Things that go beep in the night

I was woken from a sound sleep at 3 a.m. this morning, most likely by my upstairs neighbor coming in. I actually thought it was around 6 a.m. until I turned on the light to test my blood sugar. It was slightly low so I had some juice. When I checked my CGM, it was apparently as disoriented as I was, because it was displaying question marks (Elaine never said anything to me about question marks????!!!!). Elaine did tell me that the CGM runs about 20 minutes behind where my numbers actually are, so I knew that, eventually, it would sound the alarm advising me of a potential low sugar, which it did, right on schedule. By which point my sugar was no longer low.

So, after all this middle of the night excitement, I finally dropped back off to sleep around 6 a.m. This morning I dutifully calculated all my insulin doses, as well as weighed and measured everything I ate or planned to eat (this is not unusual behavior for me, but I am being extra careful this week). My choices are extra-healthy. I have dutifully recorded everything. The end result of doing everyting right?

My numbers have been too high all morning, trending in the low 200s. I went from 69 at 3 a.m. to 169 at 5 a.m. (hey, I was still up) to 237 at 8 a.m. when I woke up this morning. There are lots of potential causes to that 237 reading, which is ultimately the reason why I am doing this little experiment in the first place, to narrow it down.

That, my friends, is why CGM technology should be more readily available to help patients fine-tune their control.

Theresa Flaherty
Type 1, 11.5 years