I'm the Cautionary Tail

2 months down, only an infinity to go (hopefully)

kodama78 — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:36:19 +0000

No info today, but I had my blood tests and doctor visit today. At this point, I’m loving Kaiser. I take my blood tests Saturday morning, and they’re available online Saturday night for me to look at online with information on what each test means. Pure awesomeness. My A1C, which is a measure of my blood sugar over the coarse of 3 months was a little high, 8.6 on a scale of 15. The norm is 4-6. However, the good news to that is that 2 of the 3 months was before I was on medication and was a measurement of my nasty, McDonaldsesque blood. So, overall not too bad. The lipid panel was insanely low. The lipid panel measures my cholesterol and breaks it down into the different types. My overall dropped from a 206 to 86, my Triglycerides dropped from 255 to 55, and my LDL dropped from from 106 to 38. Great, great, great. However, interestingly enough, my doctor told me that those might actually be too low and it might be time to adjust my medication (YES!). Overall, he was impressed and happy that there had been such good changes. The only downside is that my morning blood sugars seem to be a little high, and it needs to be under better control.

The other thing that my doctor confirmed for me is that this isn’t my fault. In the plainest of terms, I was dealt a genetic bad hand. For the past 3 months I’ve been blaming myself and my diet, thinking that I caused all of this. Today, he confirmed for me that that’s just not the case. There are many people who are in much worse shape than I, and their hearts are doing just fine. For some reason, my body is extremely sensitive to these fluctuations and I need to monitor it closely if I want a long life. This revelation all came about because I asked him if I could get a time table for getting off my medication. My though process was, “what’s the point of working this hard at my diet and exercise if I’m going to be stuck taking medication anyways? I might as well eat what I was eating before!!!” He then told me that I will probably never be off my medication…ouch. In his words, my diet and exercise will keep me healthy and safe, but the medication will greatly help my situation, especially since many of my problems are heart related. I think what I realized was, things could get much, much worse for me if I’m not proactive about my lifestyle, and pills will be the least of my worries if I’m not careful.

Overall, it was a good visit. Cardiologist comes up on the 10th of March. I am hoping that at some point they’ll at least taking me off the cholesterol medicine. The less things I have to swallow, the better off I’ll feel.

Taking Things For a Test Drive Can Be Hazardous to Your Health (2/20/10)

kodama78 — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:53:41 +0000

Starting Blood Sugar – 95 (Yah Baby! Finally below the 100′s again!)

Food For the Day:

Breakfast – (This will sound UGLY.) Pancakes with macadamia nuts, bananas, coconut shavings…and REAL SYRUP! And eggs with corned beef hash…again. (Went out to breakfast…tried a new place and couldn’t help it.)
Lunch - None really, See breakfast.
Snack – Some smoked, salted almonds. I really need to get rid of these. I can just feel that the salt and smoke flavor zap all the health right out of the almonds…
Dinner – Zankou chicken (Middle eastern chicken restaurant). Grilled chicken and steak, some basmati rice, tahini, and salad. Definitely not enough salad.

Midday Blood Sugar – 157 (Decided to test myself 2 hours after the crazy ass breakfast. 157 sounds bad, and its really not, so stop freaking out mom! its actually right where you should be 2 hours after a meal. I guess this means I can eat this everyday!)

Ending Blood Sugar – 124 (Not too bad. Dropped back to within normal levels, >140.)

Exercise:

Hour of jiu jitsu. (Was going to rest, then ate breakfast and felt enough guilt to make me force myself to go.)

Analysis:

This morning I went and got my blood drawn to find out my Hemoglobin A1C. This is a test that measures your blood sugar over a period of 3-6 months. From what the doctor described, your blood cells have a shelf life of about 6 months, and then they die and are replaced by new ones. During that time, the glucose attaches itself to the blood cells and stay there. Basically, it gives you an idea of what your blood sugar looks like over a longer period of time. Also, it stops people from cheating on their glucose meters. I’ve heard that some people try and eat really healthy the last day or two before they got their blood drawn, I’ve realized that if you manipulate the times that you test your blood you can affect the blood sugar readings on a daily basis, to make it look better. However, I have no idea why you would do this. I guess some people treat their doctor like their parents and just don’t want to look bad in front of him/her. I don’t care what he thinks. In the end, the only opinion that matters is my own. If I choose not to follow his advice and do whatever I like, its not like he’s going to yell at me and send me in the corner, that’d just be weird. I feel its important to keep accurate data for myself, if only to know what can and will happen when i eat certain things. This, I believe, will give me the freedom that I so desperately am seeking at this point. I hope to at some point have enough control over my blood sugar that I can eat whatever I want, whenever I feel, because I will know the outcome of my actions. One thing that I’m finding is that I don’t eat often enough on the weekends. I tend to eat big meals, and snack way less. I’m wondering whether or not this might have an affect on my blood sugar levels. I’m pretty sure it has an effect on my night readings, but it probably affects my morning readings as well, since I consume larger meals for dinner.

