[00:00:00] You are listening to episode number 293 of Better Blood Sugars with Delane MD. Welcome to Better Blood Sugars with Delaine MD where you can learn strategies to lower your blood sugars and improve your overall health. I'm your host, Dr. Delaine Vaughn. Ladies, if you know you're capable of doing badass things at work and for your family, but you're confused and frustrated with why you can't seem to stop eating the chocolate cake, this podcast is for you. Let's talk.
[00:00:29] Hey there and welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad that you're taking some time for you today and for your health. I feel privileged that you're spending it with me, and I really hope you learned something helpful today. I want to talk about illnesses and blood sugars. It's the beginning of March, so this is kind of late placed, and I apologize for that. But certainly the cold season typically goes through April. I have been seeing colds with my clients frequently and watching them navigate how this works. And so I thought, gosh, this is really something that I'm realizing women don't know about and people don't know about how, how and why their blood sugars react when they get sick. And so maybe this is something that would be beneficial to put out in the podcast so that people will know and realize that you're not doing anything wrong. That, you know, when you're seeing, women will see higher blood sugars and they're. They're sick and they think that they're messing it up and they think that it's never going to get fixed and nothing works and they feel hopeless and there's no point. They feel like it's futile. And I want you to know that is not at all what's happening today. Let's discuss why it's happening and what you can do so that you can get through the rest of the season. And also, if you've already had that experience, if you were sick in mid January and you're like daylight and dollar short delaying, that, that's fine. I want you to know that it wasn't anything you were doing, and I want you to know why. And maybe this gives you some momentum to get back up at it and realize you were doing things correctly, it was nothing that you did incorrect, and get back at it. And there is the possibility of fixing your insulin resistance so that your body doesn't respond this way the next time you get a cold. Before we get started, I want to remind you that if you are medicated for your type 2 diabetes. Please, please be careful making the changes that I recommend in this podcast. You have been medicated because the way you've eaten in the past. If you change the way you eat, you're going to need to change those meds. If not, you can get sick. You can get very sick, the kind of sick that looks like ER visits, hospitalizations, and possibly even death. And that's not why you're making these changes. So to prevent that, I need you to open up a line of communication with the provider who wrote the prescriptions for those meds. I need you to call them and I need you to say, hey, listen, I'm going to make some dietary changes. I think that I have a lot of things that I can do in my lifestyle and in my diet that will improve my health and I'm going to start doing those things. I think my blood sugars are going to drop naturally. How do you want me to share those new numbers with you? And how should I expect to hear back medication changes?
[00:03:04] Ask them how they want you to communicate with them and how you can expect to hear hear back communication from them about how you should change your meds. This is going to keep you safe while you're making these dietary changes, these lifestyle changes, so that you can come off your meds and live healthy. But I need you to be very careful and get that line of communication open with your medical provider. If you're not sure what to eat, that's awesome. I've got help for you. If you go to delainemd.com forward/betterb E T T E R you will find my 14 days to better blood sugars guide. This is a 14 day guide set up as menus that you eat this for breakfast, eat this for lunch, eat this for dinner, there are this many carbs and then you watch your blood Sugars and over 14 days you will see them improve substantially. Likely you will see your after meal blood sugars entirely normalized and you will see your fasting blood sugar improve substantially, substantially. I want you to try out this 14 days to better blood sugars and then I want you to set up a phone call with me, a better blood sugars assessment call with me. During that call, we can figure out what you need to do to set yourself up for permanent changes. Lots of women will look at that guide and be like, I'm not eating that shit for the rest of my life. And I totally get it. There are some bizarre things on there. You don't need to eat like that for the Rest of your life, you cannot go back to eating the way you were eating before, the way you were eating that made you sick and need all those meds. Like, you can't go back to doing that either. That better blood sugars assessment call, we are going to figure out how to set you up to move forward and improve your blood sugars for the rest of your life. And you can set that call up by going to my calendar. It's a website, it's called calendly.com delayment delanemdcall. So it's calendly C-A L E N D L Y.com-E L A N E M D forward slash C A L L. You can get access to my calendar and set up a call and we will talk about how you can start to apply that 14 days to better blood sugars guide for the rest of your life. We can also, if for some reason and this hasn't happened, but my friend, if you're out there and you're like, yeah, I did that 14 day guide. It did not work for me, I want to know, I want to hear from you if you didn't see better blood sugars, if you didn't see any improvement, I want to hear about that. I've yet to hear that.
