Hi
@Catsymoo , I hear you - periods like that can be very very frustrating!
Don't know your age, weight and normal insulin intake, so wont and cant offer specific advice. But you certainly have my sympathy as your subject header text was catching my attention as think most Type1s have experienced situations where we ask ourselves exactly that same question: "WTH, is my insulin no longer working or what is going on here???"
And in your description above I can see a few things at play here, that all contribute to keeping you in that unfortunate bad catch22 situation.
1. High blood sugars makes you less insulin sensitive
When our bg is below 10-12 mmol/L we are typically the most insulin sensitive. E.g. 1 unit will drop my bg with 3.3mmol/L.
When our bg gets in the 12-18 range, we become less insulin sensitive. E.g. 1 unit will drop my bg with 1.8 mmol/L.
When our bg gets above 20 and up, we become even less insulin sensitive. E.g. 1 unit will drop my bg with less than 1 mmol/L.
So like with your strawberry situation above, I would have had to bolus 3x the normal units if my bg was already up in the 20-range compared to if my bg was down below 10mmol/L.
2. Stress increases our bg and can keep it high despite you inject insulin
Bodily stress that impact our bg levels can be of various kinds: Emotional (aka anxiety, worry, or depression), physical, nutritional, chemical, etc. So stress can be triggered by many things like physical pain or illness. Or a personal situation like an accident, the death of a friend or relative or even confrontations with other people. And when we get stressed our adrenal glands release hormones in response to this stress to help us deal with it. These two hormones are pinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine. The main purpose of norepinephrine is to keep your blood pressure up and have limited impact on our bg. The adrenaline however is an important bg regulating hormone! Its the same that helps with a liver dump if you go hypo. It is the hormone that catalyzes the conversion of glycagon into glucose, which you have stored in your muscles and in your liver.
So even if you take some insulin to get your bg down, your stress will release more adrenalin to release more glucose as your body is in 'escape & run' mode and wants to keep your bg high.
E.g. this last week I was out traveling with my job to support some critically ill patients through some high risk procedures with some new technologies being piloted. Non-stop stress, limited sleep, no appetite so didn't eat much, ... And still my bg went up into the 15-25 range. Very unusual for me! I kept taking my basal as always. And still just hardly eating anything but my bg just kept staying high and higher... So could pose the question: Is my bolus insulin no longer working? Had I exposed it to a too high temperature for too long, or what is wrong with it??? I switched to use one of my other bolus pens just to be on the safe side, but it didn't change anything with regards to getting my bg down. And it wasn't until I left the last hospital yesterday at noon, got into the plane to fly home that I could relax. I even felt hungry for the first time this week.
And within next 6-8 hours or so my bg started coming down to be below 10 mmol/L.
3. GERD is unfortunately a frequent companion to Diabetes Mellitus
The GastroEsophageal Reflux Disease is a typical high risk complication of years with diabetes. Reason being that the gastroparesis is a type of neuropathy that affects the digestive tract and this increases the risk of GERD. With gastroparesis your stomach may be slower to empty as a result of nerve damage. And the longer term sustained pressure within your stomach subsequently cause your lower esophageal sphincter to relax. That then allows reflux of your stomach contents into the esophagus. I have had a few years in my past where I had this reflux syndrome. Very uncomfortable especially as it happened while laying down sleeping/going to sleep. And due to little sleep/stress etc it was mainly just acid coming up, giving me severe throat infections right away needing antibiotics every single time, as my throat and mouth mucous tissue and membranes got burned away non-stop. That unfortunately meant I had to be more serious about getting the sleep I truly needed and also having to give up the late night snack I had enjoyed since I was diagnosed. And to make matters even worse: No wine or chocolates after 10pm at night. Darn, I loooove dark chocolates...... But I no longer have the reflux, no sore throat infections non stop, no antibiotics non-stop.
So I have just to ensure I enjoy all those small pleasures in life before 10pm at night, so my stomach has sufficient time to digest and empty before going to bed and laying horizontal.
Most important for me has always been getting the basal right. When you have that set then the rest is all about matching the insulin to your food and bg levels. (easier said than done...)
So yeah, its a crazy world and its not always easy being a diabetic. Keep the faith, never give up.
There is always a way through the mess even though it can look pretty dark when in the middle of it.