Day 19 – Gotta Go Down Before You Can Go Up(2/19/10)

kodama78 — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:36:58 +0000

Starting Blood Sugar – 133 (Ugh…going down but still high. Kind of like my illness. Still feel sort of sick, but better than Wednesday.)

Food For the Day:

Breakfast – Friday, went out to breakfast. Corned beef has, eggs, and some hasbrowns. Did not taste like Cheerios, thank God.
Snack – Some peanuts, and other random nuts. Time to buy some more, and healthier, nuts.
Lunch - Some middle eastern beef with a little vegetables. Not even really a meal, more like a snack.
Dinner – Half a sandwich and some barley salad.

Ending Blood Sugar - 116(The exercise, I’m sure, led to this.)

Exercise:

2.5 hours of jiu jitsu. I was completely burnt afterwards.

Analysis:

Blood sugars high in the morning, lower in the evening. I took a midday test at 4 to see what my blood sugars were like. I was feeling a bit light-headed and almost hypoglycemic, or so I thought. The reading was 118. Have to wonder why my readings are normal, but I get the feeling that I’m low, that is definitely something to ask the doctor. Did a large amount of exercise, which helped out with not only my blood sugar, but with my illness as well. I’m one of those strange people that really feel the need to “sweat it out”. Probably not the best thing to do, but I always feel better afterwards. I’ve yet to feel anything close to hypoglycemic during any of my exercise. In fact, I wanted to ask my doctor about this because in years past, I’ve exercised after not eating for an entire day, and not felt any of the symptoms of hypoglycemia. I wonder if its just my body, or me just being stubborn. Sugars are getting back down and controllabe which is good, but I need to start paying more attention to my diet, to see when is the best time for me to eat my sugar. I might at some point try testing myself once an hour, purely to get an idea of how my blood sugars go up and down in a day. Not going to be fun, but it will be interesting to see the results.

Day 18 – Rollercoasters suck when you don’t want to be on them (2/18/10)

kodama78 — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:48:44 +0000

Starting Blood Sugar – 121 (Sigh…The past few days have been tough to post. My sugars have been rather high. I’ve been sick, and the nurse said that the sugars get elevated when you’re sick. She was right, I hit 200 for the first time in almost 2 months. That was very discouraging. However, they do seem to be coming down to normal now.)

Food For the Day:

Breakfast – What else? Cherrios!
Lunch - Leftover El Pollo Loco with greens and two tortillas.
Dinner -

Ending Blood Sugar – 155 (More on this in the analysis.)

Exercise:

45 minutes of cardio on a treadmill

Analysis:

It’s been rough the past few days. I’ve not been feeling well, sleeping a large amount, and overall my blood sugars have spiked. 140+ in the morning, 180-200 at night. Part of that is meals, I had a turkey sandwich that I knew going in was not going to turn out well, but I did it anyways. That was the night that I hit 200. However, today they seemed to have dropped to normal levels and last night it was 119. Hopefully the sickness is over, it felt like it today, and I can get back to controlling my sugar levels better. This weekend and next Tuesday I get my blood worked and analyzed. I’m a little anxious and hopeful at the same time. I’m worried about what the doctor will say. How disheartening would it be to have worked so hard, and nothing to have changed? At the same time, I know I have worked very hard at my levels and almost looking forward to the look on his face. Either way, I’m just glad to know that I’ll have some thoughts on my condition now, and that makes me realize that I’m moving forward through all of this, rather than throwing in the towel. Will write again soon, or maybe just hold my readers (myself and my mother), in suspense until Tuesday.

Day 14 – Hopeful, oh so very hopeful (2/14/10)

kodama78 — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:15:42 +0000

Starting Blood Sugar – 107 (Woot! Back down to a normal number!)

Food For the Day:

Breakfast – Back to the O’s.
Lunch – Turkey Sandwich on whole wheat bread with lots of veggies on it. Side of two salads.
Dinner – Baby Back Ribs with about 7 french fries and a lot more than 7 pieces of a chopped salad.

Ending Blood Sugar - 115 (More on this in the analysis.)

Exercise:

Haven’t exercised for about 6 days and this was my first one back. About 1.5 hours of jiu jitsu. Felt great and was definitely needed. Then walked the dogs for half an hour at a brisk pace.

