Hello, friends,
Whatever I did in Ireland, I must do again . . . for the sake of my vision and so many other physical blessings.
Would you care to join me on my journey of managing . . . diabetes?
As I'm in no position to declare any answers other than my own anecdotal experience, I expect that these posts will be filled with questions.
Having experienced a dramatic improvement in my vision and overall well-being within a two-week span in Ireland this summer, I experienced an equally dramatic regression in my vision -- noticed by me last week -- since I came home. I ran to get a comprehensive blood test. My eyesight has reverted to its worst lens prescription, and I have now been formally diagnosed with diabetes.
Upon returning home to the U.S. from my brief vacation in Ireland, I grew slightly lax with sugar, and especially lax with gluten The gluten ingestion has made me feel quite bad and, usually, extremely sleepy. (I'd had bloodwork for gluten intolerance in the early 2000s, and it came up positive for gliadin antibodies. I had been in a toss-up over gluten -- should I eat it or not? -- ever since.) The beneficial daily walking ceased, as well, since I returned from Ireland.
Clearly, exercise is an urgent necessity. Upon receiving my diagnosis yesterday, I went right outside and began my walking regimen. Now, for the rest of it . . .
I have serious disagreements with the typical protocol of managing diabetes the mainstream way. Not only that, but I believe myself to be a poor candidate for diabetes medication due to my previously high degree of chemical sensitivity. Also, I'm only too aware of the attendant risks that come with errors in diet while one is on diabetes medications: low blood sugar, coma, and death.
Having been chemically sensitive for so long, I fear strange and unexpected reactions to such medication(s) posed by my body's inability -- even if this has lessened -- to tolerate many chemicals.
For these reasons, I'm aiming immediately at managing my diabetes through alternative means.
On July 18, 2015, I received my strongest eyeglasses prescription ever, as of that date. This had been my second lens prescription in three weeks. My vision had suddenly deteriorated just prior to June 26th, 2015. Then, three weeks later (July 16-18th), I experienced an unquenchable thirst for a few days. No sooner would I finish one bottle of water than I would have to stop to get another one. My vision deteriorated further, and back I went to get new lenses. The prescription had increased.
Suspecting a problem with blood sugar at this point, I immediately tightened up my diet. By the time I flew to Ireland, I was feeling perky again and the eyeglasses felt good.
Within a few days of being in Ireland, however, my vision changed dramatically again. At first, I wondered if I might be dying. However, I'd then been walking a great deal for a few days and the rest of me felt quite well. Unusually well. Still, there I was in the Irish supermarket with huge halos around every light and exceptionally blurry vision through my eyeglasses. I found that looking through the bottom section of my bi/trifocals helped. This was the reading section of the lenses. In the back of my mind, I began to hope that, this time, my vision had actually improved -- since my best vision through the lenses was now through the "reading" part of the trifocals ("distance" at the top, "computer" in the middle, "close reading" at the bottom).
By the time I returned home on the morning of August 8th, I could not bear to keep the eyeglasses on my face because everything I now looked at was distorted through them. Within a few hours I was back at the optometrist. My lens prescription had improved so much, the new prescription was weaker than any prescription I'd had since before 2013. Since I don't have the prescription records in my possession for my lens prescriptions prior to 2013, I can only guess, by the weakness of my August 8th prescription, that the improvement took me back, perhaps, to my vision of 2000 or even earlier.
I was happy. I was elated.
After that, I became engrossed in the busyness of life and . . . started having a few desserts and permitting myself a
lot of gluten, especially on the road: buttered (wheat) rolls. This was to be the beginning of the end of my dramatic improvement.
The optometrist was not surprised at the dramatic fluctuations of vision -- which he believed, from the beginning, were due to diabetes. None of this was out of keeping with the visual regressions common to high blood sugar and the remarkable visual improvements his diabetic patients had enjoyed upon stabilizing their blood sugar.
I was fortunate that he also agreed with me that, for a gluten-sensitive person, gluten could be especially devastating to the blood sugar and, by extension, to the eyes.
Here is where I begin. Obviously, all traces of refined/granulated/honey sugar must go. But, now, gluten -- I'm asking the serious question about its effects on vision. Some literature states that it can have a direct impact on vision by affecting the sensory nerves. Since my first symptom of gluten sensitivity, back in 2002 and 2003, was severe dizziness and ataxia at times, I have no trouble believing this. I became aware of my need to do a gluten-sensitivity blood test when I read literature on autism and came upon the genius of Lisa Lewis* (
"About Lisa") through Karen Seroussi's book about her son, Miles:
Unraveling the Mystery of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder: A Mother's Story of Research & Recovery – by Karen Seroussi (January 8, 2002). I wrote to Lisa Lewis (around 2002) about my symptoms and she advised me to test for gluten. (Thank you, Karen Seroussi and Lisa Lewis, if ever you read this.)
If this post is a little bit rambling, it's because I'm looking at the page through (hopefully temporary) visual distortions; and it's a rather sweaty enterprise to organize thoughts while feeling, overall, physically awful. It makes one feel queasy to post little links and such while looking through a blurry haze with tired eyes . . . almost like motion-sickness . . . One just wants to get it over with!
I do want to mention that there is an increasing awareness that gluten can have a devastating effect on blood sugar. I hope to follow up with more posts and links on this viewpoint.
So many more angles to explore . . . I must, in my next post(s), discuss the diabetic diet regarding "beneficial fats" and the common reliance on "low-fat" foods . . . the potentially direct impact of gluten on vision . . . and the potential causing/worsening of high blood sugar through gluten ingestion.
In the meantime . . .
Cheers!
~ Carolyn
*
"An Experimental Intervention For Autism" - by Lisa S. Lewis, Ph.D.
"Neurologic and Psychiatric Manifestations of Celiac Disease and Gluten Sensitivity" - NCBI - PMC - US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health
"UNUSUAL CAUSES OF ATAXIA" - by S.H.Subramony M.D. Professor of Neurology University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX
