Will diabetes put my love affair with tequila on the rocks?

I've been chipped and calibrated and am once again using a dexcom continuous glucose monitor (CGM). I think this is a newer model. It seems smaller and lighter and has a few more data input options. I still have to keep it within reach at all times and have quickly adjusted to picking it up every time I walk away from my desk.

Now, ordinarily, when I am tracking my numbers in this kind of detail (and with a nurse figuratively looking over my shoulder) I am on my best little person with diabetes behavior.

But last night felt like a tequila kinda Wednesday so I went out for margaritas as planned. I like 'em with rocks and salt. Lots of salt. Tequila of choice was Hornitos for those of you keeping track. Now, it's not that I think a margarita is good for my blood sugar, but watching the trend rise quickly and steadily upward was quite the eye-opener. Not only that, my numbers stayed consistently high all night. Too high. In other words, while it's OK to indulge in a rare treat, it's simply not worth it on a regular basis. Especially since I'll have to fess up that I drank two margaritas and they are loaded with sugary sour mix.

The meter only woke me once last night (well, this morning) to remind me my numbers were too high. Which is unfortunate, because the whole point of the great CGM experiment, 2.0, is to see if I am going low too often. Yesterday, I woke with a 60. Monday morning about 4 a.m. it was all the way down to 43! And yes, the lower it gets, the worse it feels and the more it just takes out of you. I was nearly an hour late for work because I needed to sleep in a bit longer to recover.

I also like to give credit where it's due: I arrived for my appt to get the CGM a full 24 hours early! Fortunately, the staff at Maine Medical Endocrinology and Diabetes managed to squeeze me in (thanks, Erica!).

Stay tuned.

Theresa Flaherty