It's the numbers for my average blood glucose levels.
Diabetes & Chronic Issues Support Group
- Thread starter Twilight Phoenix
- Start date
It's the numbers for my average blood glucose levels.
Timby, the Arthritis can hopefully be stalled a bit. If it does start, don't get scared or demoralized because of the pain (it feels like a wasp sting). Don't avoid movement - that will make it worse. Try to move the hurting joints. Swimming is good because the hydrostatic uplift relieves your joints, but if - like me - you prefer dry land try warm sand. No kidding, it's a bliss for arthritic fingers or feet to wriggle them in a bowl of warm sand. The warmth eases the pain and the sand keeps it longer than a hot water bottle plus it sortof cuddles up to the limbs. Way better than a hot water bottle or a hotpack.
Tau Cygna, starting this thread was a very good idea.
Thank you!
As for your hubby's problem: gastroparesis is quite frequently a side-effect when people start developing type 2 diabetes. I recommend a glucose tolerance test rather than the usual quick blood test. The prob is that the standard blood test is very fast but often shows perfectly normal levels of the fasting and the long-term blood sugar levels if people suffer from insulin resistance (that's an early state of type 2 diabetes, a sort of pre-diabetes), whereas the glucose tolerance test shows at which speed the sugar gets absorbed by the cells. If there is an insulin resistance, the absorption will be extremely slow. In that case, to block a further rise in sugar levels, the pancreas "orders" the stomach to slow down, hence the gastroparesis with undiagnosed diabetics.
The test takes 2 hours: your hubby must not eat nor drink anything but water the previous 10 hours. Then they take a blood sample from a vein. He then drinks a glass of highly concentated sugar solution (it's only half as terrible as it sounds) and then his blood will be sampled again after 1 hour and after 2 hours.
In healthy people, the blood sugar ought to be under 120 in the beginning (ideally under 100), 120-160 after 1 hour and back under 100 again after 2 hours. (If you'd like to compare your hubby's readings with those of a mild form of insulin resistance, easily treatable with pills: my readings were 80 / 267 / 262 when we discovered the illness, meaning that my cells couldn't absorb the sugar within 2 hours - a healthy person can easily do it in one hour. My fasting and long term sugar levels are perfectly normal, even almost ideal, which is why the illness went undetected for years).
Tau Cygna, starting this thread was a very good idea.
Thank you!As for your hubby's problem: gastroparesis is quite frequently a side-effect when people start developing type 2 diabetes. I recommend a glucose tolerance test rather than the usual quick blood test. The prob is that the standard blood test is very fast but often shows perfectly normal levels of the fasting and the long-term blood sugar levels if people suffer from insulin resistance (that's an early state of type 2 diabetes, a sort of pre-diabetes), whereas the glucose tolerance test shows at which speed the sugar gets absorbed by the cells. If there is an insulin resistance, the absorption will be extremely slow. In that case, to block a further rise in sugar levels, the pancreas "orders" the stomach to slow down, hence the gastroparesis with undiagnosed diabetics.
The test takes 2 hours: your hubby must not eat nor drink anything but water the previous 10 hours. Then they take a blood sample from a vein. He then drinks a glass of highly concentated sugar solution (it's only half as terrible as it sounds) and then his blood will be sampled again after 1 hour and after 2 hours.
In healthy people, the blood sugar ought to be under 120 in the beginning (ideally under 100), 120-160 after 1 hour and back under 100 again after 2 hours. (If you'd like to compare your hubby's readings with those of a mild form of insulin resistance, easily treatable with pills: my readings were 80 / 267 / 262 when we discovered the illness, meaning that my cells couldn't absorb the sugar within 2 hours - a healthy person can easily do it in one hour. My fasting and long term sugar levels are perfectly normal, even almost ideal, which is why the illness went undetected for years).
Sending everyone on the topic loving and supportive thoughts <3
My husband's symptoms have calmed down (for an unknown amount of time - they may be back in one week or in one month) but we're still struggling to get an appointment for a gastric emptying scan...
And now I'm the one with health issues (not too bad I hope, but still painful)...I harmed one of my eyes, my cornea is slightly damaged and it's as painful as it is invalidating. Can't blink without feeling some knife blade ripping my cornea...It wakes me up in the middle of the night...The doctor from EC prescribed me some eye lubricant and fatty oinment, but I have no idea if it will be enough...I just wish it would end, I hate touching my eyes and I hate the constant pain and teary eyes...
@rhubarbodendron : Thanks for your advice about diabetes ! My hubby only had the normal, quick test and it returned negative. I'll definitely talk to him about the long test so we can know if he's in early stage of T2 diabetes.
My husband's symptoms have calmed down (for an unknown amount of time - they may be back in one week or in one month) but we're still struggling to get an appointment for a gastric emptying scan...
