Diabetic Rebel

Questions about Symlin

2006-07-07T09:11:00.000-07:00

This posting is actually for my friend, Natalie. Some of you might have seen her visiting your blog. I'm trying to convince her so set up her own blog because I'm convinced that it will help her too. I think the support from the D-OC is absolutely fabulous! Thank you!

But anyway, I'll work on that... :-)

Natalie just recently started using Symlin. I know some of you are using this as well & was wondering if you had some helpful tips and/or information for her. Her Endo put her on 5 mg to start with (twice/day) and I believe her next Endo check-up appointment is next week Thursday. He will then re-evaluate how things are going.

Can you please help her with some helpful tips, she would really appreciate that a lot. All the help is welcome. So far she's doing pretty good and has not had any side effects, as far as I know. I do believe she had some extreme lows in the beginning. She will be checking up on your comments and maybe we can all encourage her to have her own D-Blog. Yippee!!!

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Natalie, let me know if you have any more specific questions, I really hope this will be a great additional help for you. GOOD LUCK!!! XO

A1C Results....

2006-07-05T16:12:00.000-07:00

OK, I didn't think it was going to be as good as last time. I think I had a feeling... My A1C this time was 6.5. I was slightly disappointed. I know it's not bad at all, but I guess I have these expectations for myself and even I knew it wasn't going to be as good, I still allowed myself to be sad about it.

The thing is, I have to put so much energy in it! Can you only imagine what would happen if we would NOT do that? Knowing that, I have to keep going. I can't let myself down. Unfortunately I also gained a little bit at Weight Watchers last week, so I'm still not at my 10%. Tomorrow is another weigh in... after the 4th of July and my pity party, I don't think it will be for tomorrow though. We'll see...

I did schedule another appointment with my CDE for this Friday. In addition to all your help (yes, it really works!!!), she's always been great. The reason I want to see her is because I feel I need a boost. Sometimes I start slipping and I don't want that to happen. My sugars have been like a riccochee rabbit, jumping up and down for no reason?

On top of that, something horrible happened last Sunday when I changed my site. The catheter was actually outside of my body. I had changed my site before I went to bed and so I was without insulin all night long. I felt really sick around 3:00 am. I checked myself and I was at 374! I couldn't believe what I saw? "How was this possible? What did I last eat?" I quickly crossed off some things I did the night before, but could not come up with any possible explanation for being that high?
So I corrected myself with a 8.8 bolus, which was the suggested correction amount of my pump. Being very tired and all that, I went back to sleep. I really didn't want to stay up and wait until it went down. (Sometimes, being that high, it might take some time to climb down...)

But then at 7:00 am, I checked myself again. Gut feeling told me that I still wasn't doing too well. 429!!! Can you believe it? Oh my gosh, I've never ripped out a site so fast. It had to be my site since last night! And there it was, my catheter was bent and had actually never been inside of my stomach! Gosh, I was so mad and sick, gosh I felt nauseous. I quickly gave myself a correction shot with my emergency insulin pen. 12 units was the suggested amount! It took a while but by 9:00 am I had come down enough to go work out. I checked myself again after my workout, around 10:30, I was at 81. Thank goodness! I kept having problems with highs for the next 2 days. Yep, that's how long it can take to recover from it. Unbelievable. I hope no-one of you will ever have to experience this, it's horrifying.

BTW, in addition to this, check out Kevin's blog: H(a)emoglobin Woes, it's really interesting, especially the correalation between your daily BG's and your A1C results. According to that list, my average BG would be 152.50.

I got a little lighter...

2006-06-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

Yippee! I didn't think I lost anything last Thursday at Weight Watchers but I did.
I lost 2.4 lbs! I'm soooo close to my 10%. (-0.54) I want to be there this Thursday!

I don't have the results of my A1C back yet, hopefully they will surprise me the same as I was with my weight loss, that would be awesome. I'll keep you posted.

It's been a while...

2006-06-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

OK, I know, it's been a while. I don't have too much going on though. I've not made any progress as far as my weight goes. I actually gained a little bit last week at Weight Watchers. (And I was not happy about it!) Hopefully it goes better tomorrow... Although I doubt it, I don't feel like it.

I also have an appointment for my A1C tomorrow. My last result this past March was very good. (6.1) Unfortunately I can never keep it that way. I always go up and down. I don't think this one will be as good as last one. I've been stressed about it all week, which is stupid of course, because that stress in itself can have a great impact on my bg. I don't know, I guess I'm just a little bit frustrated. I want to keep my A1Cs low just in case I get pregnant. But oh my gosh, it takes A LOT OF CONTINUOUS WORK!!! Testing and adjusting all the time, eating right, paying attention to everything you do because it might have an impact, working out, ... Sometimes I wonder how long I can keep doing this... And then there's that morning where you get up and you think you can conquer the whole wide world and it's all going to be OK. I need one of those mornings tomorrow! Keep your fingers crossed....

