January 21, 2002 I tried about 5 pieces of gum in succession and if anything, it upset my stomach more, so I rolled down the window, froze my ass off (there was 3 feet of snow or more outside the car), and sucked in that nice cold mountain air. Thus, I spared my husband a lap of half-digested breakfast. My back however, was not spared in this incident. Even the impulse purchase of a "butt pillow" for my lower back didn't help. With the advent of the highly sensitive place that is my back, today, I realized that my back has been getting progressively worse since before Christmas. I've been losing weight and eating okay, and while my sugars are still running high, I've lost weight. A weight loss means that my back should be improving and frankly, yet it's escalating to a new low in the Hollow Pit of Ow. I have been exercising and as a result, my body is generally feeling better to me, though after this weekend, I'm still exhausted. My sugars are still wobbly. They've gotten better, but are still not at normal levels. I occasionally have a good fasting sugar, but overall, I'm arm wrestling them. Despite the fact that I'm continuing to lose weight and exercise, yeah, my sugars are still pretty whacked -- much to my eternal frustration and annoyance. I weigh 247lbs, not 300+ and dammit, it should make a difference! I managed to get an appointment with Dr. B and he gave me some pain meds for my back. It's helped some. Hopefully, once the pain has gone away, I'll be able to get back to everything as normal. The other issue I brought up with him was that my sugars have been really whacky. It's just unlike me to be having such high fasting sugars and other stuff, when I'm simultaneously exercising and losing weight. In fact, today, I'm down some more weight. My net weight loss is from well over 300 lbs to 247 today. The doctor was concerned I had lost weight from my sugars being bad, but I told him the truth that my sugars hadn't been as bad as they could have been and that I'd been trying to lose weight by being careful with my diet and exercise. Sometimes weightloss for a diabetic is a bad thing because it can mean that you've been giving your body the correct amount of carbohydrates but that your body can't assimilate them, so you've been blowing the sugar you can't handle out your kidneys. I don't think I've been doing that a big bunch, but I know it ain't been pretty lately in the sugars department for me. Anyhow, as soon as I'm off the painkillers for my back, I start on a medication called Actose. What this stuff does is to make you more sensitive to your own insulin, thereby taking the strain off the insulin production line. A type 2 diabetic typically has a working pancreas making insulin, but it's having to make a lot of it because the body is resistant to its own insulin. After the pancreas puts in that much overtime, like most of us, it eventually quits. Benefits aside, too much work is too much work! However, type 2 diabetics dread becoming type 1 diabetics and becoming the sole dependents of the insulin needle and its necessary bad juju. My doctor said that if he were diabetic he'd take this medication because it's been around a while and they are finding that diabetics who take this medication don't have their pancreas quit on them 15-20 years down the line. That would mean that I have a good chance of not having to turn to the needle when I'm 60, but that I could lead a pretty normal life. This is a good thing because I've heard a lot of gloom and doom, including that I would end up on the needle because most women who take insulin while pregnant end up on it later in life. I'll grant you that this is one of those gloomy pronouncements that I'm going to try very hard to kick in the teeth. The other thing I'm reading on actose is that it can help with triglyceride levels. Being that the number one source of death in diabetics is heart disease, that's a good thing. My triglyceride levels were pretty good at my last blood screening and totally in the normal range, so I'm doing everything right. I see nothing wrong with further hedging my bets both in terms of my tri's and my sugars. At any rate, I'm going to be taking medication. I may not need it forever and I am going to have to document my sugars -- probably fasting, before bed, and after lunch. I'm hoping it'll bring my sugars down and thus, give my poor overtaxed pancreas a break. My after dinner sugars are 136, which aren't perfect, but certainly aren't bad. Dinner was homemade turkey tacos -- ground meat, bell pepper, onion, corn, lettuce, a pinch of cheese and flour tortillas. I couldn't get to the right store for the whole wheat ones, but I used just regular flour and it was okay. I was still hungry after dinner, so for dessert, I had chocolate sugar-free pudding, but being that milk and I are not typically on sugar-speaking terms, the 136 is a pretty good sugar. I'm going to do some therapy stuff for my back tonight, so I expect by morning, they'll be in a good range. Exercise does a body good. Today was terribly windy, so I didn't get outside for exercising, so the little bit in here ought to do until I walk Bear to school tomorrow.
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