Monday, April 23, 2012

Symilin (part 2): low-dose + thai food

As long as we're talking aobut food... last week's grilled chicken.

We showed up for the last night of the special Thai New Year menu at our local restaurant. We were able to get in on some rare, small dishes that you don't normally see. They were small plates of the festive foods you typically eat around Thai New Year. In this case, Happy 2555!

I tried Symilin last night in a typical situation where I get high blood sugar after a meal. I went in with a BG of 115 mg/dl and 15 mcg in my system. I had a beer and ordered tom car, pork satay and a red curry tilapia dish. We also shared a green papaya salad.

I did not bolus at all upon sitting down. I wanted to make sure I was rising before I did anything. I ate my entire meal and began feeling rather full and my BG hadn't budged at all. It was stuck at 117 mg/dl. for over an hour of eating and drinking. Usually, if I sit down and eat, I get a rise at the same time as I begin to feel full. It was surprising for me to see this on my CGMS because I consumed a decent amount of liquid carbs, beer and soup. The soup was a very flavorful spicy, limey, herbal, coconut milk soup. But... you can taste sugar in it's backbone.

Well, the anomaly only lasted a little while. I had a fairly fast rise from those liquid carbs, eventually. Before I had a chance to see a rise on my CGMS and bolus, I was already way up. When I got to the car my BG was 160 mg/dl  on the meter and rising, but my CGMS was still hanging out at 117 mg/dl (for a second there, I was mad at my sensor). So, it had to have happened fast. I did a correction bolus instead of a meal bolus. My sensor did finally catch up with my actual BG, so it wasn't in the doghouse anymore. Two hours later I took another correction bolus and went on the elliptical for 15 minutes. The correction worked and I was back to 100 mg/dl by 10:00pm.

I was worried about my overnight numbers going back up, but I stayed 80-90 mg/dl all night and woke up at 78 mg/dl. Seems like it worked out. 

All in all, the excursion was my only one for the day, and my numbers for the day were okay. I think I'll have to have more confidence to bolus and head off fast rises like that, but I don't typically drink beer and eat sweet soups. And, I'm still studying the effects of this peculiar hormone...

Average: 108 md/dl
Standard Deviation: 38

2 comments:

  1. That is one good-looking chicken! I am really fascinated to hear how the Symilin is working for you. So far, so good!

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    1. Yes, it's a interesting experiment. It's almost second nature for me to carry a pen in my meter case and take an injection before a meal. So, there's nothing too inconvenient about it. I'm at 50% the maximum dose, and so far I think it works pretty well. Today I used closer to my normal lunch bolus and scraped along the bottom of my comfortable range (70s) for about an hour, but it was fine.

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