A couple of weeks ago I was back up in Pennsylvania visiting family. After coming home from my brother’s house where my daughter and two nieces and one nephew were playing for a few hours, I felt extremely tired. I wasn’t sure if it was just the exhaustion of watching 4 kids play and runaround or the lack of sleep was just catching up to me.
I ended up falling asleep around 9-10 p.m. that night. I know that might sound late to some people, but to me, that is early.
The next day I was still a little sluggish but decided to go to the park to meet up with my friend’s kids and I just felt like crap. I was just sitting on the bench watching the kids have fun, but didn’t feel like getting up to do anything.
Ketones
My first thought was ketones. Definitely ketones.
Now, let me give a little history here. In my 14 years of living with diabetes, I have never, ever, checked for ketones at home.
Never.
My mentality has always been to just drink a lot of water when I had a high blood sugar or just felt sluggish with a “normal” blood sugar.
My brother was coming to the park too, so he was going to bring my some ketone sticks to check. Well, as soon as I got home, I checked and I had trace ketones.
I guessed right. That’s why I was sluggish and tired.
But then several hours later I felt warm.
So I checked my temperature.
101.4
Ut-oh.
That’s not normal.
Fever
I went for the Tylenol and hope that the fever broke and I would be ok.
Well, this went on for 2 days. Fever would go away, then come back, then go away and come back with the help of Tylenol.
I didn’t want to take Tylenol for more than 2-3 days so I knew that come Monday morning I was going to the doctor.
Now I know that with type 1 diabetes, you shouldn’t mess around with a fever, but here’s why I did.
No Out of State Insurance
My ACA insurance plan is only good in the state of Florida. I didn’t know that when I chose the plan, but if I went to the doctor or ER in PA, I would be set back a couple hundred dollars, if not more.
I was willing to go to the doctor or ER on the 3rd day if I had to, but I wanted to try and beat the fever.
Luckily, on the 3rd day I woke up and the fever was below 99.1. A few times it crept to about 99.3 that day, but nothing higher than that.
Now, I thought this was weird because I had an appetite, I wasn’t vomiting or feeling like I had to. Just a fever and tired.
I also had trace ketones the whole time this was occurring as well.
I am the type of person that coughs once and freaks out and thinks that something horribly wrong is happening. So I kept freaking myself out that something more serious was or still is going on.
Now that I am back in Florida I have set up a doctor’s appointment for next week to just get a check up and make sure everything is working inside of me.
I know that if you are reading this you are probably screaming through the computer screen or smart phone, that I should have went to the hospital or saw a doctor.
And you are 100% correct. I should have.
But I chose not to, so now I am hoping that it wasn’t anything serious that had long lasting effects on my body.
But we shall find out soon enough.
Actually, Chris, I would have done much the same thing. The ketones were likely announcing the viral infection and with them falling so quickly it was likely ok. Keytones can occur when we do not eat so it was certainly not unusual to have them during the post fever. the issue usually is when insulin is not covering sustained high blood sugars.
My sense is that you should check your ACA plan. Sometimes they carry an out of network feature when traveling. Definitely, check that out.
There’s not a whole lot to be done with a minor viral infection anyway except rest as much as possible and stay hydrated.