Slow acting carbs rock my world

Last night I was craving something sweet and yummy but didn’t want my already shaky BG levels to go nuts. So I tried an Atkins snack bar…. no added sugars and no sugar alcohol being the biggest selling point. I ate my regular dinner (30 carbs) beef fajitas and then followed it by a chocolate caramel brownie which according to the label had a “net Atkins count of 2g”. I was expecting to see a number somewhere in the 110 range but when I tested before my one hour walk my BG was 95….cool…..two hours after my one hour walk again 95….right before bed three hours later…96. By that time I was giggling like a schoolgirl. I wasn’t hungry….I didn’t have my bedtime snack and this morning when I woke up I had a FBG of 90. That’s the BEST FBG I’ve had since I was diagnosed.

So in keeping with this little experiment I went out and bought some more of those wonder bars. ;)

Breakfast this morning jumped my BG to 130 but by 10:30am I was down to 67 (oops) lower then I aim for. Ate my yogurt and half a Atkins bar and up I went to 97….ate lunch at noon (sandwich and the other half of the Atkins bar) and right now I’m at 82. This is kind of cool….

Each bar is 160 calories so I have to add that into my overall intake but those slooooow carbs sure are making my control good and since I’m not following an Atkins diet (which isn’t the best for diabetics….so my CDE says) I’m planning on letting this experiment ride for awhile. Then if this really does work and isn’t just a diabetes gremlin ‘fluke’ I’m going to use this approach during ACL to try to keep myself level.

Off to find a glycemic index book… and yes I know I’m a little show….but frankly I think I’m doing pretty well for only having been diagnosed four months ago….before then there really wasn’t any reason for me to pay attention to all this ‘stuff’.

Starlix icky, my inner voice and a stress free life

After yesterdays Starlix induced headache, dizziness and general ‘uckiness’ I’ve decided that I won’t be continuing the Starlix experiment. My A1c is 5.8…. for the most part my numbers are good with only the occasional ‘oops’ moment…. not enough to justify not feeling ‘right’. Besides the morning ‘after breakfast’ highs aren’t consistent…. the same breakfast that one-day jumps me to 200 the next day only bounces me to 140 (and that’s starting with nearly identical FBG numbers) no rhyme or reason so I’m just going to go with the flow.

I’m doing my best to not be so hard on myself…. this level of ‘anal retentiveness’ is difficult to sustain and I have to start living in the real world and managing my diabetes in a way that is realistic and that I can ‘do’ day in and day out.

What helped me get to this point? Sunday I was puttering around the house, cleaning, doing laundry, watching a little TV and all of a sudden I broke down and started crying. I got overwhelmingly sad…. the goals I have set for myself regarding diabetes at that moment seemed daunting. The thought of keeping this up for the rest of my life seemed impossible…is impossible…. for me anyway. My inner voice was screaming “give up…what’s the use” and that attitude scared me a little because if I could so easily convince myself to throw in the towel, I’m more on the edge then I had thought. I grabbed a bag of chips that my daughter had left at the house and ate three handfuls without blinking. I was perfectly ok with the ‘fact’ that I had just buggered up my BG levels…. to hell with it…. but when I checked two hours later I was at 86. The fact that my numbers didn’t go nuts was dumb luck, pure and simple…. and that really isn’t the point. The point is that I was prepared to see a high BG and I convinced myself that it didn’t matter and that I didn’t care. By the way…. I’m not a big chip eater, I have no idea why I reached for the chips, other then to thumb my nose at diabetes and dare it to mess with me.

So I’m going to try to be a kinder gentler Monika….

And on the 'eliminate stress from my life' front:
One of my employees drove a 16-foot box truck through our loading dock garage door….

Yep….this is me having a stress free life.

Starlix…. headache

Ouch…. hating it. Really knocks my numbers down…. but it breaks my brain and makes me dizzy.

Going off to crawl under my desk now and pray for death.
~whimper~

Working and the Texas heat

I’m at the office today…working hard, can’t you tell? Mister Man is working for me this weekend, two days with them which got me thinking how I was going to handle ACL in September. I usually only go on site twice a year, ACL Festival and SXSW the rest of the time I have crews to do the shows. But ACL and my Columbia Records and Spin Magazine showcases during south by are my babies.

