You learn something new in dealing with Diabetes every day.

Part 1

Here are a few things I have learnt while I have been away from this blog:

• Exercise is good for a Diabetic or anyone really we could spend so much time doing close to nothing physical every day. 

• Exercising is not always easy for a Diabetic , a Non Diabetic can just decide I am going to exercise , get into exercise gear and go work out. Us as Diabetics need to calculate, plan, calculate again and still sometimes we do not get it right.Here are some scenarios : Decide it is time to do a workout , get dressed into top selling workout gear , find any other equipment you might need (this all seems very regular) time now to test your blood sugar before the workout that you are now fully prepared to take. Here then can come your first curve ball Scenario # 1 too high over 13.9 /250 and they recommend NOT to exercise due to the possibility you might have ketones and then are at risk of Ketoacidosis. Workout on hold. Scenario # 2 Under 5.6/100 and they recommend you need to now go and eat a fast acting 15g carb snack (But I am trying to loose weight here ???) Another step to take before you can start that workout. That is just a few immediate hiccups.

• I love a good formula but be careful this is just a guideline, no two Diabetics are the same so  the formula does not always apply and a lot of tweaking needs to be done to get YOUR formula. These are 2 exercised related formulas I love and am now in the process of tweaking.    

The first one is perhaps your better option it is always better to reduce the insulin rather than to feed the insulin. I have this printed out and stuck to the the cover of my iPad along with my carb ratio for the different meals of the day.

• I have also found that it helps a lot to log your readings and other Diabetes related information, but to find a good App is next to impossible that was of course until recently. In the US they have just bought out a product called One Drop this is a subscription service for a meter and unlimited test strips. How does this help me in South Africa? They have also bought out an App that is so amazingly cute and functional all in one. There was some issues with Android (I believe the dev. team is working on it.)but I loved it so much that I now carry my iPad around for logging stuff . So do yourself a favor and load the One Drop App this valentines day you can set your goals and it even has some nice hearts that show your progress. I have a bit of a fear of failure issue but as my dear husband pointed out to me this app can easily be a case of "Bull S**t In Bull S**t out" so in other words log every reading good or bad this can help in so many ways - You see a trend of highs and you start analyzing am I stressed , could I be getting sick, am I eating badly. Someone said recently that there are studies that show people that log their readings even if they aren't really doing anything with the info they subconsciously start making some form of change to achieve better readings.  

       

  There is tons more I have learnt recently so I will make this a 2 part post so don't forget to stay linked.

In closing it will soon be Valentines day and I want to share a link to a Diabetes Daily article called 5 great Valentines Day Gifts for people with Diabetes. I really like the 4th idea. This costs no money but would be a great and supporting way of showing your love for your PWD.

5 Great Valentines Day Gifts for people with Diabetes.

Have a Love filled February.

Kim

My One Direction onesie and other more serious stuff.

I must confess,I brought myself a One Direction onesie , not because I am a crazy 1 Direction fan or that I even know one of the band members names but because Edgars must of been misguided and thought that many adults had to have one! So these warm and cozy onesies whereon sale at half price. My husband says I look like a big red tomato in it. I prefer to say I look like a bottle of tomato sauce sounds a bit thinner.
So now this warm bottle of tomato sauce is going to cuddle up on the couch in this freezing winter weather and read this book in order to try and redeem myself.

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How I told my children about Diabetes.

I recently read this blog centering around how to tell your children that you have Diabetes.
http://insulinnation.com/living/daddy-whats-a-pump/?utm_src=HseEmail+00073

This got me thinking- How did I tell my kids about my Diabetes or did I?

I didn't have a sit down talk with them. It just happens during the everyday happenings of life,
I had to tell them not to play with the insulin pens but every parent should tell their kids not to take ,use or play with any form of medicine besides if they forget Mum's instructions and they think Mum bought a cool new highlighter, on taking the lid off they will see a sharp silver needle and quickly leave that pen alone.

Words children in a Diabetic family know and use that other kids don't:

Novapen
Test Kit
High (My youngest son has a hearty appetite and he has even tried saying if you eat all that you will go high in hopes that he will score the leftovers.)
Low
I need something to eat (They know that this does not just mean that I am hungry.)

Unlike this previous blogger I also never told my kids that the blood testing doesn't hurt. I remember my first finger prick and it was sore. (Granted the nurse did not have a softclix devise in those days. She just wielded this lancet from a dizzying height like she was trying to draw blood from a bull.)

I knew that one day I would want to check my son's blood sugar and I didn't want to come across as a liar in their eyes. I did tell them that sometimes it does hurt a little but I have done it so often now I don't even notice it.

All that said before school going age 6/7 they should know that if you look after your Diabetes and take all your medicine you can have a normal life and live as long a life as anyone else because at school it is very easy to be given incomplete information from other children. Like "My Gran died from Diabetes."

However you do it children learn best from observation.
If Mum is always injecting that medicine in a pen then that is important  special stuff for Mum.
If Mum has sweets in her test kit bag those are only for Mum.
Mum is more or less like any other Mum.

" My Mum takes us to school,goes to work *,comes to my school concert , comes to my soccer match,walks the park run with us and oh she is also a Diabetic and has to take insulint.(Not a spelling mistake this is how they used to say it.) and she bit my Dad once when her blood sugar was too low."
I don't think that is all that different from a non-Diabetic Mum's activities.

* I work as a bookkeeper and my Son thought I was something like a Librarian for years until he came with me to my work one day and saw no books what a let down.

