Catch 22

Diabetes is filled with catch 22s. Here is one I faced this past weekend.

We had just returned home from the bar portion of Heather's birthday celebration and did what any good drunkards do....hit up the fridge! Of course, I also did what any good drunk diabetic does and hit up the glucose meter! I simultaneously checked my blood sugar while shoving forkfuls of Pumpkin Mac and Cheese in my face, preparing to take a couple of units of insulin, only to be met by a 57 blood sugar.

What?! 57! How the hell did that happen? I didn't even feel low.

Prior to going to the bar, I had plenty of very-not-diabetes-friendly foods coupled with several glasses of wine and a dirty martini.  I figured that between the insulin, food, and booze, my blood sugar would be okay. In fact, I was expecting it to be high. Imagine my surprise to be at 57 and not actually feel it. A little scary. 

I was faced with a real dilemma. I wanted to go to sleep, but couldn't with my blood sugar at 57. However, I had just eated a heaping helping of mac and cheese. Did I want to take the chance of over-correcting for the hypoglycemia and wake up in the 200's? Or do I go to bed hoping the pasta would kick in and not raise my blood sugar too high?

It's the diabetic's catch 22.

For any diabetics who happen to stumble across this blog, my solution was to increase my basal rate on my insulin pump so that the mac and cheese would help raise my blood sugar without causing me to go too high. Generally, my CDE recommends an increase of 10%. Which I didn't know until this morning when I asked her if it was okay that did that....except I raised it to 30%. That was probably too high.