Shouldn’t be a big deal but this is the first year I’ll be doing ACL since my diagnoses and I haven’t mentioned the ‘D’ word to anyone with the festival. (And I’m not planning on mentioning it) I wouldn’t be concerned except I just read this article about diabetics not handling heat well and I remembered that last year (when I’m fairly certain I was an undiagnosed diabetic) I got sick from heat stroke in the 100 plus temperature and actually fell out and had to go into the production trailer and lay down.

I know this is still two months away but I’m trying to get all my little ducks in a row so I can stop worrying about it. And yes I’m worried about it. There’s no way to limit my heat exposure for those three days….I’ll be riding around on my golf cart between stages from 7am to 11pm making sure all our gear is working and all the bands are happy. No way out of it….and frankly I wouldn’t want to get out of it, like I said it’s my baby. But I also would prefer not to fall flat on my face from heat stroke again if at all possible.

Lots of water drinking will be going on….last year I lived on Gatorade but that has the carb count from hell so I won’t be drinking it this year. The festival caters three meals a day, the food court is always open and they always have really healthy choices so eating on time isn’t a problem or a worry….just the damn heat….

Mister Man doesn’t get it / and my new ‘stop smoking’ buddy

We’ve been married for 26 years…through thick and thin, riches and poverty and riches again. He is my best friend and we laugh more then we fight (which for me is a hugely important thing) but he turns into a complete idiot when I’m sick. I’d blame it on the fact that he’s a guitar player but then I’d have to go into an entire litany of guitar player jokes and nobody really wants me to go there. ;)

Useless comes to mind. Love him…. crazy about him, but he’s useless when it comes to illness and here I am with one that isn’t planning on going away.

When I ended up in the hospital a few years ago due to a grumpy gallbladder (had to have it removed, stuck in the hospital for 4 days) Mister Man came to see me twice…. each time he lasted maybe ten minutes before he would get uncomfortable and restless and well just down right annoying. My daughter told me later that he sat with me after the surgery and that he looked pale and scared so I went easy on him.

When I was diagnosed with thyroid disease it became an unspoken ‘thing’ between us. He knew I was taking medicine for it but it just wasn’t something he had to deal with day in and day out.
When the diabetes diagnoses hit me out of the blue and I started testing obsessively it really wasn’t something he could ignore. It was in his face…there were strange medicines sharing cabinet space with his shaving cream and toothbrush. There were boxes of lancets and test strips and then of course there was little ol’ me announcing my BG levels every five minutes…kind of hard to ignore that. BUT HE TRIES…. bless his pea pickin’ little heart. He signs deeply at the mere mention of the ‘D’ word…. his eyes roll back in his head ever so slightly and this glazed look flushes across his face.

He loves me…. I’m certain of that. He’s just not going to ever be able to deal with my diabetes. Of course that doesn’t mean I’m planning on suffering alone…oh hell no. The medicines stay next to his razors, the meter lives on the nightstand, I’ll continue to test within eye shot…and he’ll learn to live with the dreaded ‘D’ because I’ll have to learn to live with it.

Bless his pea pickin’ little heart.

OH…I now have a ‘stop smoking’ buddy! George! Thanks George what a great idea…Go here pat him on the back and encourage him along in his non-smoking ways.

Highs, lows, Starlix and Bernice?

So after talking Dr. N in to letting me try Starlix (and dropping a $50 co-pay at the pharmacy) I haven’t been able to keep my BG up to a decent level since yesterday afternoon…. and I haven’t even cracked open the bottle yet. So apparently for me anyway Starlix works by osmoses. I won’t be starting it until my BG goes up and I’m thinking I’ll skip it if I test before a meal and my BG isn’t above 110. I doubt I’ll actually end up taking it at every meal. Since it’s such a short acting drug whose purpose is to mimic what you pancreas should be doing on its own when you eat, it doesn’t require an accumulated effect to work so I should be ok using it when I know I’m going to have high BG issues. Dr. N knows I’ll be experimenting with it and he also knows that the minute anything goes south he’ll be the first person I call and that I’ll stop taking the pills. One of the pluses about testing your BG so often is you can ‘tweak’ things and get even tighter control and I’m happy to say that Dr. N is all for that.

That upset stomach thing is still hanging around….I don’t think it metformin induced….at least I hope it isn’t because I really like how well Met is working for me. If this doesn’t go away by Monday I’ll give Dr. N a call.

