Q: Okay, my blood sugar has been acting INSANE these two days. and I got my period the day before yesterday... can my blood sugar elevate this much just because I'm on my period? and why only this cycle (?!) because I'm 17 and I didn't notice it the other times.. my blood sugar was like 500 all day yesterday and even when I put in insulin it was like 550. I struggled all night and finally brought it down to 158. My mother thinks its my fault, and when I told her that I honestly didn't know why my blood sugar was wack, she was like "you should just die" (so if this correlates with my period. please tell me. so I can explain to my mom... I've been diabetic (tpye 1) for 10 years)
A: First of all, your mother needs to attend some diabetes classes with you (ask your doc) so you can both understand that the pancreas is an extremely complicated gland, and with Type 1 you lose that critical regulatory function in the body. Have you heard of women who get full hysterectomies (ovary/uterus removal) and then have hormone problems the rest of their lives? It's like that, except there are many more components to factor in like stress, food and exercise. A few days before your period, it's perfectly normal to have elevated BG's due to all the hormones you start secreting to start the menstruation process...you might have to give yourself extra when you see it start creeping up. Then the day your period starts, it's normal for your BG to plummet back down, just like you said. The reason you struggled to bring it down was that you were likely producing a large amount of ketones, which the body does when BG's and stress run high, and that makes it even harder to bring it down. Please show her this so she can start to understand that when your BG's go nuts, it's usually not "your fault". This is experience talking!