[00:05:35] I'm not saying it's not possible. I've just not heard that. And I want to know so that I can improve that guide in any way.
[00:05:42] So all of that said, if you need help, I'm here, set up a call. If you need to know what to eat, go download the 14 day guide. But until then, I want to talk about colds and illnesses in general and how they impact your blood sugars.
[00:05:58] Most women see that they're doing great. My clients see this, right, I'm doing great and they come down with a cold and I actually will notice it before them. I'll start to see their fasting sugars go from being 87, 90, 93, or maybe it's 103, 105, 107, and then they pop up to 117, 118, 120, or they pop up from, you know, 90 to 108. And I'm like, hmm, that's interesting. How are you feeling? It's almost always what I ask. And they'll be like, I'm feeling great, I'm fine. I'm like, you better watch out. I think a cold's coming your way. I am not a magician. I am not a soothsayer. I do not see the Future. I see the biology and what I know is that when we get sick and our body goes to fight off something, that our cortisol goes up and our blood sugars respond by going up also.
[00:06:49] So when you're seeing your blood sugars go up and you're sick, why this happens is because of the stress response that occurs from our body having a physical stressor. Most of us are very familiar with emotional stressors like frustration, arguments, worry, anxiety, all of that. We're very familiar with emotional stressors. These will also. Emotional stressors will also cause a cortisol, any stress hormone response. So it's cortisol, it's epinephrine, it's norepinephrine, it's catecholamines. I mean, that's what these are called, right? Like that is a the stress kind of biology that occurs. That is the hormones, the chemical reactions or the chemical responses that our body has to stress. And it happens with emotional stress, and it certainly happens with physical stress. Remember, the human being doesn't have any other way to respond to things that cause us stress. Arguments, bad drivers, unexpected bills, disappointment in relationships. These, you know, especially like bad drivers, unexpected bills, arguments. I mean, arguments and disappointment with others or even fear. Right? Like those are emotions and experiences that human beings throughout millennia have experienced. However, stress about bills, stress about tests, stress about work deadlines, stress about bad drivers. These are not things that human beings 10,000 years ago experienced.
[00:08:30] The reason that it's important to understand that is because 10,000 years ago, when we experienced anxiety and stress as human beings, it was meant to drive an action.
[00:08:43] Something's trying to kill me. I should run. My tribe is disappointed with me. I should fix it. I'm disappointed with this tribe member. They've threatened me. I need to, you know, remedy that. They drove functional actions, not just ruminating in worry and anxiety. Okay? And a lot of times, right, or at least in our modern age, I won't say a lot of times, but in modern times, most of our anxiety and stress is not actually anxiety and stress that's going to kill us immediately. That needs to have an immediate action. There may be something that needs to happen, and there may be something that we need to do, but it's not running from something right now. It's not running from a threat right now. It's not dealing with a vulnerability right now that's actually going to physically harm us. Our body's response, our body's system for managing the feeling of stress and worry.
[00:09:48] Our body's system is set up to do it the way it was doing 10,000 years ago, not right now.
[00:09:55] And what that means is it was not meant right. If you have a deadline, six weeks out at work, and you have stress and anxiety about that deadline for six weeks. Our physiology, our biology was not meant to feel stress and anxiety for six weeks over one event. Our biology was meant to feel stress and anxiety about something that was trying to kill us right now. Remedy scenario and stop feeling stress and anxiety. That's the way our biology was meant to do it. All right, so stress, I didn't mean to get on this tangent about emotional stress, but certainly we have stressors and most of us are very familiar with that stress. But our body feels stress associated. Our body responds biochemically with stress to stressors associated with illness. It's the same response again. Meant to happen for 7 to 10, 14 days, not for weeks on end. All right, so when you're getting sick with a viral illness, when you're getting sick with a sore throat, strep throat, even a bacterial illness, a urinary tract infection, a pneumonia, whatever it is, when you're getting sick with this, your body really truly needs more energy, more glucose to set up your immune system to fight that off.
[00:11:21] And that's what is happening when you're getting sick. That's why when I see my clients and their blood sugars go up, I'm like, oh, I know exactly what's going on here. You're getting sick, of course you get really sick. And sometimes we see really high blood sugars. Depending on how diabetic and insulin resistant we are, women can see really, really high blood sugars with an illness.