And Bernice….forgive me for having a senior moment but I don’t know what pages you’re referring to….but if you tell me and give me you email address, I’ll be happy to send ‘them’ to you. ****OH….I just went to Mel’s blog! You want Leticia to send you a ideal weight calculator (hers is the post directly under mine) ****

Doctor visit, A1c Results and being smarter then what you’re dealing with

Filed under: Being smarter then what you’re dealing with:
For the life of me I can’t seem to answer anyone’s comments. Not in my email program, not on this blog site. Very frustrating to say the least…. and I’m sure people are starting to think I’m a rude *itch. Well…. I am a rude ‘youknowwhat’, just not about THIS. So sorry George (you made me laugh by the way…. just when I needed it too) and Randi (yes I’m on Metformin, but alas no Byetta for me…. I hope you stop by again)

My doctor’s appointment was this morning at 8am. 8am is an UNGODLY hour and waking up with a headache from hell didn’t help either. I’ve been sick for two days with this stomach cramp ‘icky don’t wanna wander too far from the commode’ thing so I was really in fine form this morning.

So my A1c….drum roll please….is…..5.8. Not bad, I’m pretty happy with it. But I know how it got that way too. Not from having necessarily the best numbers but from having highs followed by really low lows. So Dr. N and I talked about that for a bit. My numbers don’t make me a good candidate for Byetta, but he gave me a prescription for Starlix. He said he hadn’t ever given it to anyone with this low of a A1c but he knew I tested all the time so he felt comfortable prescribing it to me. He asked me to call him in a month and tell him what my numbers were looking like and other then that he’ll see me again in October. Oh and I haven’t lost any more weight…. 164 and holding. My cholesterol is 120…good is up, bad is really low (can’t remember the numbers will have to get his nurse to email them to me) but he did say they were ‘insanely low’.

Quit date for smoking is August 18th….which also happens to be my birthday. We will see how well THAT goes….

Warning....whine fest below

I’m having a huge really ugly craving for chocolate right now (and not sugar-free fake pretend splenda enriched chocolate either), across the warehouse is a candy machine with M&M’s and it’s calling my name….

Monika….
Oh Monika….
You know you want some chocolate goodness….screw the BG number, who cares if your level jumps to 200….come on…..hmmm….yummy chocolate.

Stupid (loud) candy machine.

I have a headache…woke up with it and it hasn’t gone away yet…I’m thinking it’s here for the duration. And YES DAMN IT chocolate WOULD make it better and NO I will NOT be having any. I’m just going to sit here and suffer and whine and bitch about it.

Very mature of me isn’t it?

Appointment with the vampires and blue funk Monday

Yep…. had blood drawn this morning. Ass crack of dawn, empty stomach grumbling and BG steadily rising, I managed to drive through Austin morning rush hour traffic (took me 45 minutes) and got out of there in less then ten minutes. Rather then drive all the way back home I just drove thru McDeath and came straight to work. My results will be ready in plenty of time for my appointment with Dr. N on Thursday.

I’m been nervous about the results of this test…. it’s my first A1c since my diagnoses and I’ve convinced myself that THIS A1c is of major importance. Forget that my diabetes isn’t going away…. that I’ll be diabetic for the rest of my life…. that the changes I’m making will be required for life if I plan on controlling this decease rather then the other way around…. forget all of that…. this result BIG DEAL in my pea brain mind.

More then just the emotional issues around diabetes (those I can handle) the financial issues are kicking my butt. Medicine, doctor visits, test strips….it costs more to eat right (or I’m just lame and can’t figure out how to do this on the cheap). No big deal if gas prices hadn’t sky rocketed too. I’m borrowing from Peter to pay Paul….and the stress isn’t helping my BG levels….and I’m one of the luck ones…there are people out there who have it worse then me. How do that do it….how do they cope?

I’m just a whiner today….on an emotional low. It’ll pass.

I’ve been slacking

I haven’t felt motivated in about a week. I also haven’t felt one hundred percent either. Not sick sick just unwell…. tired and stomach-achy. I have no idea why but I’m going to deal with it until my appointment with Dr. N next week.

Today was part two of my diabetes education class…. we finished in record time because there were only two of us. I was done and back at work by 10am…. can’t say I learned much that I didn’t already know, but I went and according to my CDE going to these classes improves my chances of controlling my diabetes by 30 percent. So go me….

