getSubNavigation() refresh?

Using getSubNavigationt to setup a side menu on a page and its working great except i cant seem to get the badges to update. Ive tried unsetting $cachedSubNavigation when my data updates, but the badges in this nav do not seem to reflect it. Ive actually doubl checked the source and even did some ray dumps there and the navigation items do indeed have the new values. What am i missing?