Necessitate facilitate navigating life with diabetes? You can always Ask D'Mine!

Welcome again to our weekly Q&A column, hosted by veteran type 1 and diabetes author Wil Dubois in Untried Mexico. This week, Wil is answering a somewhat different question akin to sex activity… Scan on for inside information.

{Got your own questions? Electronic mail us at AskDMine@diabetesmine.com }

Christopher, case 1 from California, writes: Hullo, how you doing? I'm a ill, been for 34 years. I take shots, 4x a day, and instantly I'm acquiring way too galore under blood readings—suchlike 25-100. About May this yr I went to see my inexperient lady friend first, and later we had sex. I didn't have any STDs before that, and she said she was STD-ree. Only since then I've been acquiring low blood sugar readings. My question is: Can being exposed to an STD impact your diabetes?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: I'm doing great, thank you for asking — although you appear to be doing better, you lucky dog, you! Well, exclude for the whole thing with the lows and the possible venereal infection (STD).

We'll talk about the sapience of having unprotected wind up with someone you've just met in person for the first clock time, who says she's STD-free, in a present moment, but first let's deal with the biology. Crapper STDs cause lows?

As a find, most infections grounds blood sugar to go the other way: To go rising. In fact, various infections, including STDs, commonly destruction up leading to incidental findings of diabetes, meaning whatsoever poor sod went to the doctor to be treated for a case of the clap and then discovered he or she also had diabetes! The sugar bump from some infections causes a gradual increase terminated time, while former types of bugs trigger a rapid spike upward that is contrarious to respond to corrections.

But just now to be sure I didn't overlook anything, I did some inquiry for you. My first stop was, ironically, down under. No, I wasn't doing field research, get your mind out of the gutter! I'm speaking about Australia.

In Australia, where they are delightfully more frank in their discussions of sex, drugs, and diabetes than we are here in the more square-toed US of A. STDs aren't even called STDs. Nope, the Aussies call them STIs, which stands for Sexually Transmittable Infections. As a mortal-ordained Guardian of the Language, I actually like this label punter, as the actor's line deport a connotation of something that tail end pass to you, which our STD really doesn't do (communicable vs. transmitted).

As an ex-public health worker, I can tell you that word selection matters for prevention!

Anyway, the party crew down under addicted my get-go inherent aptitude. The Australian National Diabetes Services reports that STIs, including chlamydia, genital warts, gonorrhea, hepatitis A and B, and herpes can complete raise blood glucose.

Of run, there are apparently more than 20 types of SDT/STIs between the sheets, so I reckon several really rare type might cause lows in some people, but if so, I couldn't find any reports of information technology.

As a sidelong note though, I guess I should scare the piss out of everyone this morning by pointing out that HIV/AIDs patients commonly have diabetes-like blood sugars (which mightiness be caused aside the treatments as opposed to the virus) simply that A1C tests don't work for them. Here, checkout out this research, showing that HIV patients with A1Cs in the 6.7% ramble were actually clocking average blood sugars in the 162 range (which should have given A1Cs of 7.3%).

OK, that's not immense, but static, what the eff?

Researchers concluded information technology was due to a combination of the increased size of red blood cells seen in some HIV positive people and the use of the medicine abacavir, but the nutty and bolts of it all mystified them.

Still, justified though the A1C is underestimating the average glucose level in these cases, the HIV isn't causation low blood sugars.

Bottom line, even if you did get a STD from your new coerce, IT isn't the cause of your new lows. So to answer your question of which STDs can impress your diabetes, the answer is: Every last of them. But none of them causes the problem you are having.

Now, I have a question for you: Are you reliable the lows started after "first contact"? The reason I ask round is that, while IT doesn't seem practicable that a STD can suit a low, the reverse isn't true. It's very easy to catch a STD from a low blood glucose, 'cause when we are low, we be given to pee bad decisions. Like having vulnerable wind up with someone you don't know well.

Just sayin'…

Anyway, if you're worried about a STD, you should go get checked. There's no need for shame about that. Really, it's beingness a good citizen, A wellas organism the decent thing for your health and your diabetes. It's important because we D-kinfolk are much more likely to produce STDs compared to sugar-normals, and thanks to our crappy status systems, we are equiprobable to receive a harder time fighting them off. Probably our metre kits should come stark with condoms, along with the lancets. Hmmm… Maybe that's what that little slide fastener pouch in the case is for!

American Samoa to your low pelf issues, equally I call back we can safely rule retired a STD as the cause. You need to look at all the usual suspects to breakthrough what is causing your lows:

Any change in your activity levels? i.e. Are you moving Thomas More?

What about your eating? Are you eating less?

Some changes in your other medications? Anything, say corresponding a statin, reduced or born? Statins tend to raise blood sugar, indeed if you reduce or drop one, your insulin would need to follow low to compensate.

What about stress? Is your stress degree lower now that you have a girlfriend in close orbital cavity?

Although I'm guessing nary on it last one. At least not for you. Because, going impermissible along a thin limb here, I'm detecting some trust issues. You had sex with this lady, then something happened with your diabetes, and your original thought was that you caught a STD from her. Of course, that's not totally irrational, surrendered that our STD stats show up that about 25% of the universe is sleeping with a STD, but the fact that IT was your first thought tells you something nearly your attitude toward the human relationship, and her.

So that's something you need to toy with.

But please, not when you are having a moo.

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wiseness of our massed experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. Bottom Line: You noneffervescent need the professional advice and care for of a licensed medical professional.