Alaska Tour Wrapup, part 3
One of the most important things I learned during my bicycle tour was about my new OmniPod insulin pump. Its PDM (Personal Diabetes Manager) which I use to do all of the programming of the pump (bolus delivery, basal rate setting, etc.) has a glucose test meter built into it. I learned to be suspicious of the test results it gave me because it can occasionally give wildly inaccurate results.
For example, on the third-to-last day of the tour (my 87 mile ride from Burley, Idaho to Snowville, Utah), I had stopped to take a glucose test. I got a reading of 403 mg/dL which is dangerously high (a normal reading would be in the range of 80-120 mg/dL).
It’s a good thing I didn’t immediately deliver a big correction bolus of insulin. Instead, I rinsed my hands well with water, and then re-tested. This time I got a 107 which is perfect. I must have gotten my hand contaminated with some glucose from something. It was probably my bottle of sports drink. This kind of wildly wrong reading happened on a number of occasions on my tour. What I learned over the course of my tour is this: while bicycling, always use one hand to handle the bottle with the sports drink and the other hand for glucose testing. To do otherwise risks contamination and a dangerously inaccurate blood glucose reading. Related to this, I learned to always re-test when I have a high reading that doesn’t make sense.
Comments(1)
Peter,
My Mom suffered from adult onset diabetes but lived a full life up to 78 years. She passed away in 2002. As I child she let me use her bike to learn to ride. It was a big ballon tired 40′s mixt version. I wish she had lived until I did my ride across America and I know that she would have been so interested in your journeys.
Mom cross country skied, ice skated and walked until her heart failed.
Just reading your trials and tribulations with glucose testing reminded me of her.
Thanks,
joe