[00:11:42] So this is happening because your body is releasing these stress hormones that it's supposed to release.
[00:11:50] And then the blood sugar response to that is to go up. And this happens with all stress. This happens with stress of bad drivers. That's always me, right? Like people who are driving badly on the road. You know, every good driver of a person that's telling somebody they're a bad driver is probably the questionable driver. And I understand that, but we're not talking about that. It's the stress associated with it. When my body has that stress, there is a glucose response to that. And the reason that that is is because our human bodies only know one way to manage stress. And that management of stress involves releasing glucose. And this is what's happening when we're sick.
[00:12:30] So I want you to hear that this happens for all the human beings, not just the diabetic human beings. Not just the insulin resistant human beings. This blood sugar response, this stress hormone response happens for all the human beings. When you're insulin resistant and diabetic, however, the effect is exaggerated.
[00:12:54] So again, like I start most of my mornings out with a blood sugar around between 80 and 90.
[00:13:01] So if I jump up to 93, that's a big jump, but it's not abnormal. Okay, Non diabetics start out non insulin resistant humans start out similar with a blood sugar in the 70s, a blood sugar in the 80s, a blood sugar maybe in the low 90s, and then when they get sick with a cough or a cold, their blood sugar jumps up. The difference is it doesn't jump up out of the normal range. And that's what I mean by it's exaggerated for type 2 diabetics or insulin resistant people. If you're already starting out one, understand that being insulin resistant is a physiologic stress on your body. You're sick, you may not feel sick, you may think that you're fine. But if you're insulin resistant, your physiology is not normal, your biology is not normal. And the human response to that biology alone is to have an exaggerated cortisol response, right? Because cortisol is released with stress, physiologic stress or emotional stress. And when you're already insulin resistant, you're already having an exaggerated cortisol response. Now if we add a cough or cold, if we add influenza, RSV, human metapneumovirus, parainfluenza, 1, 2, 3 or 4, any of the rhinovirus, all of these are cold viruses. Covid. The COVID 19. But there was a Covid. Actually, there's a coronavirus long before COVID All of those viruses will be a physiologic stressor on your body and you will have a cortisol response. And if you're insulin resistant, you're gonna have an exaggerated cortisol response. And then because you're insulin resistant, your blood sugar, that exaggerated cortisol response, goes to your liver and it says, hey, liver, go ahead and make some glucose. We're gonna fight off this bug, which it's supposed to do. But because we've made an exaggerated cortisol response, we're gonna have an exaggerated glucose response. And because our cells are slow or insulin resistant, they're slow to pick up that glucose. Then suddenly we're gonna have this higher blood sugar for a prolonged period of time. That's what's happening. That's why your blood sugar does it and it does it for all the humans, it's just when you're starting at normal, we don't get the exaggerated response. When you're insulin resistant, we get an exaggerated response. That's what's happening with your blood sugars going up when you get sick. It is nothing that you ate yesterday. It's not that suddenly you can't handle grapes. It's not that bananas are a problem. No matter what dietitians and nutritionists said, bananas are not the issue. Nobody got diabetic because of their banana problem. It is not that you ate snap peas. It's none of those things.
[00:15:55] It is a normal biological response. The abnormal part is the underlying insulin resistance. And that's all. You're doing everything right. Okay? That's what I want you to hear. I think it's so easy for women to get frustrated and feel like there is no hope and it's futile. And no matter what they do, they can't get these numbers under control. And that is the worst place to be in. And I'm really hoping to sway that thought in your head. If you've thought it over and over and over, to give you some information that shows you something different. That's what I hope to do with that discussion that we just had. So I do want to talk about meds that we use. Both you can get over the counter meds and also meds that doctors will prescribe to you and then how those impact your blood sugars. So I'm talking about meds that doctors prescribe for acute illnesses, so cough and cold symptoms, urinary tract infections, sinus infections, pneumonias, sore throats, all of these things. So some of the prescribed meds will cause your blood sugars to go up. Two that come to mind that I think of are an antibiotic class. It's called fluoroquinolones. These are going to be things like Levaquin or Levofloxacin or ciprofloxacin. There's another one. I think it's called Moxifloxacin. They're fun names. These are fluoroquinolones. So Levaquin and then Cipro is the brand name. These will cause your blood sugars to go up and they are frequently prescribed for things like urinary tract infections and pneumonias. And then understanding that the majority, the overwhelming majority of sore throats, sinus infections and upper respiratory tract infections. So you've got a cold, you've got a runny nose, you've got congestion. The overwhelming majority of these are caused by viruses. And no antibiotic will treat a virus.
