I have a heart rhythm disorder for which I take medication. My cholesterol is too high and I take medication for that too. When I have a headache or toothache I take pain medication. But there was something wrong with the story about the sugar that my GP told me.
According to him, the sugar peak 20 minutes after the meal is caused by the meal. But I learned at school when I was 14 that the meal is in the stomach for 4 hours and in the intestines for 30 hours.
Is there perhaps a direct connection between the stomach and the bloodstream through which sugar enters the bloodstream? The problem there is that glucose is almost three times as expensive as crystal sugar and people hardly ever eat it. So there is no glucose in the stomach. What is in the stomach is hydrochloric acid. One of the strongest acids that exists.
With a tube between the stomach and the bloodstream, no glucose would enter the bloodstream, but hydrochloric acid would. So people would die in a very painful way without their blood sugar level rising.
The sugar sensor
After a year I got a sugar sensor and I could investigate it further.
The first thing I noticed is that with 2 units of rapid insulin my blood sugar level dropped 2 mmol/l within 15 minutes and then rose again 2 mmol/l in the next 15 minutes. Half an hour after injecting, the blood sugar level was at the same level as before injecting.
Is it possible that rapid insulin is an expensive medicine that does nothing?
It is possible to indicate in the app that you are doing an activity. But everything is summarized on the hour. So if you indicate that you start an activity at 12.15 pm and stop at 12.45 pm. Then the graph says that you started and stopped at 1.00 pm. So I started using the rapid insulin marker to indicate in the app when I started/stopped an activity.
Sugar levels should be below 10 mmol/l. But when I get on my bike at 12.30 pm to cycle to the other side of town, my sugar is at 16 mmol/l. Five minutes later it rises to 22 mmol/l. My GP advised that I would soon go blind. He also advised me to inject rapid insulin. But it is not possible to inject while cycling.
After a few panicky weeks, I noticed that my sugar was also at 16 mmol/l at 12.30 pm on the weekend, when I do not cycle to the other side of town. But it did not rise to 22 mmol/l.
A week later something changed. The sugar no longer rose 5 minutes after departure, but 15 minutes after departure to 22 mmol/l.
Then it became clear. Due to the repair of a bridge I had cycled an alternative route for a few months where I turned left 5 minutes after departure and had a headwind. On my normal route I turned left 15 minutes after departure and had a headwind. So 16 mmol/l is cycling with a tailwind and 22 mmol/l is cycling with a headwind.
Further study showed that my sugar started to rise 1.5 hours before the activity by 1 mmol/l per ten minutes. So when I have lunch 50 minutes before the activity my sugar is between 10 and 12 mmol/l. Twenty minutes later it is 2 mmol/l higher. Another half hour later, at 12.30 pm the sugar is again 3 mmol/l higher and comes to 16 mmol/l. This happens both during the week and at the weekend. But on weekends I have lunch around 1.30 pm. So measuring with the Contour Next just before the meal, I would never have noticed this.
In the three months that I used the marker for the rapid insulin to mark the start/stop of activities, I have started a number of activities and finished them again. Among other things, I tried the calf muscle exercise at different times and did not cycle to the other side of the city for a few weeks because of the weather conditions. (Since I broke my hip in 2008 in slippery conditions, and the surgeon made a mistake, I have become a bit more cautious. I would rather sit at home for a few weeks by choice than not be able to leave the house for months).
Gradually it became clear that when you start a new activity, your sugar level rises within a few seconds to 12 mmol/l for brisk walking, 16 mmol/l for cycling on a low resistance and to 22 mmol/l for cycling on a high resistance. After about three weeks, the sugar level starts to rise a few hours in advance. If you stop again after three weeks, the body continues to increase the sugar for a period of several weeks to months.
The sugar peak 20 minutes after a meal not only has nothing to do with the meal, but it is not even a peak. It is the last moment you can perform a sugar measurement with the Contour Next before you leave your house to go somewhere. When you perform a measurement with the Contour Next you need a table to lay down the different parts. You cannot take the Contour Next with you because you need a container for used needles.