Health

Today is World Diabetes Day

November 14, 2014

Today is World Diabetes Day.

This day, of course, is part of diabetes awareness month. I’ll be having a few extra posts this month in regard to diabetes, especially considering the fact that over the past year, I’ve actually taken it seriously – finally.

And over that past year, I’ve gotten better at a lot of things, including:

Healthier eating
Understanding what food does to me
Getting more active
Losing some weight
Looking long-term and not just short-term
Checking my blood much more, an understanding it

It’s often said in times like this, one needs to hit rock bottom to get back up and push forward. I had that happen. It was that day when I checked my blood sugar and I panicked like I have never done before.

April 24, 2014.

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My fasting sugar that day was 328. Then, at lunch, is when I really freaked. The first reading was 398, followed by 391 about 10 minutes later, followed by 364 about 40 minutes later.

In total, I had seven readings that day – six of which were over 300.

But, before I continue, allow me to remind you that during this time my stress level was high, I was on a home IV for some serious antibiotics, and had been through foot surgery. So it was all adding up.

I, of course, e-mailed my primary and had a back-and-forth with him. Considering all I had been through, he told me to keep a close eye on it (I was scheduled for an appointment soon) and that we may have to adjust medicine or, possibly, think about insulin.

Yikes.

I started watching what was going in my system and over the next week, the numbers started to drop, though they were still awful high for the next couple of weeks. I then met with the diabetes educator and – shockingly – I listened. I asked questions. I was with her for a good hour and a half, learning about everything. I walked out with the goal of turning my life around.

That’s when things changed and I started settling in. I started understanding carbs and protein and what everything does to me. That was May 5.

My reading before dinner on May 8 was 175.

My post-dinner reading on May 12 (two hours after) was 204. That’s the last time I had a reading at higher than 200.

When I met the diabetes educator, she asked me to set two goals – one short term, one long term. The short term was simple – keep me off insulin. The long-term goal is something I’ve not really shared as I am working toward it. When it happens, I will share more.

I look back at April 24 and realize that was my rock bottom. It was the day I decided to take my life back and not be a statistic. I wanted to work at this and learn to live with it, not to suffer with it.

Now, nearly seven months later, I am doing 100 times better. My numbers are where the diabetes educator wants them and, in most cases, lower. Recently, I’ve been battling a bit more with fasting sugars, but I am learning what is going on, which is a good thing.

Taking diabetes seriously is important as it keeps getting worse in our country (and beyond). How about some of these numbers, from the American Diabetes Association website?

In 2012, 29.1 million Americans (9.3 percent of the population) had diabetes, up from 25.8 million (8.3 percent) in 2010.

The percentage in seniors is higher, at 25.9 percent (11.8 million).

In 2012, 86 million Americans (aged 20 and older) had pre-diabetes.

And, unfortunately, deaths have remained the seventh leading cause in the United States in 2010, with 69,071 people listed as diabetes being the main cause in death. Another 234,051 death certificates listed it as a contributing cause.

The World Health Organization says total deaths from diabetes are projected to go up by more than 50 percent in the next 10 years, and more than 80 percent in upper-middle income countries.

So where do we go from here?

For me, personally, I am setting up some other goals. One thing I truly want to do is get my testing down to a science. I need to learn more about what foods do to me. That means I need to start tracking food and what I eat more. I am going to invest in a good pocket calendar so I can write these things down. Though I realize I have apps that do this on my phone, I have a hard time doing things like that on there. Who knows, though? Maybe I can learn one of those and start doing it that way.

The thing about this day is that I take it a bit more seriously now than I ever did before. I realize this day is about moving forward and being proactive in keeping myself in the best shape possible. I still have a long road to go, without a doubt. But I plan on being on that road for a long time and to do that, I need to keep improving with the diabetes.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Living with Diabetes: Showing awareness during November

November 10, 2014

November is National Diabetes Awareness Month.