Back from my conference week...

2006-06-06T14:54:00.000-07:00

First of all, I want to thank you all for the support you sent me before I left for my conference in Anaheim, CA. It must have really helped because I did pretty good. It wasn't always easy but I made it.

I was able to eat a little snack every 2-3 hours, that way I could keep my metabolism going. Then for the lunch and dinner breaks, I was able to make a decent choice and I did not (over) stuff myself.

But what about eating Chinese? Isn't that always the hardest thing? I don't like steamed vegetables too much so in order to get your veggi's in, not so simple. All the other things from the menu have a lot of carbs. One day, I ordered a cup of hot and sour soup. That is pretty filling so I would eat less for my main meal. After that I had some pork fried rice. Not too much, but still, enough to mess me up. I even used my dual wave basal rate over 4 hours but it still got elevated. So far, I have never been able to "do it right". Any tips, always welcome. I have the same problem with Thai, Japanese, Sushi, ... Unfortunately I really like this type of food.

One of the things that worked in my advantage was bringing my gym clothes and using them. Every morning, except for the last day Sunday, I got up early and worked out in the hotel gym. It was a very simple gym but I decided not to find an excuse for that. Working out, gave me more energy for the rest of the day and my bs was very much under control. So overall, I think I can be proud of myself.

We normally had our weigh in at the gym on Monday but it's postponed until tomorrow. I guess that gives me some extra days to get back on track. We'll see...

I'm just back from having lunch with my best friend. (I've mentioned her before in one of my posts in the past.) We both have diabetes and we're both doing the Team Weight Loss at the gym. We are struggling with getting our weight under control and being healthy at the same time. I've introduced her to the d-blogs so she will be stopping by to visit you soon. I think she can really find a lot of helpful information from all of you, especially since she's only been diagnosed for 3 years now. If you have any tips, please feel free to put in some comments, I'll make sure she gets them.

Endo Appointment

2006-05-28T22:52:00.000-07:00

I had my Endo Appointment this past Thursday. I was actually really excited to see her because I thought I had made some great progress and I guess I wanted to show off and hear all those nice compliments.

But who was I kidding? My endo, I should have known, she's never really excited, at least, she won't show it. She was impressed with the weight loss and she also told me my A1C was very good, but reading her expression on her face, it looked like she could have said: "This apple tastes really good." Common, that's not really what I wanted to hear. But then again, I might read way too much into it. So I decided to be happy for myself because after all, I knew personally how hard I had worked on this to get it where I am today. And after realizing that, it totally changed my outcome of the day.

I lost a little bit of lbs. at Weight Watchers that same morning, only 0.4lbs, not a lot... but still, it's going down. So I got to embrace that!

I have a B-I-G challenge coming up... I have a conference in CA to go to. It is from Wednesday until Sunday.... Ouch!
So guess what I will be doing Tuesday afternoon? I will be pre-packaging all my snacks that I want to take with me. I'll have a little fridge in the hotel room so I can easily store all my smoothies, yogurts, string cheese, carrots, etc... That way, I can eat little snacks throughout the day. It has worked before at another conference, so I'm going to do it again. I try to eat every 2-3 hours, that way, I can keep my metabolism going and I won't be starving when it is time to order a meal. The most important thing is that I have time to prepare for this so IT'S GONNA WORK, IT HAS TO!

I will return on Sunday night. That next day, Monday, we'll have our 9 week weigh in at the TEAM Weight Loss Program that I'm doing... Another reason I really have to be good during those conference days... I'll keep you posted.

Update

2006-05-19T13:57:00.000-07:00

I'm so happy today. I'm now also part of the Diabetes OC. I'm just amazed by how many people are going through exactly the same and I didn't even know it. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one struggling with all this. But since I started blogging, I found out that that is definitely NOT the case. This might sound selfish, but I'm glad I'm not alone. (Oooppsss...)

I'm still waiting to get the OC-code, but as soon as I receive that e-mail I will post it on my blog and I will also post other links from fellow D-Bloggers. In the meantime, I want to thank everybody that contacted me with helpful tips and compliments! It feels great to be part of it.

Weight Watchers yesterday... I did not have any expectations because I knew I had 2 days where I wasn't too careful with what I put in my mouth.... So, I had already decided: "No expectations, hope for the best."

I lost 0.6 lbs. The good news about this is that I won my 2nd ribbon. For those of you who are familiar with WW's, they give you a blue ribbon for every time you lose 10 lbs! I now reached a total loss of 20.2 lbs!

