Insulin question

[dme100]

I use Apidra to cover some carbs, my Endo wants me to gain some weight. Lately for example, if I eat the same thing for breakfast, use the same number of units, after 2 hours my BG can be widely off, on different days. I am going through some painful issues with 5 herniated discs, so I know my body is under some stress levels. Sometimes it can be different by 75 points or so. Any ideas?

Thanks, David

[enigmalady777]

Even if you eat the exact same thing every morning and use the same number of units of insulin, there are other factors that can influence your 2 hour post prandial numbers such as what your blood sugar level was before you ate. In other words, if your blood sugar was 100 before you ate it will be higher than if your blood sugar was 75 before you ate.

Stress has been said to raise blood sugar levels some, but I'm not totally convinced that it can raise it substantially. Infections (such as the flu, bronchitis, etc..) will indeed raise blood sugar levels - why that is, I don't know, but I have seen it myself when I had a cold earlier this year and when I recently had the flu. Both times I ate almost nothing (except plain tea with splenda) for several days, yet my levels were much higher than usual and with the recent flu I had, I was taking more and more insulin just to try to get the numbers lowered. As soon as I was fully recovered (no fever, little cough) my numbers got back to normal with little effort. Again, I'm not sure what mechanism inside us triggers this effect, but it is something to keep in mind.