Posts Tagged ‘High Blood Sugar’

Death By Frosted Flakes

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

I told my wife the other day that if I ever got diagnosed with some nasty disease and only had a day to live, I’d take myself out with Frosted flakes and half and half. (Actually, I said I’d used heavy whipping cream, but I tried it the other day, and it was so thick it was hard to eat… LOL) That said, I’m just kidding. But, man Frosted flakes are good…

The reason I’m rambling on about this is because I had a bowl of them the other day, for the first time in like 30 years, and dang they were good. But, they jacked my blood sugar through the roof in about 2 seconds flat. Since I’m sure that this happens to other diabetics from time to time, I’m going to share a little secret with you on how to get your blood sugars down ASAP.

What I do when my blood sugar gets super high, is to take my insulin in the my shoulder, high up and on the inside in the tender skin by my chest. Then, once the insulin is in, rub it really hard for a full minute. Make the spot hurt and make it hot with friction. I can make my blood sugar drop by 150-200 points in an hour if I need to. (Luckily that doesn’t happen too often, but it does happen to all of us from time to time, so this is just a heads up so you know what to try…)

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Posted in Blood Sugar | No Comments »

what happens to a type 1 diabetic if they dont take insulin for 1 week?

Monday, November 16th, 2009

OK, that question keeps showing up in my log files for this site, so I’m going to answer it because it scares the hell out of me that anyone would be asking it. The answer is: If a type 1 diabetic doesn’t take his or her insulin for a week, then they will die. As a matter of fact, they will die way before the week is up. A type 1 diabetic who doesn’t take their insulin will die after just a day or three, especially if they eat more than just protein and fat. If they eat carbs, they’re going to be dead even quicker.

While you’d think that a type 1 diabetic could last awhile if they didn’t eat anything, or just ate meat and fat, that’s just not true. A type 1 diabetic, just like everyone else, needs insulin to move the sugar in the body into the cells so that your brain and muscles can work. So, even if you’re not eating anything, you still need insulin so that your cells can use the energy that your body provides from fat stores. For example; I need 60 units of insulin a day just to keep my body working, and that’s just my basil rate, I need more if I eat anything.

On the first day that the diabetic doesn’t have insulin, he or she is going to feel nauseous, sweating and have a really bad headache. The headache is from their blood getting thicker and thicker. It will get so thick that it will start popping the smaller blood vessels in the head and eyes. After their blood sugar gets over 600, they will start going into a coma, and if they don’t receive treatment quickly, they will experience brain death from lack of nutrients and oxygen, followed by clinical death. All of this can happen in a day, or just a few hours, depending on the diabetic and how brittle they are and how many carbs they had to eat.

All I can tell you is that if you’re a diabetic, make sure you keep a couple weeks worth of insulin around at all times, and ALWAYS take your blood glucose and insulin kit with you wherever you go. Something as simple as forgetting your insulin kit when having lunch with a friend, then having a flat tire on the way home and forgetting your cell phone, could kill you.

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Posted in Insulin Information | 3 Comments »