Here it is December 20th, just before Christmas and two weeks into my journaling project. Although the volume of my daily entries has gone down significantly, I am still doing it. I’m sticking to major events and just capturing the highlights. It’s not exactly what I set out to do, but I’m pleased that I am still doing it at all since I grossly underestimated the time  and effort it takes to be so detailed.

The big news for this week is that I had another visit with the doctor. He mentioned once before in passing that it might be a good idea to try a basal insulin routine as a way to help bring the blood sugar down overnight. It’s also mentioned on the Bloodsugar 101 site that insulin shouldn’t be viewed as a last resort or the “we lost the fight” option, but it is the body’s natural way to utilize glucose and should be used to help relieve the body rather than medications with severe side-effects (especially fatal ones).

So, I led the appointment with the idea of trying insulin since my a1c results were back up and since the last time he increased my medication dosage, it seemed like I was always on verge of going hypo every afternoon unless I ate extra carbs which was not the right thing to do. In fact, I wasn’t going hypo, but the wild fluctuations in my blood  glucose levels left me feeling that way. He agreed to the idea and put me on 10 units of basal insulin at bedtime as well as drastically reduce the medication which stimulates the production of insulin.

It’s been 4 days and my fasting sugars are down and seem to be more stable throughout the day. They are still high and I believe he’ll have to increase the dosage, but I do feel much better. I’ve even renewed my commitment to the low-carb lifestyle.

Since my new job means I have a commute that is over an hour, I’ve been going to the gym at the office in order to allow traffic to ease up so I can spend as little time in the car. This has worked okay, but I’m working from home this week and will be working from home more often as I come up to speed in my duties. As a result, I’ve signed up a membership with LA Fitness. There is one both near where I live and one just down the street from the office so I’ll have one membership and two locations available to me. It should help to have some consistency in routine and available equipment.

I came across this article yesterday which was really satisfying to read since there is so much power behind the false message of low-fat diets. Dr. Atkins discovered the principles in the article and first wrote about them in the 1970s. I’m becoming more and more convinced that the world’s obesity problems can directly be attributed to high-carb, low-fat diets and especially to high-fructose corn syrup (now renamed corn sugar). My favorite quote from the article is:

Carbohydrates are a metabolic bully,” Phinney says. “They cut in front of fat as a fuel source and insist on being burned first. What isn’t burned gets stored as fat, and doesn’t come out of storage as long as carbs are available. And in the average American diet, they always are.”

Particularly if you have a history of diabetes in your family, as I do, you need to read the article and listen to its message. I had many opportunities to listen  and I wish now I had done more about it. I read Dr. Atkins book and had lost over 50 lbs on the diet several years before I gave up the low-carb lifestyle and ended up with Diabetes.

I’ve known that I had type 2 diabetes for 2.5 years now. I’ve gone from taking 2 medications (Metformin and an ACE inhibitor) to taking 6 different medications  for sugar control, insulin resistance, cholesterol, and blood pressure. Every time the doctor wants to add a new medication to the mix, it’s always the latest and greatest patented brand name-only drug that isn’t covered by my prescription plan. Odd coincidence, huh?

The doctors will send you to the Diabetes education class where you receive very generic and watered down  information. I think I knew more about the causes and treatment of Erectile Dysfunction from watching commercials on TV than I did about Diabetes when I finished the class. The class I went to at the hospital was sponsored by manufacturers of diabetic food products. Guess what their advice was? Yeah, eat expensive special foods for diabetics.

In 2007, I started with a fasting blood sugar of over 330mg/dl when diagnosed then experienced a brief drop to 169mg/dl (7.5% A1c) for a short period. However, for the past year I’ve been extremely frustrated with daily fasting readingss of 220-230mg/dl and my A1c shot back up to 8.8% for my last test in December. All of this despite my efforts to follow a “diabetic diet” and exercise. It’s hard to stay motivated when all of your efforts show absolutely no results!

I came across this website, bloodsugar101.com, a few weeks ago via the discussion forums at Sugarstats (the tool I use to track my blood sugar, doctor visits, etc). As I was reading the site, it was like I was learning about my disease for the first time. Why wasn’t it explained this way in the diabetes education class? Why have I spent the last 2 years feeling like I did this to myself, despite knowing there’s a family history (obesity is a symptom, not a cause)?

I’m happy to report that after following some of the advice on the site and making just a few minor tweaks to my diet, exercise, and medication regimen that  my fasting blood sugar has dropped over 50 mg/dl in just a few weeks. I have not finished absorbing all of the information available on the site or implementing all of the suggestionss, but for the first time in a long while I’m optimistic that I can get control instead of being controlled by it. Yes, I’m motivated again!

I know I have a long way to go. I have get my blood sugar down further and keep it from from spiking over 140 mg/dl at any time in order to avoid doing more damage. I have to break the insulin resistance cycle that is causing my beta cells to work so hard. In other words, I’m shooting for the 5% club.

If you know anyone that is concerned about their blood sugar then tell them about this. If they are diabetic, pre-diabetic, or just have a family history, tell them to read bloodsugar101.com or buy the book.