Analysis:

So the alcohol from the previous night didn’t seem to have too much of an effect. Other than making me really sleepy which is something I’ll have to be aware of in the future. Blood sugar was a good normal 107 and everything is going well. I’m feeling a little bit sick and have been told that this can affect my levels, so we will see. Not too much to report here, but still trying to figure out the correct levels. I’m wondering if 115 is too low for an evening blood sugar reading, and if I’ll get a spike in the morning like the nurse at the diabetes class said. Those always bother me, because then it feels like I did something wrong in the morning. I guess we’ll see.

Day 13 – The While Blue Yonder (2/13/10)

kodama78 — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 09:19:28 +0000

Starting Blood Sugar – 127 (The past few days my blood sugar has been in the low twenties the past few days. Starting to become a little concerned.)

Food For the Day:

Breakfast – Homemade French Toast, 2 pieces of bacon, 2 eggs.
Lunch – Didn’t have breakfast until about 11 so had a late lunch around 3 to 4
Dinner – For Valentine’s we went to The Inn of the Seventh Ray (where we were married). I had a vegan duck, some vegetables, a chutney sauce, chocolate ganouche cake, and…..a glass of wine.

Ending Blood Sugar – 105 (More on this in the analysis.)

Exercise:

None

Analysis:

Well, there’s only one real topic to talk about here, and that’d be dinner. More importantly than dinner, is probably my first piece of alcohol since I was diagnosed with diabetes. Before I started the diabetes classes, I thought that alcohol was just a super concentrated from of carbs. Something that had to be avoided mostly because it had no real nutritional value and would shoot up my blood sugars. However, come to find out, I was pretty far off base. Alcohol prevents your liver from producing sugar, so you actually see a tremendous drop in your blood sugar levels after consuming alcohol. As the alcohol is digested, they start to rise back up. One of the dangers of alcohol with diabetes is that the drop in blood sugar causes diabetics to become hypoglycemic and extremely tired, so driving is extremely unsafe (I’m sure being drunk doesn’t help the cause).

What was interesting tonight was it was the first time I was able to notice and review these effects on myself. The teachers of the class were right, after a few sips of wine, I started to get extremely tired, which has happened to me in the past when drinking. Afterwards, when we came home, I fell asleep extremely fast, and slept for about four hours. I then tested my blood sugar, and found it to be extremely low for the time and meal that I had. Now typically, if my blood sugar is that low, I’m supposed to eat a late night snack to compensate for the low blood sugars. Another thing I learned in the class was that if I go to bed with very low sugars, my body will compensate and have my liver shoot out glucose, consuming muscle/fat in the process. This is the reason that at times I’ve seen almost no drops or actual rises in my blood sugars the next day. However, since alcohol might be playing a roll in my low sugars, and I don’t feel hypoglycemic, I’m going to withhold on the snack and see where my sugars are tomorrow. This will be interesting…

Reflections – Otherwise known as staring at the mug in the mirror

kodama78 — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:39:35 +0000

I’ve decided to start writing down some of my own personal thoughts as a way to keep a journal of what I was thinking during the days. Hope no one finds them too sentimental or sappy, but I probably will review them and think, “What was I thinking???” Oh well, here it goes.

I’ve had quite a few people ask me how it is I’ve been able to change my life so suddenly and thoroughly in the wake of my self-inflicted diabetes and heart condition. I always find it a somewhat funny question. I often find myself thinking, “What would you do? If someone held a gun to your head and said, ‘if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to die.’ Would you keep doing it?” That’s how it feels to me. I have a gun to my head, except I’m the one holding the trigger. How can I NOT change? I either make the decision that this is important to me, or I don’t. Period. I just decided very quickly that I don’t love my food or my lifestyle more than my life, and I’d give up anything if it meant more years to live. That was one of the feelings that kept recurring in the emergency room. How much I wanted to live, it had never meant so much to me before. I truly didn’t want to leave those that I love behind just yet. I guess you could say I was faced with my own mortality, and I surprised myself a little bit with how much I cared that my life continued. I’d always thought that when my time came, I’d be able to accept it. Maybe the truth is, I haven’t grown enough, or lived enough of my life, to be able to accept it at this point. I’m really glad that I didn’t have too.

I’ve started attending a diabetes class at Kaiser. The things that many of these people talk about sound ludicrous to me. One man “can’t” exercise. Another says he can’t give up guacamole, not fresh homemade stuff (which I could sort of understand), but the 4-gallon jug crap from CostCo! I can’t believe it, that’s the one thing you’d die for??? Costco guac? I sit in disbelief at the reservations some of these people have at making a lifestyle change that will, not could, will, save their lives. I then realize something. They haven’t been through what I have. None of them had a 80-90% blockage of a major artery in their heart at 32. For some of them, this is almost expected. I feel a little grateful. The way I received the information, I wouldn’t wish on anyone. However, I’m not negotiating, trying to find easy ways to make this lifestyle change work. My lifestyle goes out the door because it has too. Instead of worrying about something years off like many of those around me, I got the information in reverse. It didn’t go diabetes, which leads to heart disease. It went heart disease, oh and by the way, you’re diabetic! At least the message was loud and clear and wasn’t something I could negotiate with. There is some small amount of gratitude in that.