I’ve known this for several years, dating back to when I started geocaching. Though the campaign was actually a couple of years old, Groundspeak (the owners of geocaching.com) partnered with Unite for Diabetes to manufacture and distribute 20,000 trackable tags. When I see these, I still pick them up and move them.

In 2007, a geocoin to commemorate the first United Nations World Diabetes Day (Nov. 14) was released and there were many of these coins delivered. You can now actually purchase these coins (of which I own one).

Back then, though, I never took my own diabetes seriously.

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It’s been a while since I’ve updated here about my battle. I’m doing this on the blog and in a more public setting, as I’ve noted in past posts, to keep myself honest and to have accountability about taking this a tad more serious than I’ve done in the past.

So far, it works out well.

In fact, at my last doctor’s appointment, my A1C, which is the long-term look at my numbers was a 5.9, which is extremely solid compared to what I had been in the early part of the year. That allowed my primary physician to lop off one of my medications, which was super awesome to me.

However…

It’s changed a little recently and I’m wondering where to go with it. As I read more and more about daily numbers and things like that, it seems like the goals doctors give patients differs. I have a hard time finding definitive numbers to aim for, so I can only go by what the diabetes educator I see says, as well as my primary. Those numbers are basically an 80-140 before a meal, and anything below 180 a couple hours after eating. That should, theoretically, get be to 7 or below on my A1C.

Now, that being said, there was a sign at the place where I go for my appointments that showed the following:

Fasting: 80-120

2-hour post meal:

Age 50 and younger: <140
Age 50-60: <150
Age 60 and older: <160

What this didn’t say, however, was if this was for a person without diabetes (who might be on the border) or if this is what diabetics should aim for. Because if these numbers are where I need to be, then I may have to go start taking that other medicine again.

See, my goal always has been to avoid any thought of insulin. So, if I need to try that other medicine again to keep me level, so be it.

As of the last day or so, according to my glucometer, I’m about 80 percent in range, and 20 percent high. That is alarming to me, as I had been in the 100 percent in-range category. My average reading is 126, which is higher than it was a month or so ago, when I was down in the 110-115 range. Now, these are also the numbers averaging the past 14 days, so it can and will go up and down, depending on the day and week.

The mornings have been the real culprit. I’ve been as high as 155 (Nov. 3), and I’m not eating a ton of stuff the night before. I’m keeping within my dietary limitations and following what I am supposed to be doing. However, the past week or so I’ve been pretty sick. So add some cold medicine and everything else into my body, and it’s possible that is playing games with things. But that’s for the past week.

If you go back to Oct. 1, I’ve been high (so above 140) at my morning check 18 times. That’s way too much for my liking.

It’s not that I haven’t been high in the mornings before. Look at Aug. 10-Sept. 10 and there were six instances of having a high count in the morning. However, they were not bunched with others and seemed to be kind of abnormal hits.

Now, when I get them, they are a bit more grouped, say 3-4 days in a row of high counts.

I’ve discussed this with my health care folks and they’ve explained different aspects of why this can – and does – happen. It has to do with some things I don’t fully grasp, but basically it’s something your body does to get glucose when you go an extended time (so sleeping) without eating etc. I am on a eating six times a day thing now, so I have breakfast, a mid-morning snack, lunch, a mid-afternoon snack, dinner, and an evening snack. I count the carb servings and all that.

A few things to note – as softball has ended, my activity level is OK, but not as much. So I need to start getting more and more active, even if that means just going out for more walks. Also, if you look at the rest of my readings (I usually check 3-4 times per day), and starting at Oct. 1 again, I had one number that was out of the normal range. So it seems like I am staying on the right path, but need to figure out the morning readings a little better.

I plan on having a few more posts about diabetes this month as I have been figuring other things out. It’s all a learning process for me and as I continue to push forward, I know there will be things I continue to work on. I won’t be perfect, that’s for sure, but I have goals and things I know I need to work on. The best I can do is keep plugging along and working toward a better result.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

The foot – a year later

November 4, 2014

I can’t believe a whole year has gone by when it comes to my foot.

