Tag Archives: diabetic

Diabetes Control – Then and Now

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richthediabetic-churchclothesThe 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?

Why Am I A Diabetes Advocate?

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540732_10200986796172745_1377433066_nYou’ve probably noticed my tagline on one of my profiles, or here on my blog.  It says “Don’t die like I did . . . ”  Why would I use such a strong tagline?  Well, because it gets your attention for one thing, but more importantly, I don’t want you to suffer my fate.  I didn’t take care of myself when I was younger, and the consequences of that is that I suffered cardiac arrest on 13 Aug 2003, from undiagnosed heart disease caused by poor diet, no exercise, and lack of diabetes control.  I got lucky.  You may not?  If you don’t take care of yourself now, you might leave this world before your time.  I don’t want that.  I want you see my story, to learn from my mistakes, so that you don’t suffer my fate in a worse way than I did.  I want you to take care of yourself.  Live a vibrant, healthy, diabetic life.  I want you to thrive with your diabetes.  Don’t be stupid like I was.  This is why I’m a diabetes advocate.  To keep you from suffering my fate.

Every once in a while, I’ll start to wonder if what I’m doing is helping people, and it never fails that when I start to wonder that, I’ll get a comment somewhere in my social network that lets me know I “am” helping people.  I got one last night that just simply made my heart melt.  It was a comment left on the picture above when I posted it on my FB profile.  I want to share it with you now.  It comes from a brave mom of a type 1 diabetic son that’s only 4 years old.

Looking very serious there Richard;-) Thank u for all ur support from across the world. My son sits on my lap at times when I’m on FB and the other day ur picture popped up. I told him that u are a T1D too, he said that he wanted to be just like u when he was big. He said that ur strong;-) Funny the things that come out of a 4yr old. He must sense something about u. In my eyes, all those who live with T1D are superheros. Hugs and glad that ur feeling better.

That just made my heart smile when I read it.  That a child looks up to me and wants to be like me when he grows up.  Kids are suppose to want to be firemen and astronauts, . . . not diabetics!  *grin*  I know that his hopes of being strong like me with soon turn into being a diabetic fireman or a diabetic astronaut, but it still made me smile.  Even now as I’m writing this, I can feel the joy that I’m inspiring a brave young boy to be strong, and not let diabetes stand in his way.  What that little boy doesn’t realize is that now I’m even more motivated to be the best advocate I can be, so I don’t let him down.

 

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Dexcom Review: Trusting the Dexcom G4

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test drive 1 - G4 Platinum receiver-transmitterThis is my 6 month Dexcom review of the G4 continuous glucose monitor (CGM).  To get straight to the point, I think every diabetic should have a Dexcom G4 CGM.  One thing that we’re told when we get any CGM device, is that we still need to check our blood sugars normally by blood draw to calibrate, and I understand that, but when I had my Medtronic Guardian, I couldn’t trust that thing at all.  It made me check my blood sugar more often because I never trusted it.  With my Dexcom, I trust it, even when I haven’t calibrated it for 24 hours!  (Don’t do that BTW!)  Most importantly, is that with my Guardian CGM, it was the worst when my blood sugar was rising or crashing, but I trust my Dexcom to be accurate even when I’m rising or falling, which is when a diabetic needs their CGM to be accurate.

A couple days ago was the first nice, sunny, warm day we’ve had here in Iowa this spring.  Actually, it was earth day too I think?  Anyway, I decided to go throw some disc golf.  (If you haven’t noticed yet, I love to play disc golf.)  Normally I wear a fanny pack on the course with me, that has all my supplies in it.  Actually I go everywhere with it.  It’s been referred to by my friends as my diabetic man purse.  So I’m prepping my disc golf bag, and I realize this is the first time I will have gone disc golfing with my Dexcom because I got it in November.  So I decide to leave the fanny pack in the car, and just throw some glucose tabs in my bag, and my Dex in my pocket.  I played a round with no problems, secure in that my Dex was accurate, and I didn’t need to check my blood sugar while playing.  What freedom!

Today I did a foolish thing.  I left for work without my diabetic man purse.  When I realized I forgot it, I was to far from home to go get it and get to work on time.  I have a job where if you’re late for work, you can get fired, so I didn’t go home because I knew my Dex was in my front pocket.  However, I hadn’t calibrated it since I went to bed the night before.  I ate and bolused for breakfast and lunch, using my Dex as my guide for my blood sugar.  I checked it throughout the day, and was floating around 150, which I was happy with.  I got home and checked my blood sugar at about 8PM.  My Dex said it was 156, and my One Touch said it was 184.  I’ll take it!!!  Remember, this is nearly 24 hours since it’s last calibration!  (#winning)  Now of course I don’t recommend leaving your diabetic supplies at home, but when you happen to forget them like I did, you can trust your Dex to keep giving you accurate results for hours and hours.  If you tried that with the Medtronic, it would turn off the sensor when you didn’t calibrate it at the first warning alarm.  (#diafail)

To conclude, if you’re currently evaluating the Dexcom G4, I recommend you just call up Dexcom, tell them you want it, let them deal with your insurance, and wait to hear from them.  I don’t think you can lose.  Ever diabetic should have one of these.  Sound off if you agree!!!  (That means please leave a comment!)

