Dental Work and Scary Lows

Yesterday Cole had to have some dental work done.  It required him to be partially sedated.  Nothing to eat or drink after midnight until after his appointment which was scheduled for 7:45am.  Sounds easy enough, right?

Try throwing Type 1 Diabetes into the mix.  This requires a lot more thought and a lot less sleep.  For those that don't know, if Cole's blood sugar drops below 70 we have to treat by giving juice, candy, fruit (something that will get his blood sugar up).  If we do not get his blood sugar up, he could have a seizure, go unconscious, or even die.  

So what does that mean when he has procedures done that requires no food or drink?  Well it can be a bit tricky.  Usually we try to run his numbers a bit higher than we would.  We can do this by reducing his basal rate (the amount of insulin he gets continuously) or we can reduce his bolus for his dinner meal (insulin he gets per carb consumed).  So Sunday night I kind of skimped him on some insulin for his dinner.  The result, he was super high at 11:00 pm, so I had to give a correction (more insulin to cover the high blood sugar).  I decided not to do the full correction in case he dropped too low.  The result, he was still high at 1:45am.  So I gave another correction, this time the full amount.  The result, I woke up at 3:30am to his blood sugar being 117 dropping quick.  A quick panic set in, then the next reading was 118.  Thank goodness he had leveled out.  

Then it was time for the dentist.  We had to continue to monitor his blood sugar while he had the dental work done.  Luckily he continued to go higher after starting the morning at 113.  By the end he was 195.  

We thought we were in the clear but didn't plan on the after effects of the dental work.  Watch our vlog to find out a very important lesson I learned. It was the first time ever that I had to pull out the glucagon emergency kit with me actually thinking, "oh God, I screwed up and we are going to have to give this shot." 

Check out the rest of the story here:  Dental Work and Scary Low - Lesson Learned


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