Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kelly WPA on October 18, 2011 at 6:50am

I agree with Gerri that you have a very healthy attitude. I think it is important that we are aware of potential problems, but we also should not live our lives in fear of something that may never happen.

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Permalink Reply by Kelly WPA on October 18, 2011 at 5:33pm

I test my blood sugar 18 times during my waking hours because I know for a fact that is where my problems are. I used a Dexcom for over a year and a Navigator for 3 months. My standard deviation most nights was zero - meaning my blood sugar did not vary much during the night. Having to set my alarm in the middle of the night would be a burden to me. I know other people that don't and function very well. The people that do run around with a lack of sleep and create more problems for themselves. Lack of sleep actually causes blood sugar to go up. I function better on a full nights sleep. Not everyone has lows at night. As I said, there is no need to worry about it because I doubt it will happen. If you want to worry and wake up every night, that is your choice. It is not everyone's choice.

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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on October 18, 2011 at 5:29pm

The last time I had a serious hypo (after dinner, rather than at night...) the paramedics were alarmed by an irregular heartbeat. I went for a bunch of expen$ive cardiac tests that were all negative. Then the endo (with whom I wa working on this, as she was alarmed by the hypo...) suggested follow-up with a cardiologist "for more tests". By then, I'd read a couple of books (nervously, of course...), none of which mentioned a connection between hypoglycemia and arrythmia but, when I asked the endo if there could be a connection, she said "maybe..." so I blew off the rest of the tests.

The thing that seems to be missing from the "dead in bed" and other hypo death horror storie are the case histories, how was the patient doing, what had the patient done at that time, etc. I am sure having a kid is very hair-raising but I think that if you are on top of it, you may be reasonably safe? I have told junior that I need to go to cheerleader tryouts to make sure they are safe and have been told "OH MY GOD!!". Really, I was kidding but figured I'd keep her on her toes. Hee hee...

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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on October 18, 2011 at 6:07pm

I don't worry about a cure at all. I used to worry about being dead but don't worry about that all that much any more either. I try to distract myself with hobbies and activities and nagging my daughter. Between that and work and running a tight diabetes ship, I'm usually wiped out.

I had a wierd patch recently, where my BG at night was running up a ton, I'm not sure what it was but since the race it's *really* smoothed out and I'm a lot more relaxed. Surgery on Friday though will be a new adventure! I have reserved Harold and Kumar@ the library to go along with the painkillers...heh heh heh...

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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on October 18, 2011 at 6:21pm

I know what you mean about getting old. I have Alzheimer's on both sides so I figure when junior goes to college, I'll start smoking? If I remember. There was a CWD board thread w/ all these parents going ballistic about the JDRF funnelling some of their vast amounts of dough into something besides a cure and I was sort of puzzled because I would rather see a lot of resources poured into getting the medical industry to adopt a more thoughtful approach overall with a goal of influencing the insurance industry to suck it up and take care of people instead of pulling the "you need 7 test strips/ day" b******* all the time. A new generation of research ought to study tighter control than the studies that have been done to date, find out how safe it is and if there are benefits to it. There's *tons* of people here and on other boards who do that and most of them seem to be reporting that they are in reasonably good shape? This may, of coure, be internet crap (except for me, of course... :-P) but I think that it seem prevelent enough to warrant the medical industry looking into new approaches and designing them to be more accessable to more people, with a long-term goal of improving our long term prospects and lowering our long term costs? I have no evidence that this would work but I have to think that it would be worth a small amount of resources diverted from the "artificial pancreas" hooplah to investigate.

Permalink Reply by Emily Coles on October 20, 2011 at 1:04pm

I abhore the term "dead in bed"!  It sounds so cute and rhymey... like a dance move.  I myself am plagued by nighttime lows (I'm talking 35 at 2am a few times per month, at least) even though I wear a pump and CGM.  Remember though, that having a low sugar at night does not necessarily mean the dreaded DIB is around the corner.  It's dangerous, but I've had diabetes for 33 years and I still always feel the lows a wake up when I'm well enough to fix the situation without outside help.  In fact, I usually know I'm low before my CGM does.  Your son may get low at night sometime, but that doesn't mean disaster is inevitable.

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Permalink Reply by Jacob's mom on October 18, 2011 at 11:37am

Hello there, I also have a 13 year old son now on the omnipod, i feel we are similar to our approach and attitude about diabetes. my son has never had a night time low ( occasionally in the 60's in the am) we plan accordingly, i probably overshoot with food or undershoot with his night time bolus if he is running low at night time snack, I always make sure he is over 100 before bed and have really only checked him at night when transitioning to the pump or when sick. Probably if he was really active in sports i would check more but he is not. Listening to some posts on here makes me feel more anxious, parents doing multiply nightly checks etc, I know my son and his diabetes well now, if he does have a night time low our bedrooms are right next to eachother and i've been told he would be loud and squirming if he was low, everynight i wake up to go to the bathroom and check to make sure he is breathing steady, like a new born! other than that i try to let it go diabetes takes up so much thought and concern, i feel like my son feels safe and only bothered and different from his diagnosis, to have him especially live with fear would be hard to deal with i am trying to teach him to live with his diabetes like he does brushing his teeth, making healthy choices and mostly seeing the joy in life rather than the inconvenience and worry. good luck i think we would have a lot to share with each other! amy

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Permalink Reply by AustinMom on October 18, 2011 at 5:16pm

Thank you - it does sound like we try to approach this in a similar fashion and that our son's are the same age and were diagnosed around the same age. I hate that my son has to deal with this disease, but I'm so thankful that, if he had to get it, he is at an age to really be an active participant in his own care. I can't imagine how tough it would be to go through all this with a little one. Take care and thanks again.

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Permalink Reply by Jacob's mom on October 19, 2011 at 5:18am

my husband was looking at a pic of jacob when he was a toddler and said thank god we didn't have to deal with diabetes then god gave us 10 year without it, i agree with you, being diag. at 10 he was able to handle it without rebelling like an older teen might it is a tough disorder emotionally and physically but as parents we can help our kids deal as best we can and let them live their lives with as much normalcy as possible have a good week

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Permalink Reply by AustinMom on October 18, 2011 at 5:07pm

Thanks Gerri, Kelly and Jacob's mom. I appreciate your kind and reassuring thoughts.

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Permalink Reply by Gerri on October 18, 2011 at 6:08pm

You're welcome:) Alarmist warnings aren't particularly helpful, or healthy.

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Permalink Reply by Elizabeth on October 18, 2011 at 6:45pm

I don't think they're inevitable but it's definitely unusual not to have ANY. The hormonal shifts of childhood pretty much guarantee a certain amount of instability in blood sugar even during the night. You must either have some wicked good basal control going on, or else you've got some sort of guardian angel slipping him some sugar overnight! :)

What's his a1c like? Is it possible that his overnight basal rate is too low and he's therefore staying higher than he should overnight, and then coming back down to his starting point by morning? We put Eric (my son, age 4) on a CGM because we wanted to see his overnight patterns and a 2 or 3 a.m. test really wasn't telling us much, and sure enough, we found he was doing a lovely parabola --up up up after about 9:30 PM (not visible to the test when he went to bed at 8:00) and then gliding down down down after about 2:30 AM (and of course I was testing at 2). So what it meant was, we weren't giving him enough basal from about 9-12, and then correcting him at 2:30 would wind up giving him too much because the basal setting from 2-4 didn't change to match his decreased insulin needs. Now we have him on a basal pattern that rises from 9-12 and dips down from 2-4. We still get weird fluctuations from time to time, usually when he's sick, but at least with the CGM I can *see* them.

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