How to Manage Blood Sugar During Illness, Injury, or Recovery

When you’re sick or healing, your body goes into defense mode. This is a normal, protective response but can become problematic for blood sugar in a few ways.

“Illness or injury can set off the body’s natural stress hormone response that’s meant to keep you alive, fight infection, and promote healing. And one part of that response is raising blood sugar,” says Dr. Isaacs.

In these scenarios, the body wants to make sure there’s enough glucose (sugar) available to use as fuel to fight off infection and repair any damage it’s facing. To do this, it triggers the production of stress hormones such as adrenaline, cortisol, glucagon, and growth hormone, all of which signal the liver to release more glucose into the bloodstream.

At the same time, the immune system releases inflammatory cytokines, which are chemical messengers that can interfere with insulin’s ability to regulate blood sugar.

As a result, cells become more resistant to insulin, so glucose stays in the bloodstream longer to remain readily available for your body to use.

But in people with diabetes (diagnosed or not), this stress response can overshoot and lead to potentially dangerous elevated blood sugar levels.

It can also complicate day-to-day management for people who are already conscious about managing blood sugar, says Lisal J. Folsom, MD, an endocrinologist and the medical director of the adult endocrinology division of the Wendy Novak Diabetes Institute in Louisville, Kentucky. “The problem arises in insulin resistance, where the body either doesn’t make insulin or can’t make enough insulin to meet the increased demand,” she says. “This can result in persistently high blood sugars, which actually impede the healing response.”

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