The Somagyi Effect

No brownie points are given for lows.

I wish there were.I wish the lows,canceled out the rollarcoaster highs & didn't, in the end,contribute to glycemic variability(because you know,rollarcoaster blood sugars put one at a higher risk for complications, more so then relatively flat high blood sugars) & a night (like last night)spent stuffing glucose tablets & hearing/feeling the BuzzCom light up/vibrate under the pillow like a substitute fire alarm. Don't get me wrong,it's vastly preferable to the alternative..the glucagon kit is much better unused.

But lows,quite frankly,are just a pain..and night time lows are the worst of all.As grateful as I am that I can wake up,they are A.scary and B.depriving me of what I should be doing at that hour(sleeping). Understandably,said judgement is impaired(from being low,& tired) I usually eat too much & awake next morning,high.I'd really like to have fasting bgs under 100(per endo recommendations) but even with a CGM,I'm scared to death to try it.1 unit will make me drop over 100 points sometimes.(it's hard to have any sort of correction ratio when every night is a different story.Sometimes there's Dawn Phenomenon,sometimes not.) In a perfect world..it would all be predictable. It's also hard to explain to one's endo the fear of going really low & having a seizure/dying in one's sleep.( "Heidi,your average is 150,you are nowhere near hypo and you need to lighten up.") Yeah,easy for her to say.I just want to wake up..normal bgs are optional.

Although,there are the rare times when my Dexcom shows a low..and I don't wake up.My liver rises to the occasion,& pumps out the sugar equivalent of a brownie plus the glass of milk. It's comforting,yet annoying(as I don't have any input in the matter whatsoever,in contributing to the now-high bg) Comforting,that my liver pulls me out of the mess..annoying,that it does such a bad job of doing it.(overshooting the goal)

Low blood sugars only upside is lowering the a1c,& even that seems like way too high a price to pay for the sheer nastiness of all that lows entail.Much better to have an average of 120 (flat)then an average of 60-180.Unfortunatly,it never works out that way..every type 1 I know struggles with lows.(sometimes severe) And many of those strike at night.

Natural or not(who knows,maybe I actually was sleep eating) the power of a low & the need to whack that number into the atmosphere is something that is more pronounced at night.Daytime lows,I can exhibit some self control..but nights,are just a lost cause.

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