Week 2 (13/1/13 - 19/1/13)

Today, at around 2pm, I emerged from what can only be described as a dense fog. A fog which had increasingly descended on me as the week went on. I had a bad week. A bad week diabetes-wise, a not-so-great week work-wise and and pretty yucky week otherwise.

I have just completed and posted this week's analysis, and it's lucky that the fog had already cleared or it would've descended further looking at the numbers I've just crunched!

So, this week, I have had just 25.65% of readings in range. Significantly worse that last week. But, looking back now with a somewhat clear head, I have 2 and a half explanations to at least try to account for some of it. But a warning: those of you who don't want to know about my menstrual cycles need to stop reading here... Those of you who aren't fussed - for medical purposes obviously! - you may continue...

Explanation 1: This weekend I have been ill.. Not really, seriously, life-threateningly ill, but I have had a very sore throat and and what I call the 'sniffles'. Other than being incredibly tired, I didn't feel ill until Friday; funnily enough the time when my blood sugars started behaving better. The thing about illness is that, as a diabetic, your body actually often ends up making you sicker. If your blood sugar levels are high your white blood cells don't fight  infection as well as they should, extra sugar in your blood also helps to feed the viruses or bacteria that are causing the infection and to top it off stress hormones, which are produced when you are ill make insulin less effective. This all adds up to higher blood sugars which exacerbate the whole process. In short, my body has spent, I'm guessing, the majority of the week trying to fight off an infection. Which wouldn't have been so bad if the week hadn't started off so badly in terms of high levels...

Explanation 2: The reason my blood sugars were so high (I think!) at the beginning of the week was because every month, in the days before that-time-of-the-month my blood sugars sky-rocket. This is apparently due to hormones (isn't everything?!) which prevent insulin working as well as it should. As soon as I actually get my period everything seems to settle down; as if by magic, my morning blood sugar suddenly fell yesterday morning and stayed fallen this morning.

Explanation 2.5: Stress. This week has been a tricky one work-wise. Stress is a pain in the butt. It's silent. It's unpredictable. And it affects insulin absorption. Brilliant!

This is why I am writing week 2 off to experience. I am going to wait and see what happens this week. I am going to keep the changes I made the previous week and see if, without all the other hurdles, it's slightly more plain sailing. I will have to wait until next month to see if my hypotheses are correct.