The Crazy Thirst I Thought Would Never End

Hello, friends,

Where did my insatiable thirst go? Now, I have to remind and coax myself to drink even two bottles of water per day (four cups)! What an incredible change!

Since Thursday evening, February 7th, when I discovered my post-snack blood-sugar level to have been 500 mg/dL, I've got my waking blood-sugar readings down between 196 and 205 (and even a 180 before dinner, one night). Considering I don't sleep many hours per night and I need a small pre-bedtime meal to address actual hunger, this, to me, is real and steady progress! My improved metabolic state brings a feeling of lightness and reentry into the human race. My vision, also, is beginning to improve, as my lens prescription is becoming too strong once again.

My mainstays have become low-fat (2%) plain yogurt of varying brands and types (regular yogurt and Greek yogurt) combined with chia seeds, gluten-free oatmeal flakes, and/or fruit -- with or without stevia. There is no longer any gluten in my diet, as I believe it hiked up my blood sugar dangerously and sparked total-body inflammation (lab results of over a decade ago demonstrated that I should no longer ingest gluten, as my body had responded with antibodies to it). There are no fixed limits to my portions of this food and that: I let my natural appetite self-regulate and then test my blood sugar, later, to see how the sample meals/snack experiments fared, medically. It's been going great! My hunger has increased and is easily addressed with these choice foods. It's truly necessary, now that my metabolism is resetting itself, to feed my cells more of those food nutrients which, previously, they were simply unable to receive.

Walnuts and pecans are my nut staples. Raw cashews, whenever and wherever I can find them, will be another nut staple. Chicken is my new staple meat; and spiced, boneless sardines are my staple fish. Chick peas and onions mixed with olive oil, apple cider vinegar, oregano, turmeric, a dash of black pepper, Celtic sea salt, and cayenne pepper are another staple. Deep green spinach and/or fresh broccoli heads go well with dinner ... The menu is evolving. The real perk is that I'm not only not starving, but I'm also able to eat as much as I feel I need to without driving up my blood sugar, because these foods are truly good for my own diabetes management. Moreover, I don't feel deprived of tasty foods. I'm really happy with this developing menu.

I find "Stevia in the Raw" to be delicious -- something to look forward to with yogurt, hot or cold oatmeal, hot buckwheat cereal (gluten-free!), tea, and/or coffee.

There are sound rhymes and reasons behind these food choices, plus many new points I've learned in the past week and then even revised as I've learned more ...

I'll tie it all together, in more detail, in subsequent posts, as I go along.

Stay tuned!

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

When I sat down to write my first novel, a "novel" view of diabetes emerged, instead:

The Water Principle ©

The teacher, diabetes, imparted lessons she could not have learnt any other way.

For decades, she had depended upon what she’d always considered to be the “cooling” property of chocolate after lunch and dinner. Although she could not have enunciated it at the time, she’d had a “thirst” for the refreshment of chocolate as though it were a badly needed glass of water after the exhausting, internally “sweaty” labor of chewing and digesting a meal.

Indeed, the chocolate and other sugars seemed to have usurped the place of water in her life for over five decades, until water, itself, protested the reversal. In the woman’s fifty-second year, water rose up to demand an immediate accounting of all the water not ingested which needed to be in order to match the glut of sugars left over from chocolate and company. Water made its voice heard via a thirst of such sudden and crippling intensity, the woman could barely speak until delivered bottle upon bottle of water.

This raging thirst would repeat itself upon the woman’s every ingestion of sugar and gluten. Some sugars and some gluten products induced more thirst than others, but the new pattern was set: The woman now needed to imbibe as much water as she’d once “needed” to ingest chocolate. The lessons of diabetes had begun. Through her pancreas and kidneys, the woman’s diabetes seized command of her body to speak to it.

Diabetes taught her body the difference between slightly sweet and far too sweet. Chocolate candy bars and chocolate ice cream became distasteful to her, the chocolate sensation now overwhelming, sometimes even sickening. There were many hours and days when the water she’d gulped down to relieve the insane thirst seemed to leave her body by a half-gallon or more at a time.