Another major milestone was this past Monday (5/15) at my gym. I lost another 3% of body fat for week 6!
When I first started this program, my body composition was 49% and I'm now down to 36%.

I must say though, you are meeting me in one of my 'ups' in my life. I'm very much like 'all or nothing' and this is definitely a "all-time" I'm trying to extend those positive days as long as possible. :-) because for some odd reason, sometimes they're suddenly nowhere to be found. I guess some of you know what I mean...

Anyway, got another endo appointment next week Thursday. I think she will be very impressed. Last time I saw here (3/2/06), I was totally down, frustrated and mad at the world. (This was before I started having success losing weight.) I know she felt for me but there was really nothing she could do to help me. After all, my attitude was very negative and sometimes I wonder how much that has to do with it. Nevertheless, my blood results were very good, but the weight was a total disaster. I think she will be proud of me this time.

Good news!

2006-05-11T22:20:00.000-07:00

OK, today was a very happy day for me at Weight Watchers. I lost 3.4 lbs, so that is really major. I had gained just a little bit last week, but all that is gone plus more. Most of the time, after the weigh in at WW's, we celebrate a little bit, after all, being good for 7 days straight is really hard for me. I figured, there's got to be 1 'free' day. Anyway, lost a total of 19.6 lbs! I still have a long way to go but hey, at least I'm going down hill.

Thank goodness we don't have any parties going on this weekend, because that makes it REALLY hard. Did I tell you about last weekend's party? Gosh, I was really bad... We had to go to this birthday party of a friend of us... And of course, they had all kinds of goodies... It was so hard to say 'no' to those over-delicious snacks that after 5 seconds of trying I gave up. I told myself to enjoy myself and that I had to get right back on track the next day. And so I did. I had a little bit of everything, but I tried to stay away from the carbs... Except for the M&M's, I believe those have carbs... :-) Other then that, I had carrots, celery, pretzels, nacho chips with queso-bean-dip (this was soooo good!!!), a couple of mini cookies, 'already-peeled' pistachio nuts, .... Overall, not too bad... I stayed away from the Subway 9 foot long sub, I did not eat any cake and I did stick to water and diet coke.

Anyway, it's best for me not to go to those kind of parties too much because when my eyes see it, my stomach wants it. :-)

Yeah, it's working!

2006-05-03T22:17:00.000-07:00

OK, got some good news. Although I wasn't able to go to the gym on Monday (4/24), I had my successful weigh in on Wednesday and I lost 3 lbs!!! I was so happy, little surprised but very happy. Surprised because I couldn't loose the weight in so long and now it was finally working. Wow, this is awesome!

Anyway, the reason I couldn't get to the gym is because I got really sick over the weekend. I had this strange pain in my back and first I thought my kidneys were hurting. Ooops, that can be very serious, specially with my diabetes. It started Friday night after dinner. My husband and I had gone out for a bite to eat to this new sports bar close to the gym. We were just catching up from the week and I felt this pain in my back. Wasn't sure what it was but once I returned back home I was able to fall a sleep immediately, thank goodness.

I didn't feel anything the next morning when I got up so no worries, right? My husband and I went to this diabetes expo downtown in Phoenix. By the way, that was really interesting, we really enjoyed it. But while walking around, the pain had come back. It was a really awkward pain. Later on that day, it progressed to almost unbearable. Around 10:30 pm, we had to go to the emergency room. They ran all kinds of tests, tried to get in an IV for the pain, but unfortunaely they couldn't find a vain, so I ended up with a morfine shot in my 'behind'.
After a long wait in between nurses and doctor visits, they finally had to discharge me with a pain killer prescription. They told me that my blood results came back better than the nurse's :-) and that they could not find anything? I think it was about 5:00 am the next morning that we left the ER. The morfine had finally kicked in so I was able to get some sleep. They recommended that I would see my family care practitioner as soon as the pain would come back.

The next day, Sunday, I made sure I relaxed all day long. The pain did return that night and I wasn't able to get too much sleep. After some more painkillers the next morning, I was finally doing better. So far the pain has not been back and that's how I want to keep it.

Our next weigh in at the gym is on Monday 5/15 but first I have my Weight Watchers meeting tomorrow... I hope I did pretty good. I'll keep you posted!

Follow up on the weight progress

2006-04-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm doing pretty good. I told you about the "TEAM Weight Loss" program that I'm doing at my gym, right? Well, it's going very well. We just started on April 10 and this program will continue for 12 weeks long. Last time I did this, I was able to shed 11 lbs. And so far, I've lost 17.4 lbs in total. Not bad huh?

