The other day, I had a lengthy conversation with my dad, about me and my diabetes when I was a kid. You see, I’ve become friends with some mom’s who have type 1 diabetic children, and when they post stories of the struggles both they, and their kids go through, it makes me think of my childhood. When I look back on my own childhood, I don’t remember the kind of nightmare’s that these poor kids are going through as type 1 diabetic children. I see their mom’s post stories all to frequently of their kid’s blood sugars being over 400 or 500 that won’t come down, resulting in lengthy hospital stays. I also recently saw another diabetic advocate post about numerous children that had passed away from their diabetes, all in a short time. Then I saw a video about something called “dead in bed” syndrome. OMG! That video was horrifying, and it’s something that they say is becoming all to frequent with diabetic children?! What is going on?!!! My childhood wasn’t like this!! We didn’t live in fear of my diabetes like this?!!
So I asked my dad what he remembered with my diabetes as a kid. I asked him specifically if he lived in fear of me dying as a child. He said no. Yes, there were some sleeping seizures from serious hypo’s, but they were few and far between. 2 or 3 times a year maybe. Very few hospitalizations in all of my youth years from diabetes, and never for very long. He said that he and my mom had to learn timing of my meals and snacks because back then we didn’t have fast acting insulin, or blood sugar testing, so they only used urine strips and NPH insulin, and NPH would leave me hypo at certain times of day, so they just knew that at certain times, I needed to eat a snack. I talked to my mom about this a couple months ago too, and she pretty much told me the same thing. 1 shot a day, timing of meals, check urine sugar. That was it. That’s all there was to juvenille diabetes control back then, and I did fine as a kid. It wasn’t until my adulthood that my diabetes got totally out of control, when I started taking multiple shots a day, using fast acting insulin, and checking my blood sugar frequently. It was after years of doing this, that I suffered a complication of my diabetes. That I suffered cardiac arrest at age 34. (As you can see, I survived it.)
Now I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I have a rather radical thought. WHAT IF . . . diabetes control is to tight in this day an age? WHAT IF . . . blood sugar monitoring, insulin pumps, and A1C’s under 7.0, are the cause of these problems in juvenile diabetic children now days? I know, I know. Calm down. Hey, . . . it’s just a thought. How long have I lived with type 1 diabetes? 42 years? Hmmmmm? Of course, I’m not saying you should stop your current treatment and jump back 35 years in treatment methods. DON’T EVEN THINK OF DOING THAT! Follow your doctors prescribed treatment method. I’m just saying it’s an awfully interesting set of coincidences that line up here, and it just makes me wonder.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
This CGM review will cover continuous glucose monitors from Dexcom and Medtronic. The Dexcom G4, and Medtronic Guardian. I’ve had the Medtronic Guardian since March of 2012. I got the Dexcom G4 at the end of December and started using it last week. First, let me just say that both have benefits and drawbacks compared to the other, however, I only trust 1 of them. If you’ve done any reading online about CGM’s you probably already know which one I trust.
Then I started to become involved in the diabetes online community, or DOC. Everyone in the DOC raved about the Dexcom 7, with it’s comfort, accuracy, and that you can wear it for 7 days. In the fall, I suddenly remembered that someone at Medtronic told me I have to re-order transmitters every 6 months. Instead, I called Dexcom. The G4 had just been released to rave reviews. My insurance allowed it, and I got it ordered before end of year so there would be no out of pocket cost. (Deductible was complete early in the year.) So far, I’ve been absolutely thrilled with the Dexcom G4. It’s accuracy is especially surprising compared to the Medtronic, especially when I’m spiking or crashing quickly, or running high. My educator mentioned to me that it’s more accurate the more you calibrate it, so I’ve been doing that. In just 3 days I’ve already noticed trends that I could never notice on the Medtronic because it was so horribly inaccurate. I also like that it’s not integrated. It allows me to set it on my desk at work, and monitor my blood sugar easily, without having to stand up and dig my pump out of my pocket. I like that it’s brightly lit and in color so it’s easy to see in the dark, without my glasses on, when I feel low.
Yes, agave nectar and fructose are strong with the dark side of the force. Last week, I posted a tweet that said ”fructose is poison”, and small group of people disagreed with me, and asked me to provide how much is safe, and proof of why I think it is poison. One of them suggested that I’m a “Lustig Devotee”, but I don’t even know Lustig, so no, I’m not a devotee. So here’s my reasoning about why agave nectar and fructose are evil, mostly agave nectar actually.
(Remember, it’s 90% fructose!) This is what the marketing companies want you to do. To buy agave nectar as your primary household sweetener, because it’s a “healthy alternative”. Christ! Every time I hear that I want to scream. The marketing companies that market agave nectar want you to believe it’s good for your diabetes and instead it could kill you. You’re trading a short term health benefit, no blood sugar spike, for a long term health risk, heart attack resulting in death. I have experience in death, so please excuse me for being a little dramatic, but I want to stop you from having to go through that. It sucks big time! When they checked my cholesterol in the hospital after my cardiac arrest, my triglycerides were 289 I think, and my HDL was 29. That’s the exact recipe for heart disease. I had heart disease, and the first symptom was cardiac arrest! If high quantities of fructose in agave nectar can add to your triglycerides, wouldn’t you want to discontinue use of it, or never even try it? You’re already at risk because you have diabetes.
Diabetic ketoacidosis. Diabetics everywhere know this term, . . . I hope. What is diabetic ketoacidosis? How is it different than ketosis?
