20170119 – Thursday – The new me

From Rivers – cost me $20

20170119 – Thursday – The new me

Well, my dear Facebook friends, a few of my Facebook friends have asked me why I haven’t been posting on Facebook much for a while. Well, I have been very preoccupied and I will tell you why.

At Xmas time, my daughter Deb came to Adelaide and it was noticeable that she was not traveling too well with her health. She had gained two distinct rolls of fat around her midriff and was walking with some difficulty, in fact she was showing some of the same symptoms that I have struggled with ever since I had a stroke in 2008.

Well, when my daughter Deb has a problem, she hits the net and does some research. She found a writer called Michael Mosley who had written a book called “The 8-week blood sugar diet.” She thought that what he had to say made sense. He advocated a no-carbs higher fat sort of diet. She went on it and in between the time from Dec 25th to last week, she lost 2.5 k.

Well, Deb went on a crusade to persuade her mother and father (namely me and Jeff) to go on this diet. We resisted strongly, but Deb’s will has always been stronger than mine, particularly when she is in “crusading mode.”

So we came to an agreement, but first a little background.

My doctor, some time back, a month or two ago had diagnosed me with “Paget’s disease,” and to check her diagnosis out she had me have a full body scan and she sent me to see a Dr Jui Ho who “was an expert in such matters.” I had the body scan and the results came back negative. I did not have Paget’s disease, but what on earth did I have? Except of course for out of control diabetes, arthritis and such that meant I now needed a walking frame to walk.

Now the agreement Deb and I came to. My next appointment with Dr Ho was on the 18th of this month – yesterday to be precise. There were 10 days to go to that appointment at the time. I agreed with Deb that I would give her diet a go for those 10 days and “see what happened.”

First of all I went to my “Fay’s brain” program on my computer and did a “To eat” and a “not to eat” list of foods. I found out what wee carbohydrates and what were not. The “were not carbohydrates” were on the To Eat list and the “were carbohydrates” were on the “Not to eat list.

I went on to a strict diet of non-carbohydrate meals. I also cut back my insulin drastically. The amount of insulin I had been taking was 70 units of Long-term Insulin (Lantis) in the morning and 20 units of fast acting Insulin, Novarapid also in the morning. 15 Novarapid in the middle of the day and 25 Lantus and 20 Novarapid before dinner, a total of 150 units of Insulin a day, PLUS a whole array of tablets as well.

I weighed myself and I was 107 k at the beginning of this experiment.

Well, the long and the short of it is, I lost 1.8k in those 10 days.

My appointment was yesterday. with my specialist, Dr Jui Ho. I couldn’t sleep the night before because I had sent off to Dr Ho my sugar level diary and I knew that she would see that I had not been following her instructions. I thought she would be cranky with me.

She was not. But she was concerned that because I had varied the insulin dosages, I was not adequately covering my present sugar levels.  She said that she didn’t mind WHAT diet I went on, but she did want to have a say in how much insulin I took.

I told her that I did not want to take more than 70 units in total a day and hopefully even be able to cut that down as well if my sugar levels decreased.

We agreed together that I should take 20 units of Lantus in the morning and 20 units in the evening, and 3 lots of 10 units of Novarapid in between.

I agreed, and also agreed to send her my diary information once a fortnight and return for an appointment in 6 months time.

The one thing she was concerned about was that my blood pressure was high. I told her that I had recently had my blood pressure checked by my doctor and it had been normal – the only reason it was high today was because I had been anxious about this particular meeting with her!

Today is the day after this appointment and for all of yesterday, my sugar levels were the lowest they have been for years and years:

12.2 before breakfast
12.9 before lunch
11.9 before dinner
8.8 overnight.

And this morning (Thursday 19th)
Before breakfast 11.7

So this is what has been occupying me for a while. The only way that Dr Jui Ho had been able to try keep my sugar levels down previously was to  increase my insulin intake.

This of course does dreadful things to my brain, the amount of urine I pass and a dozen other miserable consequences.

Now I find that my brain is clearer, my eyesight is better, my urine and solids are less and easier to pass, and already it is easier for me to walk. I think that if I lose all my extra weight, maybe I will be able to walk without a walker again. That would be simply wonderful.

So dear friends, that is my story to date.

Why am I telling you this?

Well, if I can “cure” my diabetes by this regime, then you, my friends should know about it, because you may have “out-of-control” type 2 diabetes like I do (hopefully “did”).

On the basis that I now believe I am going to lose all of my unwanted “weight” and “circumference” I bought over the internet a size smaller dress to wear.

It has arrived and I have just tried it on. It’s a bit tight, but it won’t be for long.before it won’t be tight. It is a size 20 and hopefully the next dress I buy will be a size 18 and so on downwards.

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