Dying from a Sugar Related Disorder

I had the quarterly blood test. It's a bit like a quarterly newsletter - it comes round when you had forgotten you were going to get it, and reminds you of things you had been trying to avoid. This particular blood test showed my average blood sugar levels to be actually quite good. This was a bit of a surprise, considering the addiction to ice-cream I've been suffering from in the past few months.  

Anyway, I thought I would check my sugar, not something I do very often, but I couldn't get my machine to work. The battery had given up the ghost. Well, it took a few days to get a new one (free from the diabetes company - thank you very much Abbott Diabetes Care) and I tested my sugar.... a whopping 9.6. I've done it a few times since and it keeps coming out in the 9s, which is more pants than a Korean lingerie sweatshop.

Why, I ask myself? Several easy answers to that:
1) Ice cream addiction.
2) Working a 60 hour week, with no personal time.
3) Means all extra-curricular activity, like exercise, has been shelved due to lack of time and exhaustion.

Solutions to this problem?
1) Win the lottery.
2) Give up work.
3) Go and do some exercise.
4) Stop eating ice-cream. 
5) Relax

Sorted.

I Gotta Get Outta This Place

So, back at the coal face, I'm working a stupid amount of hours every week, getting zero exercise and stuffing my face to compensate for the lack of sleep. I am too tired to do anything except drag myself to the next job to do and then try to get through it in a zombie-fied way. I am living on ice-cream and crisps, which are kind of nice in a fat-fuelled way, but not good for the figure. My blood sugar is OK, I think. It was about 4.5 when I tested it - and let's face it, it hasn't been that good since before I was pregnant i.e. a decade ago. 

So, the over work continues and I've put on about 5lb in two months. I could blame it on the pills, (Gliclazide) which are supposed to make you gain weight, but somehow I think it is the stress I'm under and the lack of sleep that I'm getting that are actually causing the problem (i.e. face stuffing), not the pills. I have to take some responsibility. What can I say? I hate teaching and it hates me. I gotta get outta this place before it kills me.

A Helping of Tablets, with and Order of Effects on the Side

The time finally came back in June, when I started to need tablets for the diabetes. Actually, they wanted me to start them last November, but I resisted for a while. There is a psychological time required to adjust to being a tablet dependent, voluntarily admitting that your body cannot survive without medical input. It's a dent to the pride and the independence. I spent a few days feeling really down.

The standard tablet to start on is Metformin. This helps your cells absorb the sugar that is in your blood. On the down side it often upsets the tummy and gives you diarrhoea and wind. Oh joy. So I started taking the tablets, and thankfully my bowls stayed intact, although it did get a lot more gusty. My sugar came down by about a point (i.e. 8.5 to 7.5 or similar) on average. It wasn't great, but it helped a bit. Less internal organ damage. Might get to keep my eyesight a few months longer - that sort of thing.

And then... my hair started to come out. I mean great tresses of it, not just the odd strand. At the rate it was falling out I was going to be bald by the end of the summer. Excellent - bald, diabetic and flatulent.

I threw my toys out of the pram and changed my meds. Metformin was replaced with Gliclazide, which makes the pancreas produce more insulin, thus making it wear out faster. My average sugar fell another point, and my hair stopped falling out. On the other hand, these tablets make you gain weight - like I need a tablet to help me with that! Now I'm looking at a future where instead of bald, diabetic and flatulent, I am diabetic, fat and hairy. It'll be like telling King Kong to stay off the biscuits.

Hell no!

Well, I really don't know how the spammers managed to break through my google password to post pointless rubbish on my blog about sending them my bank details. Hell, there's nothing in my bank account, so I really think they are better off opening their own account and getting an overdraft like normal people. It's not even as though I have an account with that bank. Does anyone really fall for these scams? Anyway, the password is changed (again), so let's hope that is the end of it.

Since I got back off my adventure holiday, I have done virtually no exercise at all. I did a 12 mile walk one of the days and a few cycle rides, oh and some flat green bowling, oh, and a bit of outdoor climbing, but my usual regime of getting sweaty at least twice a week has been seriously curtailed. I'm not sure if it is the weather or my lack of money to pay for the gym or what exactly. I am starting to feel a little cabin feverish, though. I'm going to have to break out for a run soon.