I’m doing research on three drugs that I want to talk to Dr. N about, Starlix, Prandin and Byetta. In true anal retentive fashion I have printed out information sheets on all three, have called my insurance company to make sure these are covered by my plan and what tier that coverage is and have talked to my pharmacist to ask if they have these routinely in stock. No use entertaining the possibility of using a drug that I have to pay full pop for or have difficulty getting. I also checked to make sure that none of these cause weight gain. Starlix is ‘weight neutral’, Byetta actual helps with weight loss, Prandin is the only one that doesn’t mention weight on their web site or on any of the other sites that I can find anyway, but I’ve been told that it’s very much like Starlix so there’s hope that at the very least it’s also weight neutral.

And file this under “Ain’t that just my luck”:
My scale and my CDE’s scale don’t see eye to eye….in fact they are 4.5 pounds off. This has me a bit depressed. Ok not depressed as much as just plain pissy. Weight at home: 160….weight at CDE office: 164.5.

Go here...read her

http://shrinkingmom.clubmom.com/

Her blog rocks....no really it does. GO....READ....you know you want to.

Ok I’ve got to leave the cereal alone

Why is it so hard for me to get that through my head? Even a half-cup of cereal with soymilk doesn’t work for my control. Three hours after eating…. 178. I saw the number and felt like crying. Between cereal and my period that once tight control I had is gone…. I feel like a complete failure…. Like a fraud. I’m losing weight again (down to 162) but I can’t seem to keep my BG under 140…. heck I’m having a hard time keeping it from peaking in the 200’s. I go in for my A1c on the 20th…. betting my number is going to suck. Dr. N was convinced that once I lost 20 pounds I would be able to get off the meds, I’ve lost 28 and I’m thinking that’s looking less and less likely as time goes on.

I’m lazy…I want easy food…. no fuss. If I don’t have quick easy options for meals and snacks that don’t mess with my BG, I’m going to fail by reaching for the cereal…or the sandwich…. or whatever else might be around that doesn’t take long to prepare. Even before I was diagnosed I gravitated to fast, quick meals. Love Rachael Ray and her 30-minute meals, love convenience. I know that an egg and sausage is something that my system can tolerate…. but it takes longer to prepare then putting cereal in a bowl and pouring milk over it. The truth is sometimes it’s hard for me to feel hungry for the ‘right’ food…. I don’t know why that is, but I can have a piece of chicken on my plate and take one bite and just not feel like eating it…. it doesn’t taste right…. it’s not what I want. Of course if some walked into the room with a Jack-in-the-Box bag I’d get my appetite back.

I’ve always been a binge eater, skipping breakfast and lunch and eating only dinner, or eating lunch and skipping dinner, one meal a day and maybe a candy bar sometime in the middle of the night. I’ve never been a big drinker (water, juice, soda) a can of soda use to last me all night. (Until I was blessed with diabetes that is) I’d rather eat bread or a potato then meat, would only eat vegetables raw and lived for pasta of any kind.

I have a lot to overcome…. a lot of really bad habits to change. I have no problem not eating…. that it seems is the problem. I know I can’t have a Big Mac for dinner…. I have to actually feel like eating the things that are good for me, rather then pick at my plate and not eat a full meal.

Good grief I’m a mess…. and here everyone thinks I’m such a shining example of how to manage diabetes.

If they only knew….

Diabetic Education Class

Today was part one of a two-part class with the CDE that I went to a month after I was diagnosed. I stumbled out of bed at 6am because it now takes an act of congress to get me out of the house on time…. you know the drill…. get up early enough to take my thyroid meds (which need to be taken on a empty stomach an hour before eating) test my FBG, take the dogs out to do their business, start the coffee, find something to wear, and finally eat. That last one requires me standing in front of the frig muttering under my breath about how much this sucks for a few minutes until I break down and eat something. I left the house with 45 minutes to spare and still ended up a few minutes late. I thought I would get stuck in the back of the room without a desk because I didn’t get there early enough and surely the room would be brimming from all the newly diagnosed…. Only myself and other woman there…. two people…. with the amount of people being diagnosed every year you would think it would be standing room only in a diabetes class. The fact that it’s not is pretty discouraging…. there are too many people not taking control if their disease.

I really do like the CDE…. she strikes me as a pretty down to earth no nonsense kind of person and I didn’t hate sitting there for 3 hours. Whether I actually learned anything is another matter…. I think she was right when she questioned whether she would be able to teach me anything that I hadn’t already learned on my own…. but that’s ok.

