A couple of days ago, I woke up at 5am low and stayed that way until about 12pm when I decided to have a sushi roll for lunch. My thinking was that if white rice didn’t solve this low, nothing would! I’d already thrown a lot at it – juice, black tea with sugar, jelly beans – sitting there watching my CGM trace stay in the red area apart from very occasional and very small rises before dropping back below that comfort line.

The rice did the trick. And then some. I watched the spike as the evil rice did its thing and sent me into the mid-teens. Thanks rice; thanks you very much. (I know, I know…we’re not supposed to think of food as good and bad, but rice is the freaking devil.)

I then watched the spike change direction and start to plummet. I’d done everything ‘right’… dosed at the right time, calculated the carbs, delivered the correct amount of insulin… Rice is my food nemesis. I’ve tried everything and just can’t get it to work which is why I rarely, if ever, eat it. But I was getting nervous at the non-budging CGM lows and knew that rice was a sure-fire way of getting me out of low-zone.

Rice: evil little grains of misery.


Everything fell back into place by the afternoon and then that night, dinner consisted of a low carb meal. The roasted cauliflower, warm salad of broccoli and green beans, avocado and cucumber salad with pepitas, and roast beef barely caused a blip on my CGM graph for the rest of the evening. The tiny bolus that accompanied the meal did its trick and the line stayed in-range and mostly flat. The dark chocolate and cup of tea I had before bed had no effect either.

Before I started using CGM, I had no idea just how different foods truly impacted my glucose levels. Carb counting can be pretty hit-and-miss, but I wasn’t too horrid at it – at least for most of the time.

Doing the recommended four or five checks a day hid most of the truth about what was going on for most of the time. Sure, my glucose levels may have been not too horrid when I checked before meals or before bed, but in between those random checks, there was A LOT happening to which I was completely oblivious.

CGM doesn’t necessarily need to translate to being more limited (or more boring) about food choices. But it does arm us with a lot of information about how our glucose levels react to certain things, which means that we can make more-informed choices about what we eat, and how we eat it.

Using CGM means that I can be much smarter about timings of boluses (and the types of bolus), and even the times I choose to eat different things. I know I am more insulin resistant in the mornings, so it’s a lot more difficult to manage with high carb foods at that time of day. I learnt that delaying my morning milky-sugar-added coffee by just half an hour results in less of a spike.

Of course, we need to remember that food is not the only factor that impacts our glucose levels. CGM has offered great insight into hormonal changes, effects of stress and different meds and eating a certain way cannot guarantee a flat CGM trace.

For the record, THIS is one of the main reasons I use CGM. I get a little tired of the constant focus there is on the technology ‘saving lives’. Do I honestly believe that my CGM has saved my life? Sure, it makes me feel safer – especially when travelling on my own – but for me, the real reason I use it, and its real benefit, is to be armed with information about how to best deal with diabetes.

DISCLOSURE

I probably just should mention that I generally self-fund all my own CGM costs. This includes the $540 I just spent on a new transmitter! When I’ve been given product while participating in trials, or in exchange for speaking gigs, I’ve always disclosed on this blog.  

I also have some very generous friends in the US who have most kindly given me sensors when they’ve had spares. They are wonderful, wonderful people and I am so grateful for their generosity!