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********** Now ya know, and knowing is half the battle.  Go Joe!!! **********

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Diabetes vs Cancer

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*sigh*  This blog will be full of emotions and feelings that you may not want to experience.  Tears were shed writing it.  Just wanted to let you know before you keep reading.

Diabetes vs cancer.  I’ve lost 2 uncles and 1 aunt to cancer.  I have 2 uncles currently losing their battle, 1 that’s in remission, 1 aunt that’s a breast cancer survivor, plus 2 friends that are fighting to survive the battle with cancer.  I hate cancer.  I really f’ing hate it.  I have the most vivid memory of the night I saw my favorite uncle, uncle Ron, say goodbye to me, while he gasped for breath in his hospital bed.  He said “I guess this is it Richie.”  Hours later he was gone.  From diagnosis to the end was less than 30 days I think.  I’ve never hated my diabetes.  My diabetes feels so insignificant when I see what cancer does to my loved ones.  It makes me feel lucky to have diabetes.  I can manage and live with my diabetes.  I imagine that my friends and family who are fighting cancer now, might feel a little helpless to it.  I sit here trying to imagine how that must feel to them, and I just don’t know?  I’m not helpless to my diabetes.  I don’t know what to say to them.  I’m normally good at encouraging words, but all I can think to say is “you should prepare yourself”.

When your doctor tells you that you have cancer, the first thing you think about is . . . how long do I have.  When your doctor tells you that you have diabetes, the first thing you think about is . . . no more candy, cookies, cake, or ice cream for me.  Maybe being diagnosed with diabetes isn’t so bad as you thought?  I see so many people in the #doc (Diabetic Online Community), who have Twitter handles or blog titles that imply their hatred of being afflicted with diabetes.  That life is such a burden living with diabetes.  Maybe they’d like to trade their diabetes for cancer?  Maybe they should count their blessings?!  I’ve never hated being diabetic.  It’s just been a part of my life.  Hell, it’s even taken my life once, and instead of getting all depressed about it, it motivated my ass to change how I live, and then to become an advocate for other diabetics who want to improve their lives and their health.  I challenge those who think of their diabetes as a burden to quit feeling sorry for themselves, quit complaining, and think of what life COULD have dealt you.  You ain’t got it so bad.  With diabetes, even type 1, you can live for 42 years with it like I have.  How many cancer patients do you know that have survived cancer for 42 years?

Now I’m going to go to the river and listen to the wind for a while.

Mitakuye Oyasin

Disappointing A1C Lab Results

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Bayer A1C NowI very rarely get depressed, but I think I’m depressed right now. I also normally don’t tell anybody when I’m depressed, or especially why I’m depressed. I feel a responsibility to my readers about this though, and to the diabetes online community who’ve supported me. So here goes . . .

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know that I’ve had some problems with my endocrinology office. I had another problem yesterday when I called to get my A1C results. It had been a full week since my blood was drawn, which should have been plenty of time for records to be passed back and forth, and the office had no record of me even ordering the test. *sigh* So the lady on the phone said she’d dig for it and get back to me by end of day. (That’s 6 hours from when I called her.) I didn’t expect her to, and she didn’t. So I called again this morning. I was put on eternal hold and I decided to hang up, and get in their face at the office. Drove to the office, and they were closed on Tuesdays, so who was I talking to earlier?! Walked across the building to the lab, explained that my endo’s office is clueless, and they gave me my results without any incident. Score 1 for finding a workaround.

Now, the results don’t make any sense to me. 2 weeks ago, I used the Bayer A1C home test kit, and it said my A1C was 7.6, and today it says my A1C is 7.3, but the lab test says 8.4? WTH?! I’ve seen conflicting blogs and stories about it’s accuracy. Some say it’s spot on, and some say it’s horrible. I don’t know what to believe. If I go by my 30 day average on my meter for the last few months (always under 170), I should be at or near an A1C of 7.5. I’m telling myself that it’s the lab results that are wrong.

Plus, I don’t see how I can have an HDL cholesterol of 74, with no changes to diet, exercise, medication. The only thing I changed was adding a rather expensive CoQ10 supplement. Could that have raised my HDL that high? I knew it would raise it some, but didn’t expect that much. The highest HDL I’ve ever recorded previous to this was a 54, and exercised more intensely then. My triglycerides are 43, my LDL is 182 (I know it’s high), and my ratio is still ideal at 3.58.

Now the day I went in for the blood draw, the orders were messed up and had to be corrected, the phlebotomist was new and confused, and I nearly asked for someone else, but everybody is new and needs to learn, so I didn’t. I’m wondering if in all this damn confusion, did either the tests get skewed or did they mix up my blood with someone elses, because my results don’t make any sense.

My appointment with my endo next week will be my last. I drove straight to my primary care doctors office after leaving the lab, to ask if they are able to order assistance for me from the diabetes educator that I won’t give up. They’re going to see if they can do it, so I can continue getting her assistance. I’ll be looking for a new endo in Iowa City, which is 60-70 miles away.

The sun has come out here, thank god, so maybe I’ll try to cheer myself up by driving a few miles down the river to see the bald eagles. Nature has always been my shrink. If I don’t I’m just going to want to cover my head and crawl into a hole. I just kinda feel lost right now. I have a great deal of other stresses right now too, so I was looking forward to this number being a good number. Now I feel beaten. *sigh*

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