Viral

[Clare153]

Good morning, feeling a little sorry for myself today. I'm rarely ill (despite a list of diagnoses longer than my shopping list!) but I've got a stinker of a cold, first one since starting medication. I thought being sick would make bs go up, but for the last day or two mine is stubbornly low for hours and then switching to high for hours, no rhyme or reason. I've cut down the gliclazide at tea time as I've just had my third night of being between 3.5 and 4 for hours, while sleeping through it. And I'm freezing cold, never been This cold in August in all my life!

I guess I'm just experiencing my first taste of what a virus can do?

 

[rebrascora]

Really sorry to hear you are unwell and feeling so rough and yes, trying to mange diabetes through illness is an added struggle and it doesn't always do what you expect but well done for reducing your medication to keep yourself safe. Obviously, if you are not eating much because you feel ill, then you will need less gliclazide.
I am guessing that you are using Libre or other CGM since you mention sleeping through some lows but do be aware that Libre sometimes misreports lows during the night particularly especially if you lie on the sensor and I imagine because you are feeling unwell, you will be tossing and turning in your sleep more than usual, so those lows may not be accurate. You should double check any lows with a finger prick if at all possible, but obviously if you don't wake up, you can't. 🙄, but I would not worry too much about those lows if you haven't verified them and they are not dangerously low.

Hope you are feeling better soon and things settle down with your BG levels.

 

[Clare153]

Really sorry to hear you are unwell and feeling so rough and yes, trying to mange diabetes through illness is an added struggle and it doesn't always do what you expect but well done for reducing your medication to keep yourself safe. Obviously, if you are not eating much because you feel ill, then you will need less gliclazide.
I am guessing that you are using Libre or other CGM since you mention sleeping through some lows but do be aware that Libre sometimes misreports lows during the night particularly especially if you lie on the sensor and I imagine because you are feeling unwell, you will be tossing and turning in your sleep more than usual, so those lows may not be accurate. You should double check any lows with a finger prick if at all possible, but obviously if you don't wake up, you can't. 🙄, but I would not worry too much about those lows if you haven't verified them and they are not dangerously low.

Hope you are feeling better soon and things settle down with your BG levels.

Thank you. I think you might be right about lieing on the sensor. It was a new one on Friday and I think where I've got it is just right for squashing it when I lie on my right side!

 

[harbottle]

I find when I put sensors on the first day they are occasionally very, very erratic and are quite low a lot of the time (i.e. showing 3.5 when a fingerprick gives over 5.) This eventually corrects itself - now I follow the advice here and put them on a day in advance and this seems to improve stability.

 

[Clare153]

I find when I put sensors on the first day they are occasionally very, very erratic and are quite low a lot of the time (i.e. showing 3.5 when a fingerprick gives over 5.) This eventually corrects itself - now I follow the advice here and put them on a day in advance and this seems to improve stability.

I have a friend who reports this too, and when I changed mine time before last over the warm up time it supposedly dropped from 8 ish to 3 ish so I suspected that one was being a bit iffy when new too.
I think it might be the position this time, so when I lie on that side its completely squashed, will put the next one further back I think.

 

[harbottle]

It's variable for me - I've used perhaps a dozen sensors, and I've only had perhaps 3 or 4 be very erratic at the start.
One did once go very odd halfway through its time period - kept dropping down to the 3s for a day even when it wasn't anywhere near there.