Before I get started on the general update, I'd like to take a quick moment to sympathize with many of you out there who have contacted me about the registration problems at Osbourn. I share your frustration. Why there wasn't more testing is mystifying. Guidance as OHS continues to be a problem. Been about four years since my first interaction with them and it's still an unrelenting pain in the neck. I see that the schools have scheduled a handful of assistance sessions and that's good but I'm disappointed that this has been such a mess. I know it's going to take time for our scores to come up but let's get the comparitively easy stuff right. I'm not sure why fixing guidance seems to be such a herculean task for that bunch but it is.
So, as I relayed on this blogger forum software a coupla months ago I'm a diabetic of the fat guy variety. Worse yet, I'm a diabetic who developed a fondness for carbohydrate-laden wine and fell off the blood sugar control wagon. In my defense, I was riding bikes and I'm very active. What, me worry about blood sugar? Bollocks. Then I injured me ankle and the Patient First people that took my blood pressure actually handed me a flyer about my blood pressure and made me promise to see my family doc. I went there and threw myself on the mercy of the court. Long story short, A1C came back at 10. Lipids were a train wreck and my blood pressure was too high. Promised to do better, lose weight, etc, etc.
Fast forward 90 days and the news is mixed/good. My A1C is now 5.3 – right about where it should be. Pretty far ahead of where my doc thought it would be. My other tests were quite good as well. The main problem I'm having is losing weight. There are 2 general types of medication that are used to reduce blood sugar: those that help your body use your natural insulin more efficiently and those that drive your pancreas to produce more insulin. The ones that increase insulin efficiency aren't quite as powerful as the ones that help you generate more insulin but you typically use them together to get the results you want. If you force too much insulin production you can have some pretty terrifying low blood sugar events. Balance is important!
As my body has adjusted to the meds and I've sorted my diet out, my blood sugar has come down. I've found that the current med load has become too much. If I skip a meal, my blood sugar is low well in advance of the next meal. I'm normally having to eat near bedtime otherwise my blood sugar goes low. If you've never had a low blood sugar event you're in for a treat. At first you just feel hungry. Next you start to feel kinda weird and shaky and then you're an enraged food zombie – eating everything you can get your hands on. I'd guess the last time it happened to me I knocked down a thousand calories in about 3 minutes!
This being the case, it has been impossible to lose weight as the only way I can keep my blood sugar up is to eat! Eating means calories and even if they're healthy calories they're still calories. When I met with my doc to get my results she cut the meds back so I could eat less and start to lose some weight! So, in short, I'm in a much healthier place but I still have the significant challenge of losing weight. I know that I can get there from here but it is going to take a lot of work and maintaining my diet. During my first encounter with diabetes I managed to lose 70 pounds. I'm 10 years older but I don't see why I can't do it again…..
February 10, 2014 at 11:19 am
You can do it. You have a record of success. Just tweak the "impossible" and do what you have to do to ward off food zombies. I stock weird things like sardines in oil. The nurse handed me a recipe for low-carb pork rind pancakes today. I do what I have to do to avoid the stuff that was killing me. Thanks for continuing to model good health and make it cool.