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Surgery, slight fever - RA insulin

M

Mileana

Well-Known Member
Messages
553
Location
Denmark
Hi again, folks,

I've had my appendix removed yesterday and my blood glucose levels are refusing to come down from 8-11 ish. I have been eating, maybe about half of what I would normally, and my insulin is relatively unchanged - had one night of a bit less basal than normal for the operation etc.

I haven't been explained the sick day rules, and also, I am not sure if they apply.

I don't think I have any 'real infection', but I can understand if my body is stressed out and irritated.

Can someone give me a bit of advice on what they would do? The out of hours docs here just say as long as it's not producing ketones, chill. I cannot exactly see how it will help my wound healing or my general well-being to have a BG of 11, though.

Thanks.

-M
 
*BUMP*
Sorry Mileana, I dont know the answer to your query, I dont know a thing about insulin, hopefully a experienced insulin user will be along soon.
Gut feeling tells me that your bg levels will be a bit higher than usual, your body will be stressed and as you say you have a slight fever.
Keep eating healthy food, and make sure there is nothing that would make you bloat or give you wind!! As it so happens next doors has had his appendix out this week, came home, ate cauliflower and broccoli and ended up with a very painful colic, he thought his scar was going to open again :roll:

I wish you a speedy recovery x x
 
Hey Whitby, thanks.

I eventually decided to just keep injecting RA until I was around target - 2-3 units at a time as my normal is about 4 at a time, wait a couple hours, check again... Was on 3 times my normal dosage yesterday :***: , but no wonder I guess with the stress and also the hospital background dose being about 20 percent lower than what I'm used to...

I have little pain from the whole thing, mainly some tugging on my stiches in my navel - but then I've had enough abdominal surgery before to not really 'care' anymore. I do need some extra sleep though :yawn:

-M
 
You've just gone under a major operation, and your body is repairing the damage done... This causes the body to become stressed so pushes up the BG, you find that even non-diabetics will run at a slightly higher blood glucose level than they normally do..

Then there's the lowering your activity levels, you won't be moving around as normal, so again increases blood glucose...


And thing with insulin, the higher the BG the more insulin resistant their is!
So I suspect you will be using more insulin to maintain control for several more weeks to come, reducing as your body heals and your activity levels start to get back to normal..

To give you some indication of how normal this is, I fractured my finger several years ago, a minor fracture but I had to increase my basal rate by 60-80% for several weeks..

I'm a T1, but for T2's it's pretty much the same.. sometimes T2's who are are diet only, might find the need to take oral medication during the recovering period, and those controlled by oral medication might find they need to use insulin during the recovery period..

But the important bit, is to ensure that you are doing a lot of BG checking, and always have plenty of hypo kit near at hand at all times.. Because you really can't tell the point when the body starts returning to normal and it can be swift so you need to be prepared for this..

Take care and hope you have a swift recovery
 
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