RainBoKatchr
Newbie
- Messages
- 1
- Type of diabetes
- Type 2
- Treatment type
- Tablets (oral)
I'm hoping that someone can make sense of my diabetes problem and can offer some helpful advice, because my doctors don't have a clue.
I'm a white male, 66 years old, 6'2" and 240 lb. (used to be 300 lb), and I've been fighting Type II diabetes since at least as far back as age 20. I got my A1C down from 12.0 to 6.4 by taking Metformin and following a low-carb./high fat/high protein diet (no grains, no sugar, no potatoes, no highly processed foods, etc.) but it has since been creeping back up (even though I'm still on the good diet), and was recently measured at 10.2. And I've since reduced my caloric intake, increased my exercise, and am gradually losing more weight, but have yet to see significant benefits for my blood sugar. My excess weight is all in my belly, as visceral fat, which is the worst kind and the hardest to lose....I've had it since my late teens.
Typically, what will happen to me over the course of a day, is that I generally feel OK when I wake up, but then in an hour or two my mental and physical energy level crashes, I'm lethargic and have brain fog and have to really push myself to do stuff (and before I improved my diet, I almost passed out a few times). My blood glucose will be about 200 when I start the day, with no glucose showing on a urine test strip, but then when I feel the brain fog coming on, I know my blood sugar has shot up to 250 to 280, and I'll be peeing out glucose at a fair rate. And then after about 5 or 6 hours of this, I'll rather suddenly feel like a new man with plenty of mental and physical energy, and simultaneously my blood sugar will drop to 200 or below, and I'll feel fine the rest of the day.
And it doesn't matter what I eat for breakfast (or even if I don't eat at all)......my blood sugar will shoot up and I'll feel ******. But how I feel is NOT the result of my high glucose level.....if I eat some carbohydrates that get bood sugar even higher, into the 300s, I'll suddenly feel fine and have a lot of energy.....for about half an hour (pretty quickly I'll pee it out, and I'll be back to feeling ******).
My interpretation is that I have raging insulin resistance in the first half of the day, and my body and brain simply can't take in much glucose from my blood and are basically starving (and meanwhile the glucose is just piling up in my blood).....until a switch flicks in a few hours, and my insulin resistance falls off (and I'm finally able to access that sugar). And this has been going on since about age 20 (46 years), and has caused tremendous damage to my body and basically ruined my life. I have had two near-fatal heart attacks, have severe ED, have neuropathy in my feet and have had several foot infections that have almost resulted in amputations, I have multiple eye diseases, etc.
And I have diabetes coming at me from both sides of my family, and other family members have been even less lucky.....my cousin, who was younger than me and was diagnosed at age 25, died 10 years ago at age 54, after having multiple heart attacks and multiple strokes and suffering kidney failure etc. (and his father, my uncle, had his leg amputated, among other problems). Diabetes has totally ravaged my family.....everybody gets it, to some degree or another, in one form or another.
As far as any medications beyond Metformin, I seem to be at a dead end. Insulin injections were tried, and had little to no effect on my blood sugar, because of my extreme insulin resistance (and my fasting insulin is towards the high end of the normal range, so my body IS making insulin.....it's just able to be used efficiently). And the few additional drugs that treat insulin resistance, have high-risk side effects (rosiglitazone increases the risk of heart attacks and has been mostly discontinued, and pioglitazone increases the risk of bladder cancer, heart failure, and bone fractures). And the popular weight-loss drugs would likely cause my body to cannibalize my muscle tissue, leaving my fat belly.....given my insulin resistance, it's easier for my body to convert protein to glucose than to access and burn that fat. And the class of medications that make you pee out glucose, would no doubt make my brain fog worse and cause me to lose muscle mass, as my body would be desperate to convert anything to the glucose it is starving for......plus that would bring back the urinary tract infections and jock itch problems I had so bad before I changed my diet, and would put me at risk for genital gangrene (which Harvey Weinstein famously got).
Anybody have any ideas??
I'm a white male, 66 years old, 6'2" and 240 lb. (used to be 300 lb), and I've been fighting Type II diabetes since at least as far back as age 20. I got my A1C down from 12.0 to 6.4 by taking Metformin and following a low-carb./high fat/high protein diet (no grains, no sugar, no potatoes, no highly processed foods, etc.) but it has since been creeping back up (even though I'm still on the good diet), and was recently measured at 10.2. And I've since reduced my caloric intake, increased my exercise, and am gradually losing more weight, but have yet to see significant benefits for my blood sugar. My excess weight is all in my belly, as visceral fat, which is the worst kind and the hardest to lose....I've had it since my late teens.
Typically, what will happen to me over the course of a day, is that I generally feel OK when I wake up, but then in an hour or two my mental and physical energy level crashes, I'm lethargic and have brain fog and have to really push myself to do stuff (and before I improved my diet, I almost passed out a few times). My blood glucose will be about 200 when I start the day, with no glucose showing on a urine test strip, but then when I feel the brain fog coming on, I know my blood sugar has shot up to 250 to 280, and I'll be peeing out glucose at a fair rate. And then after about 5 or 6 hours of this, I'll rather suddenly feel like a new man with plenty of mental and physical energy, and simultaneously my blood sugar will drop to 200 or below, and I'll feel fine the rest of the day.
And it doesn't matter what I eat for breakfast (or even if I don't eat at all)......my blood sugar will shoot up and I'll feel ******. But how I feel is NOT the result of my high glucose level.....if I eat some carbohydrates that get bood sugar even higher, into the 300s, I'll suddenly feel fine and have a lot of energy.....for about half an hour (pretty quickly I'll pee it out, and I'll be back to feeling ******).
My interpretation is that I have raging insulin resistance in the first half of the day, and my body and brain simply can't take in much glucose from my blood and are basically starving (and meanwhile the glucose is just piling up in my blood).....until a switch flicks in a few hours, and my insulin resistance falls off (and I'm finally able to access that sugar). And this has been going on since about age 20 (46 years), and has caused tremendous damage to my body and basically ruined my life. I have had two near-fatal heart attacks, have severe ED, have neuropathy in my feet and have had several foot infections that have almost resulted in amputations, I have multiple eye diseases, etc.
And I have diabetes coming at me from both sides of my family, and other family members have been even less lucky.....my cousin, who was younger than me and was diagnosed at age 25, died 10 years ago at age 54, after having multiple heart attacks and multiple strokes and suffering kidney failure etc. (and his father, my uncle, had his leg amputated, among other problems). Diabetes has totally ravaged my family.....everybody gets it, to some degree or another, in one form or another.
As far as any medications beyond Metformin, I seem to be at a dead end. Insulin injections were tried, and had little to no effect on my blood sugar, because of my extreme insulin resistance (and my fasting insulin is towards the high end of the normal range, so my body IS making insulin.....it's just able to be used efficiently). And the few additional drugs that treat insulin resistance, have high-risk side effects (rosiglitazone increases the risk of heart attacks and has been mostly discontinued, and pioglitazone increases the risk of bladder cancer, heart failure, and bone fractures). And the popular weight-loss drugs would likely cause my body to cannibalize my muscle tissue, leaving my fat belly.....given my insulin resistance, it's easier for my body to convert protein to glucose than to access and burn that fat. And the class of medications that make you pee out glucose, would no doubt make my brain fog worse and cause me to lose muscle mass, as my body would be desperate to convert anything to the glucose it is starving for......plus that would bring back the urinary tract infections and jock itch problems I had so bad before I changed my diet, and would put me at risk for genital gangrene (which Harvey Weinstein famously got).
Anybody have any ideas??
