Plagued by low BGs at Itami Airport
Why do they let you get this close to the planes?! • Itami Airport
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Today was a great day adventure-wise, but a very rough day diabetically, at Itami Airport in Ōsaka, Japan.
The airport is known as Japan’s best spot for plane watching: you can get to a road where they fly right over your head as they land.
But my blood sugars were low all day as I biked around the airport perimeter. And no amount of glucose was fixing it for more than a few minutes.
It was quite unpleasant.
I’m low in this image, and hoping the recent glucose would kick in soon.
It began on the train to Hotarugaike Station, where I wanted to rent a bicycle for the day. I’d just had lunch but didn’t feel right. My CGM said I was 132. Not high enough between lunch and a day of cycling: I ate some glucose and sat in the station, waiting to feel better.
I figured that would handle it so I got my bike and headed to the airport. When I arrived at the northern end, to watch planes taking off, I was low again. I sat at a picnic table, missing planes as they passed over every ten minutes or so, and had glucose powder and water.
And it kept happening. I’d feel better – finally – and set off riding somewhere. But I never really felt like BG was truly high enough.
By the time I reached the “grand finale” of the day, the south side of the airport where planes are at their closest to the group of us gathered just outside the runway, I seemed to have finally leveled off. It was only around 100 – but steady, not falling.
My dinner was from McDonald’s. By the time I sat down to eat, I was 92. And I didn’t trust it. I ate nearly the entire thing – I even got fries, which I don’t think I’ve eaten in years – before taking Humalog for it.
The three spikes on the graph were all short-lived: lowness kept pulling me down.
My timing and dosage were good: I only spiked to 178 (excellent for McDonald’s), and even got a minor and slight low alarm around 4:30 am, which I took care of with a couple glucose packets.
I don’t know what happened today, but I suspect it’s related to the fact that I walked over 15,000 steps yesterday. Things were depleted. My iPhone said I’d walked over 17,000 today, though much of that was actually biking.
Still, it was a lot of exertion today. I had to keep eating, way more glucose than normally (glad I had so much with me), and eventually, as they always do, things evened out.
And oh yeah – the dramatic, noisy, super-close airplanes were ultra-fantastic!