Was diabetes all about low water intake, in the first place? Did the bodies of some people mistake thirst for a chocolate-and-other-sugar craving? Was it the usurpation of water by chocolate and other sugars which eventually dehydrated and deregulated the kidneys, upsetting, in turn, the fine balance of sugars and insulin otherwise maintained by the pancreas? Did diabetes manifest itself, therefore, first through the kidneys and, secondarily, through the pancreas?

Should the primary treatment of diabetes be switched from the pancreas and blood sugar to the kidneys, perhaps with periods of fasting and reduced food ingestion, overall, accompanied by remedial water intake?


December 2, 2018. © 2018 Carolyn Cucinotta-Marra. All rights reserved.

Attention: Environmentalists, Hydrologists, and All Who Love Things "Green"

Hello, Friends,

The clock is ticking for both the River Shannon and my Internet connection.

Operating under the lash of the impending "monster" storm system, Sandy, I am eager to put in an effective word on behalf of those who, for several years, have made efforts to preserve, undisturbed, Ireland's rich natural heritage in the River Shannon.

Lacking time, I fear, with these heavy winds increasingly coming upon us, I am posting a link for your careful scrutiny.  This link (with video) exposes and explains the critical details far, far better than I ever could.  Please put the word out to anyone you know who can alert others to help preserve this precious river:

"Beware Bord na Mona and Dublin City Council bearing gifts" - River Shannon Protection Alliance, 2007

Thank you, friends, for tuning in.  I must sign off and post this, as my lights and screen are repeatedly flickering.

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

Revised 6/2/14
 

Embracing the Endangered River Shannon (video included)

Hello, Friends,

It's one thing to talk about "saving a river."  It's quite another thing to see it, to embrace its unique beauties, its pathways, the special places to which it leads.  For those who are new to this topic, please see the related links on the sidebar and the information tab above entitled, "Water (re:  General Info and River Shannon)."

My last discussion about the endangered River Shannon revolved around the topic of beauty.  I will follow up that piece with this nicely arranged video that I found on YouTube (with appreciation to those who recorded and uploaded it).  Together, we can become acquainted with a major river, another country's lifeblood, which is in danger of being largely dried up by man-made intervention.

If we are far away, why should we care?  Well, first of all, the River Shannon is an integral part of Ireland's cultural history and heritage, an ongoing source of fishing, boating, all-around tourist attraction, and native livelihood -- not to mention a living, fertile source of inspiration to poets, artists, and musicians everywhere.  When it comes my time to visit this lovely country of green, I, for one, want the River Shannon to be there in all her glory.

So, let's take a look!

I hope you enjoy the video as much as I already have.  :)

Cheers!

~ Carolyn

"Due" for Repairs

The giant hive on my leg was the clue.  That plus the crushing exhaustion which has kept me from completing the post I recently began to write -- since paragraphs of a more scientific bent must be linear, logical, and support themselves soundly.  This begs precision and endurance of a tired mind.

In short, I suspect I'm not feeling well.  I'm either very toxic with airborne and/or food chemicals; a small creature bit me; or, as I'm beginning to think, all of the above.  (I'm quite sure that the bologna, wheat bread, beef burritos, ice cream, and processed American cheese were not innocent bystanders in this debacle . . . nor were the scented dryer-vent emissions and cigarette smoke I walked through last night).  I fervently hope that, if a creature was also involved, it wasn't a tick or a poisonous spider.  I will hopefully be checking that angle by tomorrow.

I could imbibe several herbal teas and/or add some novel nutritional supplements, but during such times of "what is going on?," I prefer to stick with the most definitely non-inflammatory solutions possible.  Right now, that comes down to goat yogurt (hope I'm right about that), "buffered" Vitamin C which contains calcium and magnesium, and -- can't go too far wrong with this one -- glass after glass of pitcher-filtered water.

The "what is going on?" systemic overhaul, complete with new and weird physical symptoms to eradicate, has typically occurred once every few years since I became chemically sensitive.  Apparently, I must have been "due" for another round.  It's always an unsettling phenomenon flavored with the unexpected, and the key word for getting through it is "calm."

I will return to my half-completed post as soon as possible!  Please visit the information tabs, above, for newly added information.

In the meantime, cheers!

~ Carolyn