Day 10 – It hurts when you fall off the horse…

kodama78 — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:19:18 +0000

Starting blood sugar – 116 (Back to normal range again. Still a little high on the normal side of things, but should be trying to aim a little bit lower.)

Food for the Day:

Breakfast - The O’s with vanilla soymilk.
Snack 1 – Porto’s Cheese Roll (This is the very definition of what not to eat. Couldn’t help it, and I allowed myself one. There was much guilt involved.)
Lunch - Egg Salad Sandwich w/ avocado and Cabbage Salad. (From a great restaurant named Leonor’s on Tujunga and Van Owen. It’s a vegan mexican restaurant. Quite good surprisingly.)
Snack 1- Thia BBQ ribs and the spinach from last night.
Dinner - Salmon with asparagus and garlic with two pieces of bread for carbs.
Dessert - Two bites of B&J and a few bites of my wife’s cinnamon roll.

Exercise:

None. Had the diabetes class at Kaiser tonight. Exercise on Wednesday starts next week! Yay!

Ending Blood Sugar – 193 (this hurt. I’ll explain in analysis.)

Analysis:

Well, I’d say today was a good kick in the ass. Fell off the horse today, that’s for damn sure. Ate way more than I needed to, or should have, and also ate things I knew were terrible for me. The cheese roll was an extremely bad choice. There’s probably 6 servings of carbs in that one thing, but damn, it was SO good! Shouldn’t have eaten the thai ribs as a “snack”, but wanted to finish them and not throw them away. Ate way too much at lunch, and kept eating after I was full, which is always a stupid mistake. At dinner, did the same thing. Ate more than I should have. No idea why I did this today, except maybe I was hoping a little that I could revert back to some of my old habits. This has definitely been proven untrue. Hope that next time I’m smart enough to realize this and not going to put myself in this position like tonight. Just need to be a little bit smarter…and its time to get back on the horse.

Day 9 – Reversal of Fortune

kodama78 — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:32:45 +0000

Starting blood sugar – 122 (Just a little bit high. However, considering that might dinner was so low in carbs, I’m wondering why this is so high. Possibly the lack of exercise for one day?)

Food for the Day:

Breakfast - The O’s.
Lunch - Chicken with Brown Rice.
Snack 1 – One Blood Orange.
Snack 2- Small piece of chicken with Brown Rice.
Dinner – Thai food. 4 BBQ Ribs in some super sugary sauce, spinach in garlic sauce and a small amount of brown rice. (I’m going to pay for this, I know it.)
Dessert – Two bites of B&J

Exercise:

None. Head was hurting a lot today, again. Came home and just needed to rest. Sadly, wanted to go to jiu jitsu and just couldn’t make it today.

Ending Blood Sugar – 123

Analysis:

The thai food is what you could call a mini experiment. May didn’t want to cook, and wanted thai food, so we ordered it up. Wasn’t my first choice, but gives a good opportunity to see how a “ordinary” meal will affect the blood sugar. Not quite in the “pizza range” of things, but still not a chicken breast with veggies. I measured my blood sugar before I ate, and it was 122. Not a bad number for the evening. It will be interesting to see where it’s at after the meal. Still feeling pretty crappy today. Extremely tired, and head feels like it weighs about a hundred pounds. Makes it very difficult to exercise, or get off the couch for that matter. Hopefully it ends soon.

Day 8 – Too many mirrors, not sure what’s real

kodama78 — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:21:53 +0000

Starting blood sugar – 117 (Not too bad. Figured it’d be higher due to the amount of carbs from the night before.)

Food for the Day:

Breakfast - Back to ‘dem Cheerios.
Lunch – Two El Pollo Loco Taco Leftovers (Chicken with no skin, avocado, salad greens, avocado salsa on tortilla)
Dinner - Chicken with salad greens and brown rice.
Snack – Banana (started to have a bad headache and thought my blood sugar might be low.)
Dessert - None.

Exercise:

None, took an off day to rest.

Ending Blood Sugar – 136 (This seemed high to me, especially with the dinner where I had very little brown rice.)

Analysis:

Started to get a horrible headache in the afternoon and evening. Thought that this might be related to my blood sugar. However, ate a banana, and it didn’t solve a thing. This is one of the more frustrating aspects of diabetes. I have no idea where the headache is coming from. Am I getting sick? The meds? Blood-sugar? Heart-related? The Gods are punishing me? Who knows. However, we will see if the headache continues and if there are any other symptoms that might arise. Part of me hopes there is, part of me really hopes there isn’t.