And now I'm the one with health issues (not too bad I hope, but still painful)...I harmed one of my eyes, my cornea is slightly damaged and it's as painful as it is invalidating. Can't blink without feeling some knife blade ripping my cornea...It wakes me up in the middle of the night...The doctor from EC prescribed me some eye lubricant and fatty oinment, but I have no idea if it will be enough...I just wish it would end, I hate touching my eyes and I hate the constant pain and teary eyes...
@rhubarbodendron : Thanks for your advice about diabetes ! My hubby only had the normal, quick test and it returned negative. I'll definitely talk to him about the long test so we can know if he's in early stage of T2 diabetes.
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And now I'm the one with health issues (not too bad I hope, but still painful)...I harmed one of my eyes, my cornea is slightly damaged and it's as painful as it is invalidating. Can't blink without feeling some knife blade ripping my cornea...It wakes me up in the middle of the night...The doctor from EC prescribed me some eye lubricant and fatty oinment, but I have no idea if it will be enough...I just wish it would end, I hate touching my eyes and I hate the constant pain and teary eyes...
Oh, my, that sounds terrible.
Good luck and best wishes that it heals quickly and you make a full recovery.
@Avro Arrow : I feel a bit ashamed about complaining for an injured eye when there are people with diabetes on the topic... >_<
But I needed to vent...
But I needed to vent...
Because she is wise, I will paraphrase what my SIL tells me every time I make a comment along those lines: everyone's issues are valid, and just because they are different, they are no less important than anyone else's.
I think we are conditioned to downplay our own personal problems and put everyone else's first. But everyone deserves support. I'm glad you were able to vent here with us!
And I hope the pain goes away quickly!
@Avro Arrow : Thank you ^.^
I second what Avro said. Eye probs can be terribly demoralizing. Firstly, the pain is terrible, secondly, one can't avoid blinking and hence can't avoid the pain, and thirdly, one feels so helpless.
Did the ointment help, Tau Cygna? How are you feeling today? Doesn't the strain of writing hurt your eye?
(rhubarbodendron is terribly long - please feel free to call me rhubarb Rhubarbodendron was an accidential tongue twister in a chat and I thought it had just the right degree of craziness for this board 
)
Did the ointment help, Tau Cygna? How are you feeling today? Doesn't the strain of writing hurt your eye?
(rhubarbodendron is terribly long - please feel free to call me rhubarb
Rhubarbodendron was an accidential tongue twister in a chat and I thought it had just the right degree of craziness for this board )
I noticed that we have rather a lot of diabetics here and maybe we could all gang up as a sort of support group for each other, exchanging experiences and advice.
Myself am a newbie. That is, I must have had diabetes (type 2) for about a decade, possibly longer, but it was diagnosed only last September.
As it's all pretty new to me, questions keep popping up, all the time. For example, for the last 3 months I keep having cramps and tics, mostly in the evening and at night. Could that be a side effect of the medication (Metformin 3 x 500 mg) or simply a dietary problem (lack of Magnesium)? Do you have any advice for me how to avoid these cramps or at least ease them?
edited to add:
Dear Mods, could one of you please have mercy and fix the thread title? It should of course be "diabetes", not diebetes *blush*
Myself am a newbie. That is, I must have had diabetes (type 2) for about a decade, possibly longer, but it was diagnosed only last September.
As it's all pretty new to me, questions keep popping up, all the time. For example, for the last 3 months I keep having cramps and tics, mostly in the evening and at night. Could that be a side effect of the medication (Metformin 3 x 500 mg) or simply a dietary problem (lack of Magnesium)? Do you have any advice for me how to avoid these cramps or at least ease them?
edited to add:
Dear Mods, could one of you please have mercy and fix the thread title? It should of course be "diabetes", not diebetes *blush*
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oh, that must be difficult to cope with! Do you have to inject Insulin or do you use a pump? I think I'd freak out if I had to give myself injections - I almost faint when I prick my finger with a sewing needle or my dissction forceps. You must be very curageous!
I have only a mild form of type 2: a marked insulin resistance but my pancreas seems to be ok. The condition is very likely inherited - my grandma, dad and brother had/have it as well. Of us 4 I am the only one who only needs pills, but then I am the one who has the self-control to stop after 5 small Christmas cookies.
I have only a mild form of type 2: a marked insulin resistance but my pancreas seems to be ok. The condition is very likely inherited - my grandma, dad and brother had/have it as well. Of us 4 I am the only one who only needs pills, but then I am the one who has the self-control to stop after 5 small Christmas cookies
.
I have a pump, I was having multiple injections a day for 17 years or so, as for injecting, I've been injecting since my second one and to be blunt, it's not a matter of courageousness, or braveness or the like, if I don't give myself insulin, I could die a slow painful death as prolonged hyperglycemia is horrid.
As for coping with it, same applies, yes I have bad and good days with it, plus I've been burnt out with it in the past.