For those of you who haven’t read the blog for a while or don’t know through social media things, last year I stepped on a nail. The nail penetrated a hiking boot/sneaker, through a sock and pretty deep into my foot. I went to the ER that night and got a tetanus shot, though they didn’t give any antibiotics, which seemed odd being I’m diabetic.

From there was a whirlwind of different things, enough to make me want to just say hell with it.

The short of the story is this – the nail ended up giving an infection. As a diabetic, they got truly worried with some things they saw, and I can totally understand that.

Here’s what I went through:

X-rays
Several trips to a podiatrist
An MRI
Foot surgery, which was postponed when I had a bit of an anxiety attack, which led to…
A trip to a cardiologist
Scans of the heart, stress test, echocardiogram and, eventually …
A heart catheterization, which found my heart was fine …
And, finally, foot surgery (turns out one issue was one tiny bone in my foot was shattered by said nail and had to be removed as part of this)
Six weeks of home IV antibiotics
Eventual clearance that my foot was fine

That’s the basics. During this time, they found an antibiotic I was allergic to, and that Benadryl makes me hallucinate. Good times!

But, though those six months or so were crazy, I was thankful I had insurance and a job where I could do what I had to do and still be supported in whatever I needed to have done.

Also during all of this, my diabetes got out of control, which forced me to change a lot of my habits to get things in control.

So here we are, a year later.

My health is way better. My foot is doing very well. I have my diabetes, for the most part, in check. My numbers have been pretty solid and I like the direction it’s going.

One year later and I’m doing way better than I was at this point last year, in many aspects of my life. But I’ll tackle more of those soon enough.

If you want to read the saga of my foot, you can see some of the posts below:

A perfectly timed break (Dec. 2, 2013)

30 minus 2 Days of Writing: Damn (Feb. 8, 2014)

A heart and a foot surgeon walk into a bar (March 25, 2014)

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Living with Diabetes: Hard work nets good results

June 18, 2014

As I look back over the past few months, and as my health gets better after several battles, I look at April 24 as a turning point.

If you read my blog, you may have seen my proclamation of being diabetic not too long ago. It took me several years and the threat of insulin to really wake me up and take responsibility for it. I’ve always been one who says people need to take responsibility for their own decisions and I am no different.

See, I was once told I was borderline, then diabetic … but I never took it too seriously. I checked and all, but never did the right thing to get educated.

If you match this up with my original post, this is an insane improvement.

The April 24 came.

The morning started with a reading of 328. Then before lunch, I was at 398. Over the next 60 minutes, two more readings went 391 and 364. In the middle of the afternoon, I was 361 and then down to 274 before dinner. But at night, I was 325.

That scared me quite a bit.

I panicked; I didn’t want to eat to stay away from everything.

Let’s turn back time a little though. In January, as all of these foot issues were taking off, my A1C (long-range blood sugar) was 7.8. Not great, but workable. On February 3, it was the same. Then all hell broke loose. On March 19, I was up to 9.4.

Then – after this April 24 scare – I had my blood taken on May 1. My A1C was up to 9.8. My fasting glucose that day was 318.

If you read my initial post, you know the practitioner I go to wanted me to go on insulin. I fought it and bought myself some time. I am glad I did because I proved a person could really push forward and do it right.

This is my first – of likely many – updates. It helps me by keeping me accountable and I’m sure there are plenty of others out there in this situation – or have been.

Since this all happened, I’ve really improved. I watch what I eat. I check my blood. I make sure I see what things do to me.

So, I was somewhat excited to see what a new blood test would do. I got blood taken on June 10 and the results were amazing.

Believe me, I still have work to do, but to think where I was a little over a month ago and where I am now is truly amazing to me.