[00:17:56] So giving antibiotics for these symptoms is not going to help and can, in fact, make your blood sugars worse.
[00:18:05] The other prescription med that we frequently prescribe is steroids or prednisone, and these will definitely make your blood sugars worse. Also, they will make you feel better. They're not like the antibiotics. The antibiotics just don't treat viral infections. When we recognize that about 75% of sore throats or pharyngitis is what we call it in the. So we call it in the biz. Sore throats, 75% of those are caused by viruses, not strep throat. Strep throat is a bacterial infection that is actually pretty uncommon. And unless you actually test positive for strep throat, you probably should not be treating it with antibiotics. I mean, if we're looking at the standards of care.
[00:18:48] Sinus infections, that's another one that people come in for. They're like, I've got this sinus infection, sinus infections. 90% of sinus infections are viral in nature. They are caused by a virus, just not a bacteria. So all the antibiotics under the sun are not going to make it better.
[00:19:05] I always tell my patients when I'm working with them, you should expect to get sick for seven days and get better for seven days for a total of about 10 to 14 days of symptoms. That is a typical natural course of a viral infection. Okay, so when you feel cruddy and you go to the doctor and ask for. For meds or ask for antibiotics, overwhelming majority of the time these aren't going to help. And they have risks associated with them. The steroids will cause your blood sugars to go up. They'll also typically drive blood pressures up, and they'll make you feel amazing, which is nice, but they're not without a cost. So you already have an illness driving your blood sugars up, and then we're going to add a med that drives your blood sugars up. Not ideal. The antibiotics again, the fluoroquinolone. It's a single class. Most, lots of times we'll treat some of these things with cephalosporins or penicillins or even azathromycin, which is a different class of meds altogether. And those don't typically have the blood sugar response. But do understand they're not going to treat a viral infection. Most of these are caused by a virus. And all antibiotics will have a negative impact on your gut microbiome, which negatively impacts your metabolic health. I've done podcasts on microbiome, so if you're interested in that, go back and find those. But understanding that antibiotics pushing your provider to give you an antibiotic is probably not in your best interest. If you can avoid the antibiotics. If you do not have an actual bacterial infection, avoiding the antibiotics across the board is better. If you can make it through with some over the counter meds, which I'm going to talk about, that help your symptoms, making it through without the steroids is ideal. Okay, you're gonna get better. Like your blood sugars are not going to be as high for as long. If you can do that, yes, the steroids will likely cause you to feel better. And that's nice. I get it. When I get a cold, I'm like, oh my gosh, no, this is awful. What do I need to do to fix it? So I understand that inclination to want to get feel better, but I just want you to understand, I want you to hear that there are risks associated with some of these prescription sources and some of these over the counter sources. So other meds that we take to help with cough and cold symptoms, again, these sinus infections, which are viral, you know, the sore throat, which is viral, the upper respiratory tract infection, again, most of these are viral. Other meds that we can get over the counter are things like pseudoephedrine or sudafed.
[00:21:44] Phenylphyrin is another med that goes into cough medicines. And we can get over the counter. And that's great, they're wonderful. But those two specifically will drive your blood sugars up or can drive your blood sugars up. So being aware of that, things that won't drive your blood sugars up are dextromethorphan, which is also a cough. So like the DM component of, like Robitussin, which is a brand, I have no affiliation with any of these meds.
[00:22:15] And then Mucinex, dm, I think those are both DM formulations that have dextromethorphan in them. And that does not, will not drive your blood sugars up. That should not drive your blood sugars up. So I would look at the label and see what you're taking. If there's pseudoephedrine, if there's phenylephrine in it, it's probably going to drive your blood sugars up. If it's got a dextromethorphan and that's it. It's probably not. That's great. Run with that. Understand cough drops will also drive your blood sugars up, usually because they have a sweetener in there, in it because it turns out methyl alone, it tastes awful. So, um, understand, though, if you're taking those cough drops for that cough, it probably will drive your blood sugars up.
