Sleep ?

T1 diabetics (and the parents that take care of T1D kids) regularly loose sleep at night when BG (blood sugar) just doesn’t cooperate. When BG is out of range, alarms go off and somehow I have to wake myself up enough to figure out why. If my BG is higher than 150, I may be sleeping but I just don’t sleep as deeply and wake up feeling like I didn’t sleep. So I want to wake up when I’m running high so I have a chance to (hopefully) fix it so I can sleep more deeply.

Since almost 1/3 of our daily hours are spent sleeping, having good BG control overnight is important. T1 diabetics always aim for a high percentage of time in range (which our CGM can keep track of). The more time spent in range, the better our A1C will be which in turn indicates the likelihood of experiencing complications of diabetes. So waking up at night to make corrections is important for overall BG control. But sometimes it means a lot of interrupted sleep.

Personally about 1/3 of the time, I have a pump alarm go off during the night for some reason. My worst night ever, it went off more than 10 times and most nights it goes off, it will alert me at least twice. While most of us T1 diabetics have learned (through lots of practice) to get back to sleep pretty quickly, there are always some times when that isn’t the case.

Sometimes I hear my pump alarm but never wake up fully enough to comprehend what it is trying to tell me. I’ve done some really crazy things at night when I’m not even half awake! The next morning I try to figure out what I was even thinking that made me do what I did but usually I have no explanation ??‍♀️. Thankfully it’s always been mistakes that don’t have serious consequences and sometimes funny ones. And then there are the times I wake up thinking I heard or felt my pump alarm (since it also vibrates) but I didn’t.

Sometimes better sleep can happen with better planning. I try not to eat past 6pm so my BG has a chance to stabilize and I can give any corrections needed before I go to bed. Also most nights I remember to check my pump before going to bed to make sure I have enough insulin left to get through the night and that I’ve calibrated my CGM recently. I keep juice and granola bars on my nightstand so if I have to treat a low, I can do it without having to get out of bed.

But even with careful planning, some nights are just rough. So if you see me and it looks like I had a rough night, give me some grace and a prayer that tonight will be better ❤️