My lowest number over the past couple of weeks came before lunch on June 12.

My A1C is down to 8.2, which is a solid drop. I want it, obviously, to keep dropping. But with it being a long-range test, it still is taking some of the crap that was in my system over the past few months. My fasting glucose, though? 130. I’d even like that lower, but I realize it takes time.

My diet hasn’t changed a ton in what I eat, rather how and when I eat. I definitely don’t eat as much bread as I once did, and I haven’t had a candy bar in more than a month. I found some low-carb wraps that I use and am trying to make sure I eat better and smaller servings.

I’ve also extended to eating six times a day and I understand why and also what it does to me. On days I miss the “in-between” meals/snacks, I have seen the numbers actually bump a little. When I am eating on the right schedule, it works out well.

Here’s the thing, too — I’ve lost about five pounds over those six weeks. I know it’s not a ton, but it’s losing. That, to me, is key. That shows something I am doing is right. I understand what things are doing to me and what I can do. I also have made sure my serving sizes are much lower than they had been. And I feel better because of it.

This improvement is awesome. I’m definitely stoked and excited. But there’s plenty of work still to be done and I don’t anticipate me going off this path anytime soon, outside of adding more exercise.

What I’m seeing, though, is amazing. I feel better. I have more energy. I have more stamina. I’m sleeping better, too, which is really nice. And, it seems others notice as I’ve had people note a seem to have more pep and my face seems to be looking better and not drawn out.

That’s good.

I also, since doing this, haven’t eaten any candy and I’ve avoided a lot of other things. After the initial shock to the body of not having these items, I’ve been quite fine with it.

I was at the doctor’s last week and got two thumbs up, also knowing I had to keep working. I’m not out of the water. But, the improvement has shown I am serious and I am trying to make things better. Now I don’t have to be back there for two months — though a blood test is needed in one.

As I’ve noted before, however, this is a long-term thing. It’s not going away. So I need to continue to work and keep trying to get healthier. I’ll keep posting updates here every three or four weeks, which is a way for me to make sure I am keeping myself accountable for everything I am doing.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Coming clean: The battle with diabetes isn’t an easy one

May 28, 2014

It’s time to come clean.

Maybe if I do it here, I’ll stick to what I need to do. But I don’t want this to be some sort of crazy “oh, my” party, either. Realize this — it’s my fault and I accept and take full responsibility for where it’s gotten to.

I’m diabetic.

This has become very important to me.

This is not a shock to many of my friends or family. Many already know. But, it’s not as cut and dry as that. I let it get to the level it is.

Several years back, before my one doctor retired, he told me I was borderline diabetic. Basically, my numbers were on the fence. I needed to lose weight, get more active and watch what I ate. I also needed to take blood samples to watch the numbers.

No problem.

I did it for a while. Then I started realize what did and what did not spike my blood sugar levels. So, I figured I had it all under control. Turns out just because you know what’s working then doesn’t always work.

Fast forward a few years and my doctor is now retired and I’m going to a new person. The numbers are a little higher and now this guy is insisting on medicine. As much as I hate to accept it, I do so. It seems to work. I’m doing OK.

Then I lose my job.

That span of nearly two and a half years was tough. I had no insurance, so doctor’s appointments and such came out of my pocket. During that time, my blood sugars spiked at times. I got lazy on checking it. I sat in front of the computer or television too much (unfortunately, part of that is with work now, too, but I get up and walk as much as I can). I definitely didn’t exercise as much as I should have, which is crazy because I actually had time to do it. And, despite actually losing weight over that time, my blood tests weren’t great.

So things got upped in regard to medication.

The good news came late this past fall. I got a job. There was insurance. I started going to see a doctor. Things were getting better controlled. Heck, my A1C (long-term blood test) was getting close to where it needed to be. So, it seemed I was mixing what I needed to do.

But then that foot thing happened.

