management and effort is the last thing that is wanted when your sick it is required to know what effects and what is happening at anyone stage. To have information and tight management is the way to get through any sickness that chooses to inflict its wrath. Planning for those days is crucial, everyone gets sick at some stage so hopefully the process of getting through it causes the least amount of impact to your T1 health.

Another thing to test for is ketones. Another precautionary measure to monitor the possibility of going into ketoacidosis. Something that none of us ever want.

Sickness happens and all you can do is prepare as best you can.