At 3:21am, I woke up covered in sweat. The feeling was familiar; my blood sugar was low. I reached for my meter to confirm what I already knew. Yep, 48 mg/dl..

But my immediate thought was: I could have prevented this late night low… if I had followed my instincts.

Last night included an evening run, where I was proud to keep my blood sugar between 100 and 140. Afterwards dinner and a before bed reading of 77 mg/dl. Given that there was still some active insulin in me (insulin-on-board, I like that phrase), I knew that I needed to eat 12g of carb. And I did.

But a little voice told me:
“You don’t usually run in the evening… you’re probably going to go low during the night. Maybe you should eat a little extra.”

Since I am really trying to avoid all night highs, I ignored that voice. As I fell asleep, I was even thinking that I should check again– or set an alarm to go off in an hour and check then. But the thought of a full night’s sleep in the midst of our busy lives was too enticing. Second good instinct ignored.

I could have eaten a small snack and woken up during the night to check, but I didn’t want to wake up during the night. So here I sit at 4am very awake and blogging about my night time low… brought on by the fact that I didn’t want to wake up during the night.

I think that it’s time that I start listening to my instincts a little bit more, even when I don’t want to hear what they are telling me!