Illness and Sick Days
Reviewed by CDE Mehandi Sharma · Updated
Being unwell raises blood glucose, because your body releases hormones to fight the illness. That is true whatever form of diabetes you have. What you should do about it differs.
If you are on no treatment — untreated GCK-MODY — a mild illness needs no diabetes-specific action. Keep fluids up, treat the illness, and expect glucose to settle as you recover. You do not risk ketoacidosis in the way someone with Type 1 does, and there is no medication to adjust.
If you are on a sulfonylurea, illness cuts both ways and needs more attention. Glucose can rise from the illness, while poor eating or vomiting alongside the tablet can cause a low. So test more often than usual, keep taking fluids, and try to eat something regularly even if small.
Do not stop the tablet on your own because you are not eating — but do ask your doctor what to do if you cannot eat at all or cannot keep anything down.
If you are on insulin, follow the same sick-day rules as anyone on insulin: continue it, test every few hours, check ketones, and keep fluids going.
Seek help the same day for vomiting you cannot control, inability to keep fluids down for several hours, high fever, drowsiness or confusion, or a low that will not come up.
It is worth asking for your own written sick-day plan while you are well, appropriate to your subtype and treatment.