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Stress and Blood Glucose Levels - Thoughts?

NoCrbs4Me said:
I suspect that chronic stress is also not good for BG levels,
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I think it's fair to say that most of the available literature points to BG being affected by stress, possibly due to the affect on the adrenals. Very nice demonstration though. As for dealing with online bullies, it can be difficult to hold back but I try to remember that if you give someone a piece of rope long enough, they WILL hang themselves. Your bully obviously did. Excellent.
 

Possibly it depends on the type of stress?
That was a classic fight or flight, NoCtbs4Me having decided on fight.

Even on a totally carb free diet, completely fat adapted, the body is still going to need glucose for the muscles to be efficient short term, or the fight won't last long. Fat adapted is good for long, endurance,
Short, high impact exercise, like a fight (or a gym session) is better suited to burning glucose.
So the body reverts to type, and takes your BG up to where you're going to ready for the expected exercise.
Then like every other increase in BG, after two hours it's back down to normal.

Other types of stress, where I know I can't do anything about it, like the dentist, when I know I'm not going to fight, or run off, I get stressed, but I tend to fall asleep.
 
Stress tell me about it, my 22 year old grandson lives with us the only time I'm not stressed is when I'm sleeping or he is.
 
I suppose that is a natural reaction, the fight or flight thing. Adrenalin and glucose released due to the situation. The sheer scale of that is a surprise though! I know my life had been very stressful for a few years before my diagnosis and I was told that would have been a contributing factor. It is certainly a lesson to us all, and thank you for sharing.
 
Thanks! After my holiday I'm going to work on reducing my chronic stress. I'm going to look into taking up meditation.
 
NoCrbs4Me said:
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I thought this was interesting. This past Tuesday I had a very stressful event occur
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Wonderful that you took the time to monitor your BGs during this stress event. As a Type 1 abnormal stress definitely impacts my BGs and as a result I spent a lot of time and focus in finding a job that did not stress me out - Unfortunately it took a long time to find one LOL

My best example of a stressful impact was years ago when I was driving the kids to school. It was February (winter) and I rolled my vehicle in to a deep ditch after hitting a sheet of ice on the road. We regained consciousness up side down - we were all rushed to hospital via ambulance to get stitched up

When I took my BGs before we left I was sitting at 6.5 - when I told the first responders I was type 1 they took my BGs and I was in the 15s - my blood Pressure was high too - I guess a bad accident will do that to you - we all got the day off though ...
 
Thanks for showing this so clearly @NoCrbs4Me

It is something i think we all experience - to different degrees and unknowingly, most of the time.

I remember being astonished when a very disturbed night (woke from deep sleep and rushed outside to break up a cat-fox fight, brandishing a broom - one of those heart thundering disoriented dragged from deep sleep things) completely messed my blood glucose up.

The next mornng, my blood glucose fasting reading was 5mmol/l higher than usual, and then i swung from high to low for a couple of days, even with very low carbing. Interesting experience!

Stress hormones play a huge part, and I for one don't pretend to understand more than the tip of the iceberg.
 

The muscles use there own stores first, the rise attributable to the liver tends to be used initially by the nervous system.
 
Ive had a couple of times recently where I've been stressed, and seen higher numbers. It could be a simple food thing but I don't think so. Last few days I've been in the 5s and 6s, but after a disastrous stressing out over a missing delivery (yeah I know it sounds insignificant but I've wasted two whole days and don't know how many more I'll be wasting) today, my BG was almost 9. Previous time I'd been in the 7s and went above 10 for the first time in months after a real stress. I felt particularly bad during that one too.
 
My panic attacks and night terrors have returned over the past week, I know what triggered them, and can talk myself down these days, more or less, after a while. But my fasting bloods have been much higher and the daytime ones are all over the place.
 

Night terrors - I am plagued by them.
I usually get 'haunted'
Originally it was leaving my body, and flying, but then not being able to got back into it.
Then I learnt to love the flying, but became so lucid in my dream state I knew I would always win, so it stopped being a terror.

Sadly then I stopped flying, and my brain moved on.
Probably lower into the gutter.
I really was haunted by a 'shaker' style Presbyterian family (yes, my dreams are that precise).
Lucid dreaming, I realised they couldn't hurt me, but I could kick them.
Woke up to no duvet many a time.
Now, I simply get haunted by whatever my mind can invent, and my wakeup is trying to sit up.
(Try that when you're fast asleep, and your body won't move)
But I'm always totally lucid, I know it's a dream, as I wear glasses, and in my dreams everything is in focus, so I know it's not real, otherwise it would be blurry, so I can kick the 'ghosts' and know they can't touch me.
Nightmare on Elm Street it isn't.
I've actually got to the state were I sort of enjoy them, but I scare the **** out of everyone else that can hear me, as I do shout, with sleep paralyzed vocal cords.
 

mine are very specific and PTSD related.
 
serenity648 said:
Yes, we just keep going. What doesnt kill us makes us strong - as my Grandma would say : )
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True, I can have a fight, wake up get the duvet back and roll over and go straight back to sleep!
 
My bgs cope with all stress then a few days/months later when its died down. I have bg melt down.
I keep up the bridge until its no longer needed then I collapse. Always.
I relish in stressful situations. I absorb everything incase its relied upon later.
I wonder if you'll get a delayed blip later too?

Its when concurrent stresses push me is when I begin to worry.
 
Well, in my heart I believe that stress caused my Type 1 in the first place. And then, afterwards, it was alarmingly interesting to see the effects of stress on blood sugar - not to mention the need I felt to eat the wrong things when I WAS stressed, thereby making the blood sugar level worse. I'm glad you raised the issue - giving details of the stress and plotting the stress graph from the Libre - and I think it's an area that doctors tend not to investigate because patients tend not to want to disclose these sensitive issues and angst.
 
 
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