Diabetes, life and all that - personal diary

Woke up around 6:00 am this morning at 133mg/dl or 7,4 mmol after going to bed at 7,0 mmol just past midnight.

I managed to walk (indoors as it has not stopped raining in the last 24 hours or so) for about 2,5 km and that brought my levels down to an almost acceptable 6,1 mmol. As you can imagine, waking endless laps of the 30 paces or so that separate our front door from the furthest point of the house directly opposite, is not the most enjoyable walk I have ever taken but at least it proved effective.

These numbers are uncharacteristically high for me; Something in the low to mid 5s being a lot more typical.

So last night was a disaster from a diabetes point of view- I must have spent at least five hours above 7 mmol.

I can't really say that I regret it though as it really was an excellent night hosting a dinner party for friends.



Being a diabetic guest at a dinner party is easy, you can more or less just choose to ignore the worst offending food. If you are the host things are tougher as you are supposed to encourage your guests to enjoy the food and so more or less lead by example in sampling the various dishes.

Yesterday was also my turn to be Gordon Ramsey ( without the Hell's Kitchen temper tantrums) as I am always head chef in our kitchen when cooking for friends. My wife's cooking skill just about extend to boiling an egg, but that is only if you like your eggs hard boiled. Asking for a soft boiled egg would probably qualify as grounds for divorce in her eyes.

She did make a grand job decorating the place and setting out the table though.



So I can not even blame someone else for the food selection:

- Spicy roasted pumpkin soup, with herb croutons , Greek yoghurt and toasted sesame seeds



- Sautéed king prawns in butter with chilly, garlic and fresh coriander
- Blanched red cabbage with blue cheese and crispy bacon salad
- Mixed leaf salad with cherry tomatoes and fresh pomegranate seed in balsamic dressing



-Boef bourguignon
-Creamy mushed potatoes with three cheese topping
- Roasted broccoli with a soy sauce and sesame oil dressing with toasted sesame seeds and chili flakes

Selection of deserts ( bought in or brought by the guests)

Cheese platter

Coffee with selection of chocolates

So an all round disaster for my sugar levels but I night I very much enjoyed nonetheless.

I will have to be extra careful now though.

One bad night is not going to kill me but I need to make sure it does not get to be a habit.

Earlier in the day the wife and I got to finish wrapping the son's Christmas presents, while he was away taking a mock exam for the private school entrance examinations he will have to take next year.



They ended up looking so attractive we decided to stick them under the tree already rather than hiding them away until the night before Christmas.

My son did notice them on his return but I just explained them away as yet more of his mom's elaborate Christmas decorating and he pretended to accept that.

I am sure that at 11 he is aware that there is no Father Christmas, although he has not actually said so out loud.

Anyway, having to exercise some restraint and self discipline and wait until Christmas morning to open the various parcels will probably do him good. I think knowing that he will face his mother's wrath for spoiling her carefully laid out display of color coordinated and lovingly wrapped parcels will help him stay true! Lol.

The rain stopped now and I can see sunshine through the window so I am about to go on one of my proper walks.

After all I have sugar to burn.

Pavlos

Mike D said:

Nice to see those reports coming back in again ... and here was I thinking you're wife's a genius in all that she does .... brave of you to reveal her issues with cooking.

Between you and me, Laurel's the same but she's not too bad and is getting better. Just WAYYY too American in her tastes

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I think my wife is strangely proud of her lack of culinary prowess - must be some kind of distorted women's lib thing!

More importantly, she does not get to see this diary .

I hesitated a bid about writing my earlier post about this morning's and last nights readings.

Not because I am ashamed of them or feely guilty about them or about not being the perfect diabetic; I never said I was; but precisely because I feel such little remorse or guilt about having an off night.

Would I not be setting the wrong example or encouraging others to stray?

But what would the alternative be. Lie or say nothing?

After all I do not update this diary on a daily basis so no one would actually have been any the wiser.

But I did not decide to start this diary in order to present a false idealized picture of myself as some kind of perfect diabetic, always in control and impervious to temptation.

What would be the good of doing that? I would be lying to others, who would probably find me harder to relate to as a result, and more importantly, I would be lying to myself.

At the end of the day, it was only one night that I let my guard down a bit for and only to a limited extent.I did not go completely off the rails; glucose levels in the sevens are not really that bad; just higher than I would ideally like to be.

And already I have taken action to bring myself back to my more normal levels. My initial 7,3 on waking was brought down to 6,1 by walking for a couple of kilometers backwards and forwards indoors while the rain lasted. This has now been brought down further to 5,2 by an hour's 6,5 km walk in the morning sunshine.

