Get me off this thing.
This my friends is the Glucoaster.
If you’re not familiar with this horrendous ride, the Glucoaster refers to a day full of wide swings in your blood sugar. Highest of highs riding the upper rails of your CGM, followed (or precipitated) by earth-shattering lows. Rinse, repeat. Over and over again until your CGM graph looks like the blueprint for the Loop-d-Loop carnival rollercoaster. And we all know what happens to your brain and your gut when you ride the Loop-d-Loop: you probably lose a few brain cells, have an upset stomach, and have a strong desire to go to bed at 6:30pm. How does one get a ticket on this ride? Well step right up! Let me walk you through it.
Start your day off with virtue, going for a three mile run at 6:30am, despite the cold and slight rain. Bolus generously for breakfast even though it only contains about 15 grams of carb total. You have a tendency to rise quickly after a run, thanks to your liver. Go about normal day. Decide to treat yourself to the smallest size humanly possible sugar-free hot chocolate (8oz, guess 20 carbs total since sugar-free doesn’t mean carb free of course).
Welcome your first crash! Pull over vehicle as CGM starts beeping, wipe sweat from brow, wonder out loud to yourself how two Fu&%ing units could have sent you plummeting like this. Feel like you might pass out, CGM reads LOW in all red caps, shovel 22 Swedish fish in your mouth Which is 10 more that you need. Add 15 Gummi Bear 10 minutes later because you still feel awful. Finally start to feel better. Watch CGM start climbing.
And climbing and climbing and climbing and 284 mg/dL ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?! Bolus on the way up at 152mg/dL, again at 202mg/dL, and at 284 mg/dL all within 20 minutes of each other. (See also “Rage Bolus). Wonder what when the hell this insulin crap will start working.
See double arrows up turn into single. See single arrow up turn into arrow flat line. See arrow flip downward. Feel relief for approximately 14 seconds. See double arrows down. 182, 154, 129, 102, 88. Sh!t. Crashing again. Pull over AGAIN. Reach for a juice box, because now Swedish fish sound awful. Drain juice box. Still crashing. See Starbucks. Purchase muffin. Gobble half of muffin out of spite. Finally start to feel better. LOW still showing on the screen of your CGM. Force yourself to wait. Remind yourself you just at 50 grams of carbs. You won’t die. Just wait. Sweat stops pouring, starting to feel better. Wait another 15 minutes as the arrows once again show double up. Start driving.
Don’t bolus. Try your hardest to get off the damn Glucoaster (creepy carnival worker cackles maniacally in the background). Try to do better the next time.
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Comments
Ha! You and your new fangled technology with double arrows. I can only have a single one (and that’s bad enough) 😛
If it’s any consolation - I tend to not rage bolus any more (only did it once in the past year, and feeling mighty proud of it), and the resulting hours long high is in no way better.
The only way to catch it (in my experience) it to use prepackaged amounts of carbs for lows. 20g and nothing more. Eat cheese if you still feel terrible. And then by the time I cave and give up and eat something carby, I can usually manage to bolus for that again.
Oh man. I know that ride. The single hardest thing for me is not scarfing down too many carbs to treat a low. Sometimes my lows are relentless, leading me to continue snacking and then boom- 2 double up arrows flipping me the bird.