On a more positive note, I haven't managed to put any weight back on after the holiday. I weighed in at 12st 2 this morning, which made me happy. All my too small jeans fit again. I have a whole new wardrobe (albeit 90s fashions). My BMI has shrunk to a mere 27. I can almost see the target of 25 within reach. The recent quiz on "Where are you on the Global Fat Scale?" made me a member of Chile, which is kind of bizarre. My extra skinny running friend came out as Ethiopian. She really needs to eat more.

In the past couple of weeks I have taken possession of my kitchen again, for the first time in years. My lovely, chaotic husband has been banned from cooking and making a mess. I suspect those last couple of pounds weight loss is because I serve up smaller portions of slightly more interesting food, rather than large portions of 'plonk' food. My other half learnt to cook catering for toddlers who couldn't cope with food mixed together, so he tends to cook every vegetable separately and plonks them on the plate, unadorned. Whilst I love him to bits, I was losing the will to live. It's taken me a long time to get up off my fat ass and do the cooking myself, but I think the time has finally come.

Sadly, I have also come to the conclusion that I can't put off medication for the diabetes any longer. I am embracing being a bone fide medication taking diabetic. They've put me on this wonder-drug called Metformin, which apparently works for about a year before it ceases to be useful. Some of the delightful side effects mean we have re-named it Metfartmin. Excellent. Fat, diabetic and flatulent. It doesn't come better than that.

Have you been watching the three part series on The Men Who Made Us Fat? It really is essential to get that information out there. It echoed that book ('The End to Over Eating') I read a year or two ago about food marketing causing the global obesity epidemic. As one person noted: asking the food industry to tackle the obesity crisis is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. 

I worry for my children. How are they going to survive against ever more sophisticated food marketing techniques? I heard recently that a well known burger outlet now asks "Is that a meal?" instead of "Will that be all?" when they serve you. The psychological effect is for you to think "Gosh! I forgot the supersize coke and fries!" although my personal reaction is "Hell no! I wouldn't come here for a meal!"

Health Farm

It seems my trip abroad to sample the delights of dodgy third world toilets has had a profound effect upon my weight. I have spent the past few weeks eating poisonous food, walking for miles and engaging in a stomach churning bout of d&v. This torture, for which I paid an excessive amount, has caused me to lose approximately TEN pounds. I repeat TEN pounds. My scales say around 12st 4. OMG!

This is the least  I have weighed since.. erm.. before my last pregnancy or sometime back in the distant past. I actually can't remember weighing this little. I'm slightly disappointed that I don't look all that much different. I thought losing that much weight would leave me able to fit into different sized clothes or something, but it appears not. My trousers don't fall down or look baggy. Somehow ten pounds of me has evaporated, leaving me still taking up the same volume. 

Obviously I must be less dense.

Insulin Resistance and Intensive Training

A lot of things seem to have happened. There has been a shift, like continents moving: you don't notice it happening but somehow you've moved two inches closer to Hawaii. My BMI has shrunk to a tiny 29 on good days, which is kind of nice, as it moves me out of the 'obese' category into the merely 'overweight' category. On the down side my blood sugar measure has shown that the diabetes is getting worse and they want to put me on metformin.

I was given a book called Reversing Diabetes. It is quite interesting as its approach is holistic, rather than drug based. It is all about how diet, vitamins and exercise can do wonders for the diabetic and reduce their dependence on prescription medicines. Indeed the writer is so anti-medication that he has scared me half to death with the nasty side-effects I could get. Metformin apparently kills about 10,000 diabetics a year or something by giving them heart attacks.

It's written by an American doctor who specifically treats patients to his own theories. There are a few too many sentences that start off with "Here at the Whittaker Wellness Clinic, all the patients..." blah blah, but at least he backs up his claims with research. What I don't know is if he is selective about the research he chooses.

Did you see Horizon a couple of weeks ago?

Click link.

Some scientists somewhere have discovered that if you do a little really intensive training every week, it breaks down the glycogen stores in your muscles, improves your VOmax (if you have the right genes) and reduces you insulin insensitivity by as much as 25% in just a few weeks.

Naturally I was thrilled to hear about this - a few minutes exercise a couple of times a week? Cool! Where do I sign up?

