Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." Genesis 9:13

Sunday, January 01, 2012

Dr. Google says....

I decided I wanted to know something about my blood sugars before I'm going to hear from Dr. Body, which is Tuesday at the earliest.  Mostly I wanted to know if he was going to be doing testing involving glucola because I wanted to line up arguments against that as I am not good with drinking bad tasting things without gagging and/or vomiting and I want nothing to lower my lithium level which could result in having to go through all the adjustment symptoms for longer than I already am.  I really don't know what he will do but the 2 results I have are enough to diagnose impaired glucose tolerance, aka pre-diabetes.  The high not-fasting level I had 3 years ago is another sign of this.  This means time for a diabetic diet, exercise, and monitoring as I'm pretty certain to develop diabetes in the next few years.  The good thing is that my sugars normalized rapidly with weight loss the last time and there isn't a reason to be too concerned now.  Because I am high risk and on high risk meds more testing may be indicated and I may be pre-emptively treated with metformin as Jean Grey is.  However there won't be a need to rush into that which is good since one medication upsetting my digestive tract is plenty.  Metformin, as I think about it, is probably not an option for me because of the likeliehood of diarrhea which could screw up my lithium levels.  My lithium levels have the potential to drive me batty but at the moment having good levels I can tolerate is key.

So it's not going to be all bad.  It's also probably not the best thing that ever happened to me, although I'd rather know and monitor than not know and be surprised with full-blown diabetes.

Oh, and Michal asked about type II diabetes being mostly lifestyle. I don't think you can pin any illness to 100% lifestyle.  As a healthcare professional that sets my nerves on edge as I don't think you can ever be so certain that you are blaming someone for causing their own disease when that guilt is not likely to help someone manage the illness.  The other issue with saying it is 100% lifestyle is that sometimes people without risk factors get it.  I see that sometimes; I'm thinking of one woman who walked down and up the mountain side that is her driveway every day for 35 years, was underweight if anything, and was in her 90s.  No clue how long she had been diabetic but I seriously doubt it was her "lifestyle".  I mostly know that my family has a nasty habit of dying from diabetic complications and that my doctors watch me closely.  Here's what WebMD says:
Anyone can get type 2 diabetes. However, those at highest risk for the disease are those who are obese or overweight, women who have had gestational diabetes, people with family members who have type 2 diabetes and people who have metabolic syndrome (a cluster of problems that include high cholesterol, high triglycerides, low good 'HDL' cholesterol and a high bad 'LDL' cholesterol, and high blood pressure). In addition, older people are more susceptible to developing the disease since aging makes the body less tolerant of sugars.
In addition, people who smoke, have inactive lifestyles, or have certain dietary patterns have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 
In addition it is known that there is a connection between atypical antipsychotics (the typically used kind now; whoever named them atypical was not thinking of the future) and diabetes.  Some of this is weight gain.   Some isn't.  So they monitor anyone on an atypical carefully.  (This is another reason lifestyle doesn't work.  I mean, sure taking that med is sort of a choice, but mostly it isn't.  This is why I know that this 2 time result is abnormal for me; I typically am in the low 80s.  I don't gain much if anything on Seroquel/with adjustments to it.  My medication weight is from lithium and from meds I don't take anymore, mostly Depakote.  Seroquel actually helped me to lose weight the last time because it let me come off Depakote and kept me mentally healthy enough to manage the diet.  It appears the diet is now not optional.  That will inevitably be hard at times because managing a diet and mood swings both may not be simple.

Hopefully things improve with weight loss and I don't ever have to think about diabetes again.  Not likely but I'll dream.

1 comment:

WinnyNinny PooPoo said...

Couldn't agree with your more about "Lifestyle" as a cause. For some people maybe it is, have known a few drinker/diabetics that had difficulty with lifestyle and diabetes. Great post!

Took depakote years ago, gained 60+ pounds w/it, my niece gained weight also. Never could get rid of it until this year when I was sick. My niece took it for bipolar disorder, I took it because of migraines & myoclonus. Helped the migraines, didn't do anything for the myoclonus.

I am diabetic, type II, but it runs in both my parent's families - hits us at about the 30-40 range, no matter what our weight or fitness levels. I am less diabetic than I was after losing 50 lbs.

I take metformin - doesn't bother my screwed up digestive track, but my BIL couldn't tolerate it, he is doing Januvia. Good luck with the testing!