The one with the swollen arm

Last night, I had a milkshake.

It was on the tail end of an infusion set. Took a truly absurd amount of insulin, ate, and enjoyed. Once I got home, I changed the set. Put the new one in my right arm.

Two hours later, I was at 165. Three hours later, I was at 120. I had owned that milkshake.

But then, suddenly, I got a ↗. Moments later, a ↑. By the time I rage bolused, I was up to 180 something and still raising. The pump wanted me to take about .7U, because I still had some on board. But I know better. So I took 7.0U. Blood sugar continued to rise as it was being absorbed but I topped out around 250. A second smaller bolus followed. Fought for a couple hours and got it down to 170, and went to bed.

Couple hours later, Dexcom buzzed. I was back up to about 230. Took the appropriate amount (not going to rage bolus if I won't stay up to babysit it) and went back to sleep. Looking at the graph, it got down to about 180 and then started right back up. Next time I woke up was closer to 300. Again, a normal correction, and back to sleep.

Tangent: Not sure what the point of trying to sleep with bad sugar is. It's the least restful thing I can imagine. 3 Hours of restful sleep is better than a full night of sleep on the glucocoaster.

When I finally woke up for real, I was around 200. And my arm felt swollen. And I realized, it wasn't the milkshake doing it to me, it was the infusion site. So I replaced it. Of course the old one bled. But the new one didn't stick! Half of it adhered to my belly while the other half flapped in the wind. I pressed and pressed, and there was no taming it. So I took it out. And it bled. Quite a bit.

The third infusion set in 12 hours went in without incident. My sugar is finally nicely and predictably declining. It just took using extra extra supplies that I'm going to need in another couple months. And enough time to convince myself it wasn't at all feasible that the milkshake was responsible for it all.

When I had the Medtronic pump, there was only one type of infusion site. It was 23" long, and I could put it in my belly, butt, back or thigh (and I wasn't brave enough to put it in my thigh). Now with the Ping, I have 46" tubing as well, and I'm using body parts like my arms that I just didn't ever use before. If I were to use the Ping exactly the same as the Medtronic, it'd work just as well. But it allows me to try sites I wouldn't have used before and they're just not at all a sure thing. The occasional failed site on a Saturday afternoon is one thing, but a failed site that costs me a night's sleep and 3 infusion sets is much more frustrating.