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Category: Insulin Pump Problems

Restarting Sugar Free Saturday

Chris Stocker 3 Comments

A long time I came up with an idea to start something called “Sugar-Free Saturday.”  It wasn’t a completely sugar-free Saturday, but I was not going to eat things with a lot of sugar like ice cream, desserts, or any other extremely sugary items.  I will still eat bread and some chips (which I don’t eat much of anyway), but it was just a way to eliminate a day of high sugar intake that way I can cut down slowly on the amount of insulin that I am using.  I also wrote recently about wanting to switch to an OmniPod, but I am too fat because I use on average 150-180 units of insulin a day (yes, it’s a lot, I know).  I am doing everything possible to cut back consistently so maybe I can switch at the beginning of next year.  But that will depend on the insurance because they are the ones that decide how we live our lives right?

I have been perfectly fine with using my MiniMed Paradigm 722 for several years, zero problems with it.  So that is not the reason that I want to switch, I just have found myself with a lot of highs when I go to the beach or I go to the pool because I am in the water and I am not connected to my pump.  Then when I come back to the towel or whatever, I have to test every single time to see how high it went up or down or whatever, then re-connect, and hopefully not have to insert a new infusion site because the one that I am wearing fell off from the saltwater.  Whoa, that was a lot longer of a rant than I had expected.

Back to the point that I was getting to at the beginning of the post.  I am declaring Saturdays, Sugar-Free Saturdays again.  Eventually this will hopefully become the norm and I will have to declare just one day a week an actual sugar Saturday.

Have a great rest of the weekend everybody, Monday will be here before you know it unfortunately.

It’s An Insulin Pump, You Idiot!

Chris Stocker 7 Comments

How many times have you heard yourself use this phrase, or something close to it?  Sometimes I use words a little more intense then idiot.  I don’t like to call people idiots because you don’t know there education background and where they grew up.  So  they may have never heard of diabetes, I know I knew nothing about it before I was diagnosed.  But there are times when people just piss me off about it.

Last week when I went to a country concert and was patted down because God forbid you actually sneak in some liquor instead of paying $12 for one beer.  He felt the insulin pump and asked me to take it out and I explained it’s an insulin pump.  This guy was trying to do his job, I understand, but just because you are wearing a yellow jacket that says “Security” doesn’t give you the right to act like a flat-top cop and think you control things.

I took it out of my pocket and he actually touched it to feel it, for what, I have no idea.  When he handed it back to me, I noticed that a button was pushed.  What if he pushed the button 3 times and set a bolus for me, who knows, maybe a max bolus of 25 units and I had no idea about it?  Then I’d have to go and knock down about 5 hot dogs and 5 fries which would probably be more expensive then a trip to the ER!

I’d love to hear your experiences of people giving you problems of an insulin pump, or when you have been asked if it’s a “pager” and to “turn it off”.

Have a Great Day!

High Blood Sugars at the Hockey Game

Chris Stocker

Last night I went to the Florida Panthers vs. Washington Capitals hockey game. It was embarrassing to be a Panthers fan last night because they got their butts handed to them, to speak in nice terms. My account rep had upgraded my seats for me for that game so we were sitting in the Lexus Club level where the food options are a lot larger than at the regular concession booths. This isn’t sounding good for somebody with type 1 diabetes who just had food court Chinese food about 2 hours prior to the game. Can you see where this is leading?

Amanda was hungry, so I told her to get whatever she wanted and I would just finish what she didn’t eat because I wasn’t really hungry. I tested my blood sugar before she ate and I was at 307. High, yes, but I wear an insulin pump, I can correct that easily. I take a correction bolus and wait about 5 minutes before I do my little insulin check. About 10-12 times a day I will rub the infusion set and then smell my fingers for insulin. Amanda tells me that I need to be less obvious when I do it, because I look really weird, which I agree, I probably do.

When I felt the infusion set, it was soaked, so I knew I was going to smell that disgusting smell of insulin, and I did! In a normal situation I would have freaked out and been worried that my sugar is going to stay high. Normally, I would just bolus like 25 units knowing that not all of it was going to get absorbed. Luckily, I had inserted an infusion set on my backside a few nights ago, but since my sugar was high at the time I put a second one in on my stomach. When my sugar is high, infusion sets on the butt don’t work. So I didn’t take that one out, so I was able to hook up the tubing to that.

Now the hardest part is trying to figure out how much insulin my body actually did absorb. I bolused at about 90% and when I went to bed I was at 195 and woke up at 156.

Now for a quick update on my cough and ear thing that I have had going on forever, it seems like. My ear is still clogged, the nasal spray I was prescribed doesn’t work and when I try to clear them myself, it just makes them more clogged. I am going to try the Neti Pot again tonight and see what that does for me. I have an appointment on Monday, so we will see how that goes.

