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Stress and Blood Glucose Levels - Thoughts?

This thread has been an interesting read. Before I was diagnosed in February of this year, I had a period of about 2 months of unrelenting acute stress that was so bad that I found myself regularly locking myself in the bathroom to cry for an hour or two, barely managing to sleep at night, hardly able to eat etc. Shortly afterwards I started feeling even worse than usual and peeing a lot, which prompted me to go to the GP where I was then diagnosed. I've often wondered whether the stress was some kind of contributing factor in getting ill and reading this it seems it might have been!
 

It certainly felt that way to me, as I said. No way of proving it, however. Learning to deal with stress is something that could be taught or at least discussed in school or by GPs. Forewarned is forearmed maybe.
 

Stress raises blood sugar. I can feel it. Stress isn't always negative of course but it raised and raises my blood sugar which is a pain. An analogy: just swimming raises my blood sugar - which seems kind of counter-intuitive. There is a reduction in levels a few hours later. Anxiety, grief, etc, as one would expect, seems to cause longer-term stress via high blood sugar which seems not to drop conveniently a few hours later!
 
Did anybody see the Truth about Stress this week on the BBC. There were some really good techniques tested and I think it is great that teachers are being trained to teach mindfulness techniques in schools.
 
That would certainly qualify as acute stress! I had a Freestyle Libe sensor on, so I didn't do any finger prick tests.
 
Yes blood glucose always rises in response to stress, this is because the adrenal cortex releases cortisol in stressful situations, it is nicknamed "the stress hormone". Cortisol promotes the formation of glucose, which is why you experienced a higher level than normal.
 
My last hba1c reading was 64. Now three months later it is 44. Does that mean I am reversing my T2 ?
 


Hi. I'm type 1 20 years and have been constantly struggled with my sugar levels being up and down. Recently it was suggested to me to try halving the amount of insulin I take out of work vs at work. And it worked. Basically the stress of my job means my sugars were up all the time at work but if I ate the same thing at home and had the same doses of insulin I would have so many lows. Now I can have no insulin for many meals at home that I would take 8 or 9 units of novorapid at work for and I run level. Which I would never believed. Stress makes a huge huge difference and I wish someone had told me this 15 years ago.
 

Hi, thank you for sharing the graph. It is very interesting and I agree that stressful events do raise the glucose levels and it is important to take into consideration. I just wanted to ask, since you are using the Freestyle Libre, how did you get the readings every 20 minutes? I was under the impression that the Libre only shows the glucose level when scanned? Thanks.
 
Another latecomer here

Yes I have seen the exact same reaction about a year ago. I went from a stable baseline of ~5 right up into the region of ~9 in less than an hour simply through a heated family argument. I think most of us are aware of the notion that stress increases blood glucose, but there’s a disconnect, and I doubt that the majority appreciate the very real and measurable effect it can have on those of us with insulin dysfunction.
 

You can export a file which shows all the readings, scanned and not scanned, every 15 minutes throughout the whole 2 weeks. I tend to export mine once a day, move it to an excel sheet and organise/sort it according to how I prefer it. Brilliant to see all the little bumps and waves, especially overnight.
 

Thank you, I did not know that. Very useful and helpful.
 
Given the events of the last 24-48 hours I'm too scared to test myself before my blood test tomorrow!
 
I’ve just been to the dentist with a broken tooth (I am very nervous about the dentist) I too am currently wearing a libre sensor and my blood glucose shot up whilst I was waiting. I put it down to the sweet potato and butternut squash( soup (home made) I’d eaten about an hour earlier - which may well have contributed, but the spike was high for me, maybe the stress added. In general it’s a stressful time as my dad has terminal cancer and dementia, so my readings this time do seem to be higher than previously.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
That's fine, testing today won't make any difference to the test results tomorrow. I wish you all the best of luck.
Click to expand...
I know. It would be nice to.......avoid stress.

I'm dreading tomorrow.
 
It definitely does raise sugar , I remember when I had a really stressful event occur a few weeks into lchf I didn't post on here but i went from 10.8 right up to 18.9 within an hour and my husband got me to calm down and it started to drop I went to sleep on 15 and when i woke it was just under 10 and since then I have really tried to stay chilled out it does me no good reacting . Easier said than done I know .
 
So true so very true!!!
Stress is a good one if u want to raise blood sugars!!!
 
@NoCrbs4Me oh boy do I have an opinion. But first, I’m glad the meeting resolved for you and bg went back to where it belonged!
I think that 28 years of chronic bad stress put me in line to be at least preD. My kids really took it out of me, and the second did not learn to sleep until he was 9. Years! Old. So 9 years of severe sleep deprivation all those years ago, coupled with his ongoing behavior even after he moved out a year+ ago, set me up for more than ordinary stress helping to take care, long distance, of my now-91-yr-old mom, who is also no longer long distance as of a few months ago.
Also my yoyo weight gain/loss pattern, and stress eating of the bad stuff, and... genetic predisposition. Arrgghh.
That chart of yours is terrifying, actually! Thanks for posting a real-time image of stress!
 

Hugs to you for your eldercare!
 
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