Highs and Lows – or Hypers and Hypos

Like most people these days I reckon, weekends are usually very busy for my family. The fast pace of the weekend seems to throw my diet out of balance: I don’t eat on time, test as regularly, and generally don’t feel as good late Sunday into Monday mornings. After a very off Sunday/Monday last week, I resolved to do a better job this weekend and weekends ahead. I decided to carry my meter with me this weekend, which I have, to make sure I’m testing when I should and I’ve done that. And this is a good habit I think I need to get into and stay with for a while at least. However weekends haven’t been my only difficulty of late; I’ve been having a real time keeping my BG (blood glucose) up where it should be, not getting it down. In fact, I spend more time and calories/carbs on trying to get my BG up than I do on almost anything else, or so it feels.

One day late this past week I forgot to take my meds when I got up; it wasn’t until around 2:00 when I went to get my afternoon doses that I realized this mistake. So, I took my morning pills and called the doctor to see what I should do about my evening dose. She said my readings would be off no matter what so I could take or skip it; I chose to skip it. During this approximately 36 hour long window I realized something: the morning I missed my dose was the only afternoon in weeks I’d not fought to get my BG up! That evening had been a problem and the next afternoon, too, but the single missed-dose day had been closer to a real normal.

Yesterday I used my meter and my watch to make sure I was testing and eating right, even on the go. And again I was fighting really low numbers; many of these readings were well below “safe”, in the 50s. Below is a “snapshot” of my readings: it shows only the highest, average and lowest reading of the day, with the green bar being normal.

As you can see, there was a definite problem pattern developing.

Last night I did some research on the two meds I’m taking and found some interesting facts. In short, I concluded that the Glyburide is the cause of the problem and that it’s not really good for me in the first place.

Today I removed the Glyburide from my dosage box for this week. I’m going to eliminate it for the week and see how I do. I suspect that I’m going to see a big change, and feel a lot better, without this medicine in my body. I’ll report my findings back here in a week or so, as week as to my doctor.

For mor information on how Glyburide works see THIS LINK.