Too high on a long series of local trains across Kansai
Slog across Kansai on seven (mostly) local trains
Watch on YouTube (38:50)
Not only was today an especially long and trying day on the trains, but my blood glucose wasn’t helping.
For scheduling and structural reasons related to my cross-Honshū train adventure, I needed to spend nine hours on a series of trains in central Japan. What you hopefully won’t notice in the video, though, is how my BG was high much of the time.
It began before the trip even did: As I slept I was hovering around 190 all night. That meant that while my breakfast was nice in my hotel in Higashi-Maizuru, the usual spike afterwards was a bit worse.
Hotel breakfast
For an hour or two I was in the upper 200s, and finally a corrective shot started bringing it down. By noon it was 215, which normally is not a good thing but was an achievement for me today.
I had a quick and quiet lunch in my seat on the train from Ōmi-Shiotsu Station to Maibara. As we passed by Lake Biwa, I took a nice big Humalog shot and started eating my simple sandwich and chips lunch. But someone then sat down next to me.
It was complicated in a way only a diabetic making train videos can understand. I was juggling my food and my camera, trying to capture the lake going by. And, this being Japan, trying not to crunch my potato chips too loudly out of deference to my seat mate.
And needing to get the food down before we arrived.
I did it, just barely, but my BG wasn’t interested in going down yet. Around 2 pm it was still 225 – I hadn’t been below 200 since before breakfast.
At Kuwana Station I found some snack food at a convenience store and had hot coffee, a matcha cookie bar, and a banana. And I took a shot for it.
It worked, too well. Finally my blood sugar was willing to listen, and as I neared my destination of Toyohashi, I was a mere 79, and dropping. Had a bit of glucose.
Apart from a brief and insignificant spike after another convenience store dinner in Toyohashi, the rest of the day was ok. But on a long (though fun) train day, BG was also a long (and less fun) ordeal.