Life of a Diabetic Weekend Recap

Chris Stocker

First, I want to thank you all for your feedback, RT’s, and comments from the Fired Up Friday post about drink options.  I am glad to hear that I am not just being a drama queen (or would it be king?) and overreacting to something like this.  Anywho, the weekend was great!  It of course went by way too fast, but I accomplished a lot.  Friday night, Amanda and I were going to see that Shutter Island movie but decided to wait a week or two so there is not as many people there when we go to see it.  I hate being in a crowded movie theater, I don’t like tight spaces.  Plus, since I’m diabetic, my blood sugar can get high as we all know and I will need to run to the bathroom a million times during the movie.  Since, we decided not to go that night, we didn’t do anything.  My blood sugars were still a little high all night Friday, in the 175-190 range.

Saturday morning was the WordCamp Miami conference, so I was up at 6:00 a.m.  I got my stuff ready the night before because I knew I would forget either my meter, or extra insulin, or a couple extra infusion sets, etc.  The conference was a lot of fun and I learned a lot more about WordPress then I initially knew going down there, so it was well worth it.  If you are interested in that type of geeky, web stuff as well, then read my other blog as well, Chris Stocker, Inc. because I don’t talk too much about on it here.  Saturday night we headed up to West Palm Beach for the Opening Night of the Waterfront.  It was basically just some streets blocked off and lots of food, beer, live entertainment.  I’m not so sure about the exact history of it, but I gave you a link if you’re interested, but it was fun.  Amanda and I ate at some Mexican place and the insulin didn’t seem to take, so that type 1 diabetes thing I have made the sugars a little high, about 275.

Sunday morning was another little community thing that Amanda, her brother, and myself went to.  It was in Lake Worth, FL and it was some outdoor thing where artists and kids were drawing on the street with chalk, it was actually pretty damn cool.  I’m having trouble with my camera uploading things, so I will post some of the pictures tomorrow from it.  Other than that, it was time to go home and get to work.  I have a few blogs that I am almost finished designing for clients and a couple of other websites that are still in process.  I’m getting a little stressed from the work, but after these couple projects are finished it will slow down because there aren’t any other large projects lined up right now, but I prefer to be extremely busy like that.  The busier I am, the more of these I drink.Rip It Sugar Free Energy Drink - Diabetes

Finally, for the bad news.  My ear is still clogged up pretty bad, so I am going back to the doctor on Tuesday to just make sure that I don’t have an infection or something else worse going on.  I found a place that will accept the insurance, so it won’t be as much money to pay for this visit.  I really appreciate all your help and suggestions.  The Neti Pot worked miracles, but it doesn’t keep it un-clogged, it always seems to clog back up after I use it, or sometimes it doesn’t even work.  It’s just becoming frustrating right now.  But, just another obstacle to overcome when you have a life of a diabetic

Blood Sugars Stayed High All Sunday

Chris Stocker

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Sunday was just very blah.  Even after I posted the blog, it didn’t get much better.  My blood sugar hit a high of 465, right before I was to go to dinner.  I took almost a 17 unit correction and knew I wouldn’t be eating for about another 30-45 minutes.  Everybody ordered pizza, but I knew that I obviously couldn’t eat that  with a high blood sugar, so I opted out for a Greek salad.  Luckily, the waitress forgot to put my order in and my salad came out 10 minutes after everybody else was eating.  This gave my sugar more time to come down, which it came down to 285 before I ate.  It just felt like crap sitting there not being able to eat the pizza because my sugar was so high.  But this is that’s what goes on sometimes when you’re living a life with diabetes.High Blood Sugar

The salad was good for my diet however, so that was one good thing.  One of the in-laws had asked me, why I was eating salad, was it better for my diabetic diet?  I said, well I’m just on a general diet, nothing special because I am diabetic, I have insulin to take if I eat bad things.  After having a short conversation, I said why don’t you read my diabetes blog on a daily basis, because you can learn a lot about diabetes from it, and from reading one of the other diabetes blogs.  Hopefully you all see your reader base go up by one 🙂

Because of the high blood sugars yesterday, I decided to take a break from my BBQ sauce that I have fell in love with over the past several weeks.  I figured that it would be a good idea to keep that high fructose corn syrup out of my diet for a while.  Somebody sent me an e-mail after I wrote that post about their sauce being the only one approved by the ADA, I’d love to try it, if you are out there listening.