Then I got the phone call from the diabetic clinic to say I was getting worse and I realised that nothing is going to save me from this nasty progressive disease. Intensive exercise? Let's think... Yesterday I walked 6 hours over rugged terrain on some Welsh mountains; the day before I swam 60 lengths; two days before that I spent two hours climbing; three days before that I climbed to the highest peak in the county; the day before that I cycled 19 miles... and so it goes on.

I have ALREADY benefitted from the exercise. I assume I would be way worse if I hadn't had this constant stream of activity, but it is impossible to judge it.

The Horizon episode also showed that exercise doesn't help you lose weight... something I've been whinging on about for years. Finally I'm vindicated!

Anyway, if you didn't see the episode, it is worth a look.

Ah, That's Better.

So, after tackling the vagaries of the new i-phone, I resorted to posting from the computer, like usual. It's not that I don't like my new phone, it's just that I have to get my teenagers to show me how to do things on it - like take photos or get rid of the random shortcut icons I seem to have littered all over the screen. Wouldn't mind if they actually worked.

I digress. I tried to post yesterday from my mobile and for some unknown reason it would only allow me to type in the Title box and not in the main text box. This was not helpful. The screen just flashed orange when I tapped it and made a soft blooping noise. Even when I tapped the screen quite fast, it still wouldn't do it, so I'm afraid you've had to wait for my update.

I do realise some of you are waiting with baited breath, and I can only apologise for keeping you on tenterhooks. I suppose I left you all with the impression that I had finally cracked it and I was about to shed kilos all over the floor. Unfortunately, this has not happened.

I did put a couple of pounds back on, but they seem to have vanished again, so I can honestly say I am holding steady. Steady as she blows at around 13st. I have been trying to keep off the sugar, but not doing too well at that. I seem to crave it. I've been substituting a lot of sugar cravings for crisps, which is not ideal, and probably led to the couple of pounds increase.

As I understand it, the type of diabetes I'm developing is insulin resistance. This means that although I have tons of insulin sloshing around my body, the cells can't recognise it anymore. I don't think I really understood that before. My pancreas compensates by producing more and more insulin and eventually burns out like a dying star, although possibly less spectacularly than the average supernova.

Apparently cells can take up glucose without insulin if you do exercise, so keeping fit is recommended. At least that part is easy. I'm not sure about how cellular glucose uptake is even possible without a carrier protein, so I need to do a bit more research before I totally believe the rhetoric. People write the most ludicrous rubbish if they want you to believe something. I remember one sports instructor telling me that fat was bad for you because it was only one atom away from plastic. By that logic water is lethal as it is only one atom different from hydrogen peroxide (that's hair dye bleach, BTW).

The book I'm reading "Reversing Diabetes" suggests a 30 minute walk a day, plus a bit of a stroll after meals. I really hope this isn't another one of those 'party line' do-take-the-stairs-instead-of-the-lift rubbish messages.

My dog would be very sad if I only took him on a 30 minute walk each morning. We did four miles today, although I have to say I feel absolutely wiped out now because I've had a god-awful cold all week, which hasn't quite gone yet. I could drink for England, I'm so dry - and I just mean water! In this case endless thirst is flu related, rather than diabetes related. I do get more thirsty than I used to, of course, but it isn't a major problem. I'm interested to see what effect the special pills for my trip abroad are going to have on me. One of the fun side effects include polyuria - i.e. they are diuretics. Hmm. Excess thirst, and lots of trips to dodgy third world toilets. I can hardly wait.

The book also says that diabetics get ravenously hungry as they try to feed starving cells, that are sloshing around in an ocean of plenty, unable to access the sugar. This explains the cravings at any rate. (No, I'm not pregnant. It's a different sort of craving. ) So far, nobody has been able to explain the symptom of screaming at people when I'm hungry. Several professionals have told me to control myself (if it was that easy, I would) and the diabetic nurse told me it was nothing to do with them (helpful... just deny everything), so I am no further along in my quest to be able to slim. As I've said before, if I could do it using exercise and not turn into a raving, axe-wielding manic every time I'm hungry, then I would be as thin as a racing snake by now.

I suppose I should just be grateful that a few pounds have been shed in the past year or so. It is progress, of sorts.

Bugger why cant i type in the main box?