January 4th, 2012 by KerriSparling in Opinion, True Stories
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High blood sugars come in three different tiers for me: No Big Deal (NBD), Tricky Little Sucker (TLS), and What The Eff (WTE).
No Big Deal (NBD) highs are the ones I see when I first hear the Dexcom BEEEEEEEP!ing. They are the 180 – 240 mg/dL highs, where I’m cruising out of range, but not so far outside that it takes hours to correct. The NBD highs are usually mild in their symptoms (kind of thirsty, sort of tired, maybe wouldn’t have noticed if the Dex hadn’t hollered) are thankfully short in their duration, so long as I’m on the ball about keeping tabs on my blood sugars.
Tricky Little Sucker (TLS) highs are obnoxious pieces of garbage that hang on for hours. These highs are the ones where you hit anything over 200 mg/dL and just ride there for hours. HOURS. Like you can undecorate the Christmas tree and pack up all the holiday nonsense back into the attic and STILL find yourself rolling outside the threshold. They’re the ones that Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
October 28th, 2011 by KerriSparling in Opinion
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For a good, long time, I ran higher than usual on purpose because of my focus on the baby and my fear of low blood sugars while I was responsible for her care. In the last few months, I’ve started to lower my blood sugar goals to reclaim a little more control and tighten up that freaking standard deviation.
Which also means that my sensitivity to low blood sugars is tossed out the window once again, along with any whisper of a symptom. (“Pssssst. You’re low.”)
So these lows are starting to creep back into rotation. For a few weeks, it was Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
September 25th, 2011 by KerriSparling in True Stories
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Normally, my vision is better than 20/20. (20/15 is mine, which always prompts my eye doctor to say “Oh, you should be a pilot!” and then I laugh my face off because, really, do you know me, lady?) I’m lucky not to wear glasses or contacts at this point in my life, especially considering that everyone else in my family needs a little visual help at this point.
I’m grateful that my vision is excellent most of the time, despite a few diabetic retinopathy issues. But for the last 48 hours, it’s been a little dodgy, and managing diabetes while my eyesight is impaired has been challenging. Yesterday was the worst day for this latest relapse of the ol’ corneal abrasion, so my vision was very limited in the affected eye (and the other eye was swollen in a lovely, compassionate response to its friend’s injury, so basically I look like I’d been tagged in the face with a baseball – twice.).
My Dexcom graph was next-to-impossible to read. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
September 15th, 2011 by KerriSparling in News
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I’m not hooked on Apple products (I refuse to get an iPhone because I’m addicted to my Blackberry), but Chris and I do love that foolish iPad. And I love seeing apps for diabetes devices stocking the virtual shelves in the iTunes store. Makes me feel like we’re busting in to the mainstream, as a community.
Which is why I’m excited to see the first app from Dexcom. (And it’s free … as these apps should be, in my opinion.) While I’m hopeful that future apps include a way for the Dexcom receiver to transfer data to Mac products (because running parallels on my Mac is wicked annoying), this is a great start for people who are looking for introductory information on the Dexcom system. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
August 23rd, 2011 by KerriSparling in Opinion
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I have several One Touch meters, a Freestyle one, and a Dexcom continuous glucose monitor that I consult on a regular basis. (Not usually at the same time, but I have been doing multiple checks recently. More on that below.) I also have an Agamatrix meter and an Accu-chek one, somewhere in the diabetes cupboard in the bathroom, only without any strips that aren’t expired.
And I have a lot of anxiety when it comes to glucose meters. The variability of these machines makes me crazy in the head, and it caused me a lot of grief when I was pregnant, because my blood sugar goal range at that point was so tight and so specific, and any variability was huge for me. (I shared some samples of wonky results in this post.)
In the last few weeks, I’ve been doing some experimenting with my meters, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*