For the next three-plus months, my body went through a whirlwind with antibiotics, surgery, worries and everything else you can think of. I had more stress over that time than I had dealt with for a long time – and that includes unemployment.

The progress has been outstanding.

Add all that up and my blood sugar levels were going nuts. Higher and higher it seemed. All I wanted to do was get off everything and get back to normal and see what the heck could be done. But it had gotten bad. Mixed with the antibiotics and everything else, I was tired often. I dragged. I had no energy I fell asleep in odd times. I just wasn’t me.

Soon after getting off the antibiotics (six weeks home IV stuff), I had an appointment with my main person. He mentioned the “I” word (I won’t write it here… part of the mental mantra… time to fight it!), but I balked at it based on I knew what my body had been through. I needed time to see if I could right this wrong. So, he made me a deal that I would take a second medicine, up my exercise, eat better and try and lose weight. I’ll return to him in six weeks to see how things are going and we’ll decide from there.

Challenge accepted.

Though I always knew what I had, I think I secretly denied it. I always acted as if I knew exactly what I needed to do. In reality, I didn’t control it one bit, barely checked my numbers and kept hanging on that word used way back in the beginning – borderline.

Now, I had hit rock bottom and it was the wake-up call I truly needed. I understood, for whatever reason, that this was extremely serious. I needed to do something. And, so I have. Sometimes in life, one really does need to hit rock bottom before they can get better. I hit it and I hit it hard.

Since getting off the antibiotics, I’ve seen a diabetes educator. She helped me see how to plan meals and what to eat. Different foods do different things to people, which I am seeing. She also told me I should be eating like six times a day – far different than how I was doing things. And that’s a good thing – because now I am feeling like I keep energy in my system for longer periods of time. It’s not just me dragging. And I’ve also had the chance to see what things do to me and in certain situations. I’m making positive changes in my life.

If you understand blood readings, you know the normal range for people with diabetes is something along the lines of 70-140. During this whole episode, I was ranging in the mid-to-high 300s.

Yes, that’s scary.

It was quite frightening at one point when I got to the 390s. I contacted my primary provider. Thankfully, the numbers came down. And though I’ve made serious strides, I am not out of the woods yet. Heck, I may still have to worry about the “I” word yet. Alas, my goal is to avoid that and the educator is helping me work on that. There’s never guarantees, that’s for sure. But I’m working at it.

I’ve invested in a better glucometer, for one, one that syncs with my phone so I can see patterns and know what I need to do. The one downfall to it is it only keeps the past 14 days. A computer program is supposed to be able to connect to save everything, but I can’t seem to sync up. So I am going to have to go old school and just set up a Word file or something to keep track of everything.

Alas, one thing is known – I have seen a dramatic decrease in my numbers over the past few weeks. It went from the 300s to the 200s. It’s been more than two weeks since I was in the 200s and I’m at the point now where all the crazy readings are going away. I like that because it shows I’m doing what I am supposed to do. I check 3-4 times a day, usually, and am getting a strong understanding of what things do to me.

So something is working. I feel better, too. I seem to breathe better (shocker), I have more energy and I am sleeping better. That’s all good!

My goal is to obviously have 100 percent in range… but this has been massive progress.

With many things in life, they often say you need to hit rock bottom before you can improve yourself and climb back up. I reached that breaking point. And then I realized I don’t have to stop eating things I truly love, I just need to learn what things do to my body and how I can counteract, if needed. It’s all about moderation.

This road is a long one. It’s a journey of life to try and improve myself mentally and physically. It won’t be easy, but I plan on doing things to force myself to stay on the course. Of course I’ll be blogging about this journey, too, as it’s a way for me to kind of keep myself on track and make sure I do what I need to do.

Life is a wonderful thing. It’s also precious and shouldn’t be taken for granted. Things like this really show you how delicate life can be. But at the same time, it makes me smile to know that I’m at an age where I can still battle this and live life normally.

Now it’s time to push onward and keep getting things to how they should be.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!