Well it is a Monday, so I should probably start working on some projects that I probably slacked off Golf Courseon over the weekend.  I’d so much rather be doing this again (see picture on left, Par 5, second shot)

Just a Blah Sunday Morning

Chris Stocker

This Sunday morning has not had the greatest start to it so far.  For one, I had a high blood sugar all night long.  Partially my fault, and partially because a bad site.  I changed the site this morning and my sugars are still a little high, but slowly coming down.  I hate eating when I have a high and am trying to correct it, but I had just woken up and there was sausage and gravy over biscuits waiting for me downstairs, so I just had to.  The weather outside is not very nice, not bad, just not nice.  It is cloudy and just looks, blah.  I shouldn’t complain though because it is about 75 here today.

To add to that I have this annoying cough that won’t go away.  I’ve had it for about 2 days, but now it is at it’s worst.  Amanda has been sick with a little cold, so I think I am picking that up as well.  I’m hoping it calms down a little for dinner tonight.  It is Amanda’s grandmother’s birthday so the whole family is heading to a local pizza joint for dinner.  Today is also another big day in my sports world, no not the Pro Bowl.  Florida Panthers best player, David Booth makes his return today after being injured with head injuries since October.  The worst part is that the game is home, I have tickets, and I am skipping it for the family dinner.

Speaking about sports, last night my alumni Florida Atlantic University played a women’s / men’s doubleheader in basketball against their rival Florida International University.  This is a big game in itself, but even bigger last night.  Former Piston’s star, Isiah Thomas is now their head coach, so of course the FAU fans were getting on him big time about his little mishap while being the Knicks coach.  FAU kicked butt and won.

One final thing, I watched the Julie & Julia movie last night, it was ok.  I liked the part of the movie when she was blogging, but the France junk I didn’t like.

Well, my coffee is out, so I need a refill and I need to get back to work.  Had a few proposals get denied, so time to get working on some new ones.

Hey JDRF & BD – This is What I Want in an Insulin Pump

Chris Stocker 4 Comments

All this press about all these new technologies and studies and companies joining up with non-profits to do this and to do that, and blah blah blah.  At first when I read the post by Amy from Diabetes Mine about JDRF and BD joining forces, it instantly just reminded me of the post I just had last week about why there will never be a cure! Next, it made me think, well what exactly is it that I want from an insulin pump or what do I want to have in order to manage my diabetes.  This is not like a Jetson’s post.  I am trying to keep this stuff logical and something that can happen in the near future.

Easy to Use

The very first thing that I want is for the device to be very easy to use.  Now that all pumps have built in carb counting and insulin suggestions, it makes life so much easier.  I love that they calculate how much active insulin there is.  Not too many buttons, just 2 or 3 at max to do what I need to do.

Convenient

What I mean by this is that I want to be able to use my iPhone to link with my pump.  My iPhone is my life, literally.  I work from it, I communicate with family, Amanda has one also so we have apps that easily keep us in touch and on the same page with each others calendars etc.  I want to be able to just pull out my phone at the dinner table or at a restaurant and hit a few buttons and then bam, there goes the insulin.  I would like to also just have to use my phone as a meter, not just anyphone, because I know there are phones out there, but the iPhone.

Tubeless

I still use a Medtronic Paradigm, so I have never even used the tubeless / wireless OmniPod yet.  The number reason that I don’t is because I use about 120 some units of insulin a day.  That only holds 200, so I would be changing the pod every day and a half.  I would a pod to be able to carry, let’s say, 600 units of insulin.  I basically only want to change reservoirs and infusion sets, or pods just once a week.  It’s less work I have to do and less garbage and sharps containers I go through.  Charge the same price, it doesn’t matter.

CGM Built-In

I want the CGM and the pod or infusion set to the be the same insertion.  I don’t want to have to wear two separate things.  Very clear on that.

Well, that is what I want in my insulin pump.  I know some of these things exist, but not all in the same pump.  So, when JDRF is giving their millions to these companies, I hope they have spoken with diabetics themselves on what we want, not just what they want to create and think will make life easier.

What do you want?

Late Night High with a 17 Unit Bolus Correction

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

Last night I was up very late again.  I don’t know why I even mention that because it is a norm for me now.  My new shutdown time is 3:00 a.m.  That is when I finish up whatever last project I am working on, well maybe not the whole project but part of it and then call it quits, lay down on the sofa bed and fall asleep.  Right now I am living with Amanda and her family and I don’t have a bedroom.  There is a family room upstairs along with 3 bedrooms, Amanda’s and her two brothers.  The family room is pretty much my living quarters.  This also happens to be where the computer desk is, so it is very convenient for me.  They all go to bed and shut their doors and I stay up, typing and clicking away not keeping anybody up.  Well, last night, my diabetes kept me up.

I have been eating somewhat healthy, but for some reason last night I wanted some type of dessert.  I was going to eat something healthy, but then Friendly’s was brought up, which is literally right across the street from the house.  We live on a long road, so it is about 0.5 mile walk total, so we figured, hey we will walk there and back and that will burn at least SOME of the calories off.  I tested my sugar and it was 155 when I ate the ice cream.  3 hours later, my blood sugar had sky-rocketed to 492!  This was at about 12-ish and I knew I would still be up for about another 2-3 hours doing work, so no big deal, I took my correction, which just so happened to be 17 units!  Seriously, what kind of correction takes 17 units.

I was knocking out my work like it was my job, oh yea, it is, and I had to have an energy drink because I just couldn’t go without one.  I knew this wasn’t going to be the best for me since my sugar is that high because caffeine makes my sugars go crazy some times.  Before I went to bed at 3:15 I tested again and my sugar was down to 230, so I was confident that come morning time when I woke up at 7:30 that my sugar levels would be around 150-ish.  Well I was a little wrong on that estimate as well.  When I tested my sugar again at about 8:30 it was still elevated at 215.  It still came down from 495 to 215 in 6-7 hours, but not where I wanted it to be at. As I am typing this post now at 12:30 my sugar was just 127, so we are good to go and it is almost lunch time.

I posted my sugar last night on Twitter and I want to thank @mydiabeticheart , @tinashaye , and @lizalovecyprus for all your kind support with the @ replies last night.

Not a Great Weekend For Diet and Blood Sugar

Chris Stocker

This weekend was not so good for the blood sugars or my diet.  My levels were running up close towards the mid 200’s on average all weekend.  Last night after dinner my blood sugar was over 400 for about 3-4 hours be fore it finally came down in the middle of the night.  When it is that high the first thing that I do is change my site.  It’s weird though because my sugar was 115, and then I ate a salad and about 30 minutes later I changed my site and about 30 minutes after that I had chinese food for dinner.

That leads into why my diet wasn’t so good this weekend as well.  Last night I had chinese food from Pei Wei.  On Saturday I didn’t get home until 6 and had to leave at 6:30 for the Panthers game, so I had to stop at Burger King quickly to pick something up.  I know I could have eaten a little better while ordering from BK, but I was starving and haven’t had BK in forever so I decided to go with two of their spicy chicken sandwiches and a junior whopper, like I said, not the best decision I ever made.  Friday night was even worse.  I went to a friend’s naturalization party, I know who has ever gone to one of those before!  It was a place in Boca Raton called The Lodge.  The beer is not normal beer, so it was a little expensive, but the food was amazing.  We had some BBQ chicken nachos and a grilled chicken sandwich.  My blood sugar was about 300 at the end of the night, but the amount of food that I ate was incredible.

I’m becoming thirsty right now thinking about all of these high blood sugars!  I might even have to go to the bathroom soon too.  Funny how thinking about certain things makes your brain want water and go to bathroom.

The weekend was very busy, so fast food just seemed like the right option for me.  I started doing some side work at a local fitness center helping out with directing sports during birthday parties and events for the little kids.  I coach football, so I enjoy doing these things on the side.  At the same time trying to keep up with the consulting work because unfortunately that doesn’t stop after 5 p.m. on a Friday.

Speaking of work, it is time to get back to it.  I hope everybody’s week is off to a great start.  See you all on Twitter throughout the day.  I’m going to have a nice little surprise for everybody on Twitter on February 1, so if you’re not following me yet, you better get to it, because the contest will be on Twitter only!

Another High at the Movies

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

I’m not used to blogging on Sunday’s but I really want to accomplish this one post a day for a whole month thing.  I am actually going to try and continue to do this, not just for this month, but for the year, and then forever.  You just start to run out of things to talk about.  But today I want to talk about a really bad high that I had on Thursday night.

I went to a premiere for the new movie Pirate Radio and tested my sugar before I went in, 170.  Last time I went to the movies, I was over 400, so I didn’t want that to happen again.  As for the movie, two thumbs up.  It was one of the funnier movies that I have seen in a long time, definitely was not expecting it to be so funny, but it was.  After the movie I didn’t check my sugar because my meter was in the car and I thought we would just go right home after the movie.  Except, my tummy was telling me that I needed some food.

We were up in City Place in West Palm Beach, FL, which is a beautiful place if you’re ever in the area, so we decided to go to Cheeburger-Cheeburger.  Now, you can’t go there and not get a milkshake, so I got a strawberry cheesecake with Reese’s Piece’s mixed in, best shake I have ever had.  I also had a cheeseburger, not a big one, and some fries and onion rings.  I took around 25 unit bolus, but my site was stinging a little when the insulin was going on, so that usually means that something is wrong.  When I got home and tested, my suspicions were true.  Blood sugar 475.

I changed my infusion set and bolused for the correction, when I woke up I was a 117.  I felt like crap in the morning though because when I go to bed really high and wake up low or normal, it just messes with my body.  But I am happy that the sugar came back down.

Happy Sunday people.