I really like it a lot, especially this time because I was able to get my best friend in the program as well and we both enjoy it a lot. I think she will be OK me telling you a little bit more about her... I actually met her at my Weight Watchers meeting last year and found out she has diabetes as well. Since that moment, we started hanging out together a lot more and became very good friends. It is so much more 'fun' to deal with all this diabetic stuff together: we can compare things, we can get advice from each other, we can exchange funny episodes of being low, etc... I even convinced her to change from original shots into the insulin pump. She absolutely loves it and finds it much easier than before.

But so, we're now doing this together as well and I'm curious how this is going to help her and hopefully it will bring her some great results.

Monday is the beginning of week 3 and so we are having our first weight-in after our initial assessment so I'll have to be extra good this weekend.

I'll definitely let you know more next week after the big Monday...

Weight Progress

2006-04-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

I know it has been a while... But I got some good news to report. I've been doing this TEAM Weight Loss program at my local gym and it looks like it finally brought me some results. It is a 12 week program. You get nutritional information from a registered dietitian and this in combination with an intense workout schedule, taught by a personal trainer. They are really good and are guiding us through the whole program. The workout itself is mainly based on heart-rate zones.

Every Mo-We-Fr from 9:00 - 10:00 am, we do the following:

Mondays: we get together with the dietitian for about 1/2 hour and the other 1/2 hour, we have a workout.
Wednesdays: We work out a full hour and in the meantime we have the chance to show our food journal to the dietitian. She makes adjustments accordingly.
Fridays: Full hour workout! Our trainer calls it: "FUN FRIDAY" and believe me, she enjoys working our 'behinds'!!! :-)

But so the good news.... I just finished up my first 12 week program and lost 11 lbs and 7% bodyfat! I really like the program and I was able to get my best friend to sign up as well. So April 10, we're starting our new 12 week program.... I figured I'll keep doing this until I'm pregnant... because when that happens, I'll have to set some other priorities... but until then, this is what I'm focusing on.

Hemoglobin A1c

2006-03-15T12:40:00.000-07:00

OK, I've got some really good news. I had a doctor's appointment last week and I just received the bloodresults back. First of all, you have to know that I've been working really hard to get my A1c down and that means a lot of work, a lot of testing and a lot of discipline. My last Hemoglobin A1c was already very good (6.5) but this time, wow, I've really done well and I'm extremely happy! This time I've reached 6.1 so that is extraordinary. My record ever was 6.1 and I've finally done it again.

Another thing that might be important to mention is that the reason I want this down so much is because we're trying to get pregnant and therefore it's best that my sugars are as perfect as possible. So, I'm well on my way... The only thing now is tons and tons of practice (Believe me, my husband is not going to have a problem with that) because I really don't know how long I can keep this around 6. I've always gone up and down in the past and I think that's very normal for the Diabetics that have had Diabetes for so long. Anyway, all my other results were good too, everything was within range, so hopefully we can keep it like that.

Tomorrow is Thursday again, meaning Weight Watchers at 9:00am. I lost quite a bit last week. I'm not sure about this week, because I had a conference last Fr-Sa-Su and I did take some healthy snacks with me (carrots, yogurt, smoothie, apple) but it's still hard because lunch and dinner was eating out. The snacks really helped me out a lot because I wasn't starving when I placed my order at the restaurant. Little things like that can really help me out a lot. If I wouldn't have done that, I probably would have ordered half the menu. :-)

Anyway, I'll definitely keep you posted on my progress later.

Welcome To My Diabetic Rebel Blog!

2006-03-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my blog... This is my first blog entry ever. I just got introduced to it by my husband and I'm really liking the idea of blogging, so here we go...

First of all, I want to start telling you a couple of things more about myself. You've probably already figured out that I have diabetes or that I am related to some family member or friend with diabetes. You're right, as a matter of fact, I got diabetes TYPE 1 since I was 8 years old. And let me tell you, they've come a loooooong way!

Now, you would think that after having diabetes for about 24 years, I’ve become a master in juggling this disease, right? Well, I probably know a little bit more than the average American and yet, I’m having tons of questions on a daily basis!

WEIGHT ISSUES: One of the problems that I've been struggling with is my weight. It seems to be really hard to loose weight while on insulin? If any of you bloggers have experience with it, please let me know. I will tell you that I've been working out very religiously and I'm definitely paying attention to my food choices & portions. (Meaning, I LOVE Mexican food, but unfortunately it has not been on my menu for a long time!) So far, I've not been able to loose a lot of lbs. :-(
And that, of course, is very frustrating!

EXERCISING: How to adjust my insulin pump while you're working out?

Anyway, I've got a lot more to talk about, so I promise I'll be back soon.