More fundamentally though, while I think it is important not to forget what we need to do in order to keep healthy, I also feel that we need to allow moments in our lives that make these worth staying healthy for.

This probably requires a fine balance but it is a balance worth striving for.

lizdeluz said:

Hmmm! I've only had time to read the last couple of posts as I'm cooking Christmas cakes, so I'm having to try and guess what this is all about! My mind is working overtime!.

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Nothing too sinister, I promise.

Just @Mike D thinking I was being rather "brave" (code for "stupid") in my revelations about my wife's less than stellar culinary skills!

PSS said:

Pavlos

You are absolutely correct - we do need to enjoy our lives and focus on staying healthy !

Fine balance as you say but none the less achievable.

Are you still on reduced Metformin?

Regards

PSS

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Yes, 1000mg instead of the prescribed 1650 mg.

I intend to stick with this reduced level until I see my doctor sometime in January.

Pavlos

It's been three months since I found my way back to this forum hoping to regain better control of my glucose levels.

So this is a good time to assess whatever progress I have managed to achieve so far:

During this period I have had three blood tests done at roughly monthly intervals:

Hba1c

This has moved from 6%(42 mmol/mmol) to 5,2% (33 mmol/mol) to 5,7% (38 mmol/mol).



Pleasingly all three counts are within the non diabetic range.

The relative rise in my last reading is at least partly due to a reduction in my Metformin from 1700 to 1000mg per day over the last month.

Lipid counts

These continue to be very good with total cholesterol holding steady at 3,7 mmol, a noticeable reduction in triglyceride levels from 1,5 to 0,85 mmol, more than offsetting a small increase in LDL, which at 2,38 mmol is still very good. I could do with improving my HDL a bit, currently at 0,93 mmol.



Overall for someone with familial hypercholesterolemia, a very good set of lipid counts.

Weight



I continue to shed excess weight, now down to 89kg from 102kg last September, a loss of 13kg or 2,2 stones.

A while to go until that healthy BMI shown as the green region at the bottom of the above diagram.

So overall I am extremely pleased with these last three months.

Especially so as the biggest improvement is not captured by the above numbers but has all to do with my mood, self confidence and general outlook on life.

Thank you all for your support.

Pavlos

I have to be honest that yesterday's rise in hba1c from 133 to 138 is playing on my mind a bid.

I know that hba1c of 138 is still a very good count in the non diabetic range but I can't help feeling disappointed with it, especially as it's only been a month since the 133. I guess we are conditioned to only like falls in our numbers.

It is making me question whether I was right to reduce my metformin from 1700mg daily down to 1000mg; especially as I did this without consulting my doctor first.

My original plan was to see my doctor in the New Year. I will have to sleep on whether to bring this forward.

I do not really want to chance getting above 142 by next count and I know the Christmas period coming up will be a challenging one diet wise but to actually go back on the higher dose of met feels like an admission of defeat.

Perhaps I am wrong to see it that way, after all if that is how much met I need then that is how much I need and there should not be an emotional element in it.

At least my morning level was good today at 76mg/dl or 4,2 mmol.

I am going to live up to the classic Mediterranean stereotype and postpone taking a decision on this for now.

I think I need to try and track my levels closely over then next week or so and take a decision then based on how they behave.

Pavlos

tim2000s said:

It's interesting that you should see taking a drug to help your body cope with something that it struggles with as defeat.

In your position, I would look to get the BMI down as low as possible and then start to look at the metformin levels.

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I do not think of going back to my prescribed level of metformin as a defeat but I feel it as one; logic contradicting emotion. Quite a common theme with me.

In fact, in a way, this thread with its diary format, often in the form of unusually revealing monologues, answering it's own questions more often than not (rather than inviting others' contributions, welcome as they may be), can be thought of as my way of trying to reconcile the two. In a way it is my own copying mechanism, my own therapy session.

Objectively, I have absolutely no problem with returning to the prescribed dose of metformin. Subjectively it feels as a defeat but only as I chose to see the reduction in meds to a level I have not been at since diagnosis, as a small victory, as a sign that I was getting some things right.

To be honest it even came about more by accident than by design, when I run out of 850mg pills and had some unexpired 500mg stock available at home from back when I was on 1500mg per day.

My original plan of attack did not include cutting back on meds, rather it went along the lines of
- cut carbs and calories, reluctantly adding fats to diet, if necessary
- stick to strict self testing regime to ensure that glucose levels are in tight control
- carry out monthly blood tests to ensure good Hba1c and lipid counts
- exercise more, mainly through walking, to aid weight loss, reduce body fat and improve fitness
- start gym sessions to add muscle mass
- exploit any improvements in insulin resistance to increase carbs ( fruit) without sacrificing glycemic control.