There was a Nurse there that talked about diabetes meds and mentioned Byetta. Seems everyone involved with diabetes care is amazed at the results their patients have had so far. I’ll be mentioning it to Dr. N when I see him on the 20th. Also looking into Starlix if for some reason Byetta isn’t available to me. I really want to knock those peaks I’m having down.

Because there were only two of us the class moved faster then they had expected and I got out of there at 11am. Next weeks class is at the same bat time and the same bat station.

That dreaded 'Time of the month'

I’ve noticed a pattern these last few months…. a very disturbing pattern that has me praying for menopause. That ‘time of the month’ makes my BG unpredictable. I didn’t notice it the first month…. I think I was too freaked about the diagnoses and the metformin hadn’t fully kicked in yet. But I see the pattern now…. and I’m not liking it one little bit, thank you very much.

One report I read states that up to 67% of diabetic women reported premenstrual changes in their blood glucose levels and 70% reported changes during menstruation…. and that those changes seem to be more prevalent in women who also suffer from other premenstrual symptoms. http://www.insulin-pumpers.org/howto/menses3-1.html To which I say…. WELL AIN’T THAT GREAT. I guess it’s not enough that I’m moody, crabby, crampy, bloated, bleeding like a stuffed pig and just generally feeling icky…nope…. I get to also have blood glucose that is completely unruly.

Case in point: yesterday morning my fasting number was 170…. 170! That was my FBG number when I was diagnosed. Of course once I ate it went down…very, very slowly. And no I didn’t have anything unusual to eat the day before, I hadn’t skipped my exercise…. nothing was different…. except I started my period. This morning an apple with peanut butter pushed my 102 BG to 165. My yogurt snack (100 calories, 20 carbs) jumped me from 85 to 150. Right now I’m nibbling on some celery, which I’m sure, is going to bounce me into the 200’s because that’s just my luck.

I have no idea how women NOT on insulin deal with this…. do you just shrug your shoulders and ignore it?

Another report reads: “An illness MAY increase the amount of Blood Glucose in your bloodstream but there is often little you can do about this. For Women, the same thing can occur during menstruation although the increase is usually more subtle”

Subtle my ass….

Restricted diet for diabetes - 1866

This was written by George Harley, MD (1829-1896) while at University College Hospital, London.

... let me explain that by the term restricted diet we mean not only the avoidance of all sugars, and substances containing saccarine matter, but also of all kinds of food convertible during the process of digestion into sugar. The foods convertible into sugar in the digestive canal are those containing starch (not gums), such as arrowroot, tapioca, sago, flours of all the different kinds of cereals (wheat, barley, oats, peas, beans, etc.), potatoes, carrots, beetroot. parsnips, turnips, and other edible roots.

Green vegetables, on the other hand, such as spinach, cabbage, turnip tops, Brussels sprouts, and lettuce need not be forbidden, as they contain too small an amount of starch to do much injury.

As for animal foods, on the other hand, every imaginable fish, flesh, and fowl may be indulged in, so that even on the most restricted diet the patient has still a large margin for selection - beef, mutton, pork, venison, poultry. game, and wild fowl, oysters, lobster, crabs, prawns, salmon, cod, turbot, etc., Iceland and Ireland Moss, calf's foot or gelatine jellies, butter sauces and salad oils. The only true hardship, in fact, the patient suffers is the deprivation of ordinary bread, and that appears to be a more severe one than most people imagine. I have known patients in whom the craving became at last almost intolerable, its as if nature were crying out for some indispensible element of food. In order to mitigate this hardship, a great number of plans of depriving bread of the forbidden element, starch, have been suggested, and many of them have been in a great measure successful. Thus, we have bran, gluten and glycerine breads and biscuits constantly kept in stock by many of our London bakers.

After a time patients get very tired of these substitutes, so it is as well to know that we may occasionally indulge them with well done toast, or very crisp pulled bread, the extra heat having destroyed a considerable portion of the starch normally contained in the article.

Even in the most favourable cases for restricted diet, we must never allow ourselves to be deluded into the idea that, because we are mitigating the symptoms, and reducing the amount of sugar in the urine, we are necessarily curing the disease, or we shall frequently be be doomed to sad disappointment. In keeping the patient on restricted diet, we are merely witholding from him the straw and mortar out of which the bricks are made - not removing the makers - so that, as soon as the straw and mortar is refurnished to them, they will again be found at work as actively as ever.

We've come a long way baby....ahh...pass the mutton please.