Post Punk Kitchen Forum

Well, if diabetes makes sense (which it doesn't!) then explain last night:

After supper: 106, but I'm getting ready to go to the gym, so I drink some juice and have a bar.

Quit (pretty vigorous) workout after 25 minutes because I'm feeling low. Test at 80. Go home.

Don't eat or test until bedtime: 200+.

Huh?

Asking for it to make sense is just ridiculous.

I was once at my old endo (which I stopped going to because they were no good). The CDE said, "Wait. You ate the exact same thing for breakfast these two days, didn't exercise or do anything else different, and got two completely different results? How did that happen?" "I have diabetes?"

And my totally-different-insulin-requirements-because-of-all-this-exercise might be going away.

has your blood sugar been lower at night because of the exercise, footy? I know that for some people there can be decreased sugars 12+ hours after exercise, so maybe having a high at bedtime might be sort of a good thing? I really like reading everything you guys have to say because it's really easy to get caught up in what you learn on paper about how certain things affect blood glucose and how this much insulin or this many carbs will raise/lower it exactly this much, but it doesn't actually work that like that in the real world.

Can I count reading your posts on here towards getting a CDE license?

Yes.

If you say so.

Yes.

just wishful thinking that a high at bedtime would mean no overnight low, but I bet it doesn't really work out like that.

Everything is far less predictable than it has any right being.

I think my Dad really struggles with this. He was diagnosed with Type 1 as an adult, and for a few years kept a spreadsheet detailing everything he ate, breaking down all the carb/fat/protein/nutrient etc content, trying to work out some magic formula that would allow him to be able to predict how it might affect him. I know he still keeps records now, but nothing like the intense level of detail it used to be. He does a fair bit of physical activity and always has (he used to go in triathlons, although I don't think he's done that in a while). I think he still finds it hard to predict how his blood sugar will react.

(Sorry, I hope it's ok that I posted in here. Two people in my immediate family have Type 1, so it always feels really personal, but I'll happily back out if it's not appropriate).

It's good to hear families' perspectives. Now that I'm adult, I have a lot of respect for what my parents did to keep me alive when I was a little kid, and I know it affected my brother, too.

Anyone's allowed to post in here, as long as they ready for a Type 1-related rumpus.

i post in here all the time just to prove how much i don't know about type 1 diabetes.

Well, you don't know any less than I do.

Hi,

I just read this entire thread and wanted to say, hello, thank you, my name is Sara and I'm a type 1 or maybe LADA diabetic. I was diagnosed at 38 (I'm 42 now) with type 2 by a doctor who showed an extreme lack of curiosity about my symptoms and management issues. I basically figured out on my own something else was going on, went to new doctor, asked for all the tests, and showed massively high GAD antibodies.

I'm on Lantus and Humalog now. I used to be a big believer in low-carb, and ultimately paleo. Then I reacted against all that and just ate whatever I wanted for awhile. Then I was vegan for like 5 weeks and I felt really good and had surprisingly good bg control (surprisingly for me having been indoctrinated in low carb). Then the holidays came and I went crazy on sugar and what the fizzle eating. Then I reacted to going crazy by thinking I needed to be paleo again. (Being extreme and reacting and going crazy is kind of my m.o.) So I did that for a month. I keep being drawn back to being plant-based for various reasons.

It's hard/impossible to participate in most of the well-known diabetes forums without constantly being told "oh yeah, just don't eat carbs" "hey keep your carbs under 30g per day and you'll have no problems" "oh so you're already low carb? maybe you need to cut out carrots, and you know onions are very high carb! no more than one slice per meal!" etc, you know the drill. So I don't go to those places anymore.

But it's lonely not to have other T1 diabetics to talk to. Even just reading through this thread without any direct interaction, I feel a lot of understanding about the frustration and inconsistency and absurdity of it all. And the things doctors and other health care professionals say!! Lard. (A wife of a friend is a nurse and we were in an exercise class together shortly after I started insulin and I told her, hey, I just started insulin and am new at this, I might go low, there are glucose tabs and stuff in my bag over there" and she's like, "so if you pass out I give you insulin?" ACK NO NO. She also thought there was such a thing as oral insulin. A nurse. Okay, she's a neonatal nurse but still.)

I'm especially curious, mollyjade, to hear about how pumping goes. I don't feel ready for that. I don't even have a real diabetic doctor yet. My doctor is actually an advocate of paleo eating, but he's a good listener and communicator and actually pays attention to what's going on, and I've had so many bad experiences with doctors I'm loathe to go try to find a new one and/or an endo. But I feel like I'm missing out on some of the help and information I could be getting from someone closely familiar with insulin issues. I do all I can to educate myself, have Think Like a Pancreas, test and tweak and log all the time, and try to take good care of myself.

Unfortunately for me I'm a big of an OCD anxious perfectionist, which is not a good combo with diabetes since it's such an uncooperative disease. I just want to have a good full life and enjoy food because I love it. This is such a dumb disease for people who love food. I used to weigh 55 more lbs than I do now (I'm 5'2", so that was a lot) and have some eating issues, and a past with binge-eating disorder. Technically I should lose about 8-10 more lbs to be in healthy BMI range but, really, it's just not happening while taking insulin and I've maintained my weight for a year without having to think about it much so I'm more or less blowing off that fight.

This is long, and probably a lot of TMI. I want to reconnect with veganism or at least being mostly plant-based. It's a process for me and I still have to work through fear of carbs and eating disorder habits and anxieties that can be exacerbated by any idea of being on some sort of "regime."

Thank you especially mollyjade and footface for being honest and awesome. It's been an unexpected comfort tonight to read your posts...it all started with me looking for some info on a Veganomicon recipe I used today.

Again, sorry so long and unrumpusy!

Hi and welcome! I'm on tudiabetes as mollyjade as well, if you're on there and want to friend me. I'm not as active there as I used to be because it's really exploded into a huge community. And if you're on twitter, you should follow @cureT1diabetes, which is Ellen Ullman's twitter account. She's VP of Children with Diabetes, has a son with type 1, and is a vocal vegan.

I hear you about being a perfectionist. It's hard to be relaxed about food when you have to pay really close attention to it. I actually just started reading Emotional Eating with Diabetes, and it sounds like you might find it useful, too.

Ooh, thanks for book rec, just borrowed it through my kindle...

This is a really good article about the burdens of self-care in diabetes, though they don't mention any of the benefits, which, at least for type 1, are pretty huge in life expectancy and quality of life.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... ox/274507/

I thought that article was silly. In my (necessarily limited) experience, glucose meters are not "frustrating to use, unforgiving, and clumsily designed." And the "unremitting and unforgiving labor" of self-care is actually the burden of diabetes itself. Oh, to go back to the days when you'd only see a blood sugar number a few times a year! It almost sounds like the writer is saying we were all better off when everything happening in our bodies was a complete mystery, so there was no point worrying about it.

I kind of think amputation and blindness are big prices to pay.

I think a lot of what he's talking about applies to type 2. They're not really taught what to do with the numbers on the machine, so testing daily is onerous since that information isn't actually helping them improve their health. This is probably another case where lumping the two types together is a bit confusing. But I think his point that more information isn't always better and how that might relate to the future of healthcare is a good one.

Hmf.

Questions I am sick of.

Is it the genetic kind?
Is it the bad kind?
Is it serious?
Can you eat that?

Injectable nano-network can control blood sugar for 10 days?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130503114716.htm