Lucky To Be Alive

Hello, friends,

Life changed for me forever on Thursday evening, February 7th. For the first time since I was diagnosed with diabetes in October, 2015, I searched for my tester kit which I'd bought and never used. I couldn't find it. Two days earlier, my chiropractor had urged me to prick my finger and at least find out the ballpark of my blood-sugar level. I was scared to prick my own finger. I was scared I'd find the tester kit. Then, I was scared when I didn't find it.

I went to the supermarket pharmacy and bought a new kit. This time, I was serious. The chiropractor's story of his friend who'd had a totally unexpected blood-sugar level of 600 mg/dL had sunk into my thick head. Now, it was urgent.

I'd eaten popcorn and a corn muffin with coffee, and I'd begun to feel a sickly, feverish-like ringing in the ears, a spacey feeling -- not good. This was not the ideal time to practice learning to prick myself, but it was now or never. After pricking myself about 11 times at all different pressures in all different places, I finally drew a proper-sized sample of blood and applied it correctly to the side of the testing strip. "... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ..." the machine counted down. There it was, my blood-sugar bombshell:

500 mg/dL.

This was at least one hour after my corn muffin. What had the reading been before that? And that was a snack -- not a full serving of any of my favorite culprit foods -- many of them much worse and/or far more sugary than popcorn and a corn muffin. How many days and nights had my blood sugar reached 500 -- or more? Combine that with the grueling thirst, the gallons of fluid so often expelled ...

That number explained most things. I was lucky to be alive. My chiropractor's advice, urging me to self-test, may have saved my life. Tonight, I checked for ketones. Thankfully, none.

I've gotten my blood-sugar level down into the 200s and 300s, alternating, since Thursday night. I've begun walking. I've learned that my blood sugar seems to have done best, Thursday night through today, with a bean-and-onion mix. I've learned that the caffeine in coffee spikes my blood sugar. I've learned that decaf coffee is not only not entirely worthless, but also that a chemical-free brand of decaf coffee can confer the same protective benefits as regular coffee.

I'd started to feel really bad after drinking my usual cups of regular coffee. The magic was gone. In its place, my body felt dirty and depleted after a few sips of it. Most brands started to taste bad to me. My body was giving me all of these clues -- these biologically valid pieces of information.

Today, I'm no longer thirsty. Now, whatever water I can pour back into this body can begin to restore a real metabolic fluid balance ... which, according to my own theory [The Water Principle ©], might assist the mending of the whole diabetic picture through the kidneys onward and upward.

As for my pancreas, I would prefer to coax it back into functioning at optimal level rather than patronizing and consoling it with diabetes drugs which will just enable me to eat poorly and burn it out.

If it turns out that I need insulin, of course I would take it. So far, however, I've not been producing ketones ... so I believe there is hope for my pancreas to recover whatever function it has lost through glucose receptors being blocked by excess fats. I'm not a good candidate for palliative blood sugar medication, as my chemical sensitivity and otherwise low blood pressure can predispose me to hypoglycemic episodes and cardiac arrhythmias.

My task is to get this blood-sugar level lower, lower, and lower. Given that it's been only one full day of my working at this, the progress made thus far gives me great hope.

The other good news is that you haven't missed a single thing of my "journey of managing diabetes" since my post of October 6, 2015, because I hadn't done a thing about it.

Whether or not I was ready for it, my "journey of managing diabetes" has now begun. I'll keep you posted.

Cheers!

~ Carolyn 

Vision and Balance

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