Daylight Savings

Week 1: SHARE
Sunday, November 7

Daylight Savings – Daylight Savings ended today, so you got an extra hour of sleep! Some people will need to adjust their insulin pump clocks, others may simply change the clocks on their wall. Does an hour change affect your diabetes management?

I have a love/hate relationship with Daylight Savings Time.  I love "falling back," but I hate having to "spring forward"!  The extra hour of sleep last night was wonderful.  Since I'm a Type 2 and not on any medications or insulin, Daylight Savings didn't have much of an impact on my Diabetes management...Other than the fact that due to that extra hour of sleep, combined with sleeping in late, my blood glucose was low when I got up this morning!

My husband had changed the time on the microwave clock, but then shortly after we got back from lunch, our power went out, so now we'll have to change our clocks again.  I was just fixing to write today's post when I realized my laptop wasn't getting electricity from its cord, and it took us a little while to figure out that the power in the whole house was out.  Apparently, the whole town was without electricity, and it just now came back on...I was excited not only to have my laptop going again, but also to be able to turn the heater on...I was freezing under my blanket!

The past couple of days have been a series of ups and downs for me.  On Friday night, my husband and I ate at a steakhouse on our trip.  I thought I did "good", but then my blood sugar was crazy high two hours down the road...When I first checked it, it said 371!  I was in disbelief that it could be that high, so I retested and got 289.  When I thought back over what I ate, I figured out that it must have been the couple of corn muffins I ate at supper.  They were pretty sweet, but I never dreamed they would cause my blood glucose to be that high!  Since I've been testing, those are the highest numbers I've ever gotten--the day I was diagnosed, I was at 257, and it hasn't been that high since then.  I was angry at myself for having such a high reading, and I was disappointed since I thought I had eaten a pretty balanced meal.  Then, since we were on the highway and it was dark, I couldn't do anything to bring it down--Usually if I get a higher reading, I exercise.  Consequently, I was left to sit there knowing that it was high, and I couldn't do anything about it.  I finally made piece with knowing that it would most likely eventually come down on its own, and that tomorrow was a new day.  No matter how optimistic you are, though, things like that can very easily discourage you.  I think the most important thing in times like that is to figure out what lead to the high reading, and do your best in the future not to repeat it. 

Even though I'm living with a disease characterized by these highs and lows, my Type A personality and perfectionism sometimes get the best of me.  I have high expectations for staying in my target range, and I get frustrated when I fall outside of it.  I'm working on managing those feelings, though, especially since I know that stress releases hormones that raise you blood sugar even more.  Keeping that balanec between denial and preoccupation is just a day to day battle!