A month ago I had the flu.

My blood sugar was consistently high for three straight days.

I was taking insulin like a starving man at Olive Garden (shoutout never ending breadsticks). Easily 2x my normal daily total intake despite not really eating all that much.

Eventually as I got better my levels returned to normal. But man, those few days were ugly.

If you're a T1D, I'm sure you've experienced something similar. So why does this happen?

When you're sick, your immune system floods your body with stress hormones. Cortisol, adrenaline, and inflammatory cytokines all tell your liver to dump glucose for energy and make your cells ignore insulin so that glucose stays available.

This is the body's emergency protocol. For people without diabetes, their pancreas just compensates. For T1Ds, it's up to us.

This does happen any time your body detects and responds to sickness, although for something like a cold you may not even notice. For bigger things like the flu or an infection, it can really wreak havoc.

On top of that, you're likely not exercising, moving around, or sleeping that well. It's recipe for high BG. To add to the mayhem, T1Ds typically take a bit longer to heal from sickness. Nice.

So what can you do? Well honestly, I think the best thing is to avoid getting sick. And if you do get sick, don't try to fight through it. Go into full-blown recovery mode and get better as fast as possible. And be ready to pump that insulin!