[00:22:55] So there are things that are happening because the cortisol effect and then there are things that are happening because the meds that we're taking to try to treat these symptoms, in the end, you can do any of it. It's fine. I just do not want you to believe that the things that you're eating don't matter. That it's. There's nothing you can do to help your diabetes and there's nothing. You know, every time you seem to get a roll, there something that comes up and there's futile to even try. That is not what's happening.
[00:23:26] When I. Women, you know, when my clients come to me, the first thing that is when I start to see these bumps in their blood sugars, I'm like, all right, what do we do about this? This is not the time to slack off.
[00:23:39] Feeding your sick body food that makes it sicker is not the right answer in this situation. And understanding that, I hope desperately to encourage you on that. When you get sick with a cold, it is not the to slack off even when you're seeing higher blood sugars. If you've never heard me say this before, I want you to come back in. If you're shopping for shoes, come back in. I want to talk to you. I want you to hear this.
[00:24:04] When you are sick, no matter what the blood sugars say, what the reading on your glucometer or your cgm, no matter what they say, they do not mean health. The things that you do to your body and with your body, that is health.
[00:24:24] If you are putting foods in your body that match your biology, no matter what your blood sugar reading is, that decision that food is still healthy no matter what that blood sugar reads afterwards. And that is one of the biggest shifts in this moment when you're ill that I want you to see.
[00:24:45] Many women will get frustrated and they'll say, effort. They're going to be high anyway. I'm going to eat the Girl Scout cookies. This is not the time to do that.
[00:24:54] The blood sugar reading does not mean you're healthy or not healthy. The food that you put in your body and the way you move your body, that is what means you're healthy or not healthy. Don't forget that in this time, other things that you can do. Don't say, eff it, don't give up, don't get upset because of those Readings, they're gonna be high. Your body is doing exactly what it's designed to do. Like, don't fret, this is what it's supposed to do and it's gonna get better. Instead, keep yourself well rested, keep yourself well hydrated. If you're gonna use meds, be aware of the ones that are gonna drive your sugars up and the ones that aren't. Stick to dextromethorphan formulations. Try to avoid the pseudoephedrine, the sudafeds, the phenylephrine, those sorts of things because you know they're going to drive your blood sugars up or they have the possibility to no matter what. If you can keep your secretions dried up, one, you're going to feel better. But two, you also will avoid the risk of developing or you can help avoid the risks of developing a secondary infection that will require antibiotics. Bacteria like to set up shop in snot, they like to feed off of it. And so if you can dry that snot up, those secretions, that mucus, if you can dry it up, then there's less of a chance that bacteria will set up shop in there. Unless that you need antibiotics, you're going to get quick, better, quicker. Okay? So if you can keep those secretions dried with the dextromethorphan formulation, you're less likely to develop a secondary infection. So those are the things that you can do. One, Please do not slack off. Do not let off the gas pedal about the choices that you're making about your health. The choices you make are still what is healthy. It is not the number. It is not a time to say effort. It's not a time to throw in the towel just because you're sick. Please don't do that. Second, well rested, well hydrated and avoid use meds that dry you up so you can avoid that secondary infection.
[00:26:53] That is all I have about illnesses. Again, I feel a little bit like I probably need to start throwing this podcast out every November. But if you have any questions, you know you can always contact
[email protected], i'm happy to answer anything. Last, lastly, I do have an ask if you are enjoying this podcast. If you're finding benefits from this podcast. If you're seeing effects from this podcast, please send me an email. I love to hear it. Delanedelainemd.com I love to hear success stories but also like and rate the podcast on your podcast player. Nine out of ten Americans have insulin resistant resistance and are on their way to diabetes, if not already there. This is not an element of our genetics. This is something that we're doing. The food that we put into our body is making us sick.
[00:27:40] People need to hear this. That's what this podcast is dedicated to is getting that word out. You can help me get that word out by liking and rating and reviewing this podcast. When you do that, the podcast players put it out to more people who haven't seen it already. Help me get this word out. Rate and review the podcast. People need to hear this. Lastly, I want you to keep listening. Keep avoiding foods that are making you sick. Keep making choices for your health, your longevity, and your vitality. I'll talk to you next week.