I can relate to that. Unavoidable things are so damned frustrating. Other unpleasant things can somehow be avoided or one finds a sort of mental/emotional detour, but literally vital problems won't go away as much as we wish them to.
I think injections nevertheless take courage. Most people have a natural inhibition against injuring themselves (which is a sound policy, from the pov of evolution). I'm sure I could do it when my life depended on it, but not very much sooner.
I agree about hyperglycemia being horrid - I've had it for years before they diagnosed the diabetes and though the physical damage was fortunately small, the emotional damage was considerable. I had had no idea, previousely, that high blood sugar levels can trigger depression and anxiety fits and it is really quite frightening when all of a sudden one gets scared to death without a good reason. It makes you suspect you're going mad (which it basically is, if you define madness as a brain malfunction due to sugar cluttering up your blood vessels). I'm very relieved that at least that part of hyperglycemia is reversible. And yes, avoiding that is worth a gazillion needle pricks.
I think injections nevertheless take courage. Most people have a natural inhibition against injuring themselves (which is a sound policy, from the pov of evolution). I'm sure I could do it when my life depended on it, but not very much sooner.
I agree about hyperglycemia being horrid - I've had it for years before they diagnosed the diabetes and though the physical damage was fortunately small, the emotional damage was considerable. I had had no idea, previousely, that high blood sugar levels can trigger depression and anxiety fits and it is really quite frightening when all of a sudden one gets scared to death without a good reason. It makes you suspect you're going mad (which it basically is, if you define madness as a brain malfunction due to sugar cluttering up your blood vessels). I'm very relieved that at least that part of hyperglycemia is reversible. And yes, avoiding that is worth a gazillion needle pricks.
Done.
Bless you guys. I am desperately trying to avoid diabetes. It's rampant within my family and I've seen what it does. To avoid it, I'm trying to control the weight which I've never been able to do successfully. I come from a family which has a lot of morbid obese people (including quite a few of my cousins) so I know what awaits me if I stop fighting. I'm 30 pounds overweight but never let it get higher and am constantly trying to drop down - hampered by my broken mind which is fixated on bad food.
If only broccoli tasted like fresh bread!
Anyhow - my sympathy to anyone with diabetes. It's nasty and unwelcome. I've seen what it does to those with it and it's not pretty. If you are borderline for it, change your life or it'll change you.
If only broccoli tasted like fresh bread!
Anyhow - my sympathy to anyone with diabetes. It's nasty and unwelcome. I've seen what it does to those with it and it's not pretty. If you are borderline for it, change your life or it'll change you.
It's a subject close to my heart. My only brother suffered from diabetes. He was a gifted and brilliant man. An artist and a Professor in a Med School. Had the best medicines and doctors, yet still lost the sight in one of his eyes. It breaks my heart thinking how lost he must have felt worrying about his job. That he died too young, alone. We didn't know what he died of at first. His colleague who told my mother said his diabetes was severe and I thought to my bitter ignorance that he can't have died of that. It went down as heart failure but he was terribly damaged by diabetes.
Type two can be avoided (it's pretty much known what causes T2) and even after diagnosis can be "cured" with the "right" adjustments to one's lifestyle.
Type one on the other hand can't be avoided, once triggered (and there isn't 100% consensus on what actually triggers it) it is just a form of damage limitation through insulin therapy. (Among lots of other things)
It is known regardless of type, the better control one has, the better quality of life one will have and the less complications one will have.
Type one on the other hand can't be avoided, once triggered (and there isn't 100% consensus on what actually triggers it) it is just a form of damage limitation through insulin therapy. (Among lots of other things)
It is known regardless of type, the better control one has, the better quality of life one will have and the less complications one will have.
That's why the health insurances offer disease management programs (DMP's) for both Type I and Type II diabetes. To prevent secondary diseases and to control vital parameters on a regular basis. Success depends on the compliance. I still know people who keep on smoking with diabetes or they drink alcohol. Wounds are not healing properly and the resilience is low. They risk a diabetic foot, even amputation.
My health is fine - for now - and I want it to keep that way. I'm not fond of injections either. They hurt like hell....
My health is fine - for now - and I want it to keep that way. I'm not fond of injections either. They hurt like hell....
Yes, people have told me they were close to diabetes, but the bloodlevels improved over time...
My dad's parents had diabetes, Type 1 and possibly Type 2; my mother's father had Type 1 and lost half of his right leg because of it; my father and mother both had Type 2 diabetes. I and one of my sisters have Type 2. A cousin (on my father's side) has Type 1. Maybe more cousins but that's the only one I know of for sure. A lot of times diabetes has a genetic basis and can't be "avoided". SOME people think that you get Type 2 diabetes because you gorge on sugary treats or live an unhealthy lifestyle and are fat, but that isn't necessarily the case. My family tends to be on the thin side. The only people that I know personally who have had their diabetes "cured" are the ones who had bariatric surgery.
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