I love my children dearly and they are a miracle. If I had been born even as soon as when my parents where born. I probably would have been told not to risk having babies and thank God I wasn't.
Would have really loved to be at a Beetles concert though.

Cheers for now.
Stay Linked

Kim

To Tattoo or not to Tattoo?

It is everywhere on Pinterest ,on all Diabetes Blogs and websites.

Not breaking news about a Diabetic cure or any medical advise.

We are all talking about Diabetic Tattoos.

Before you even look at ideas and rush to your nearest Tattoo parlor ,you have to consider these points:

• You are going to be basically wounding yourself, as we take longer to heal you must have and keep your blood sugars at their best in order to heal nicely.
• Your choice in Tattoo artists should not be " I saw this guy with an awesome tatt and I asked him who inked him." It should be a thorough investigation of the sanitary conditions and the utmost cleanliness of the place.(A Diabetic and an infected tattoo, I think not.)
• Make sure your HBA1C is excellent before we begin.
• Check with your Dr first , remember they can be quite fuddy duddy at times so make sure that they have valid medical reasons for their no answer. (Hmm I once had a GP with his wedding band tattooed to his finger , should find him again and get his tattoo artists details.) 
• Follow the after care instructions given to you by the tattoo artist exactly.
• Also need one who can spell D-I-A-B-E-T-I-C.

After you have checked all these pointers and more and you are absolutely certain you want this to happen, you can start looking at design ideas. I was thinking what would happen if by any remote chance in my lifetime we had a cure , what do all these people do? Go back and add Was a to the tattoo or  have a line but through it, or add Cured to it. There are so many ideas that I am sure these creative people will come up with something.

These are some of my ideas for my tattoo on my wrist. (Please comment and let me know what one you would choose.) I don't want it too elaborate or hard to understand cause I intend it to be used if there is ever an emergency.

 

Maybe change type one for Diabetic or add Diabetic under the syringe.

 The Humming bird is the UK Diabetes Symbol - Need to include the Diabetic somewhere.

Then I go side tracked :(

Now I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to needles (Ha Ha) not joking. So I thought that since my sister is an Asthmatic and also wears no medical bracelet I would convince her to come with me and get an Asthmatic one done. These are obviously not so popular, none of the millions of pictures like those for diabetics. This is what I found on Pinterest, the lung one is awesome but might take a good couple of sessions and more than a wrist.

Another one was the same as the pump one above but said "It ain't easy being wheezy" Really.You have to live with that statement on your arm forever. Of course to be of use to medical personal you need to add Asthmatic somewhere on these.

It is so hard to decide!

I still want it done but it is not just a get drunk one night and walk into the 24 hour parlor by the Casino.

Bye for now.

Kim

PS - Don't you just hate keeping surprises, I love receiving them but keeping one is really hard. More about this next time I type.

  

Cortisone the drug with the side effect I want to kick in the ass.(Final version)

This weekend I have been having a terrible cough that only seems to be getting worse.

I know the side effects of taking Cortisone being a Diabetic and sometimes I have been prescribed these but never used them so I had some Cortisone tablets on hand this weekend. Some other Dr told me I had to be dying before he gave me Cortisone so that kind of stuck with me.

I could not sleep, I could not eat or basically do anything with out coughing.

On Sunday morning my Husband now playing the part of Dr. P said I should take the dreaded Cortisone. I think he was trying to shut me up, but when I asked very sweetly what about my blood sugars he said we would just have to monitor them better.

I looked at the label on the tablets and it said 2 tablets 3 times a day.  Very well that seems a bit high but it was prescribed to me with full knowledge of my Diabetes.

I took two with breakfast ,two with lunch and two with dinner:

These where my readings and I was still coughing but maybe not as bad:
7.2 mmol/l (130 mg/dl)before breakfast
7.2 mmol/l (130 mg/dl) before lunch
3.9 mmol/l (70 mg/dl) before supper

My reaction when I went to bed was (Oh these are not too bad for me)

This Morning before breakfast my reading was 15.1 mmol/l (272 mg/dl) what the hell you got to be joking (I was still coughing, not as bad I have to admit.)
I took 20 units of short acting insulin with my Breakfast.
At 10:25am this had only brought my blood sugar down to 8.2 mmol/l (148 mg/dl)
Update - 9.7 mmol/l (175 mg/dl) Before Lunch - Injected 15 units short acting for something I would have normally injected 11 units.
Update - Before I left work - 5.4 mmol/l (97 mg/dl) Looking better still coughing though.
 

This side effect is not widely shown on the internet but after many clicks I did find this:
 " If you have diabetes prior to starting on oral corticosteroids, you need to be aware that your blood glucose levels may rise whilst you are taking steroids. This is more likely to be the case if you are taking steroids orally."

How do I know about the side effects of Cortisone , you may ask.

 When I was pregnant with my first born child, my Obstetrician told me he was going to climb Kilimanjaro a week before I was scheduled to go into hospital and have my C Section, He said don't worry you will be fine and I do have a locum on duty, I believed him so I smiled and waved him goodbye.

I think it must have been the day he flew out of Johannesburg, I swell up like a balloon, My husband and parents in law took me for dinner at Er Buco restaurant very yummy food in Linksfield Johannesburg.  Despite the wonderful comforting Italian food my ankles, wrists, nearly everything swelled up.

We left the restaurant while I was still salivating over the Tiramisu in the display cabinet and went to the hospital.

They plugged me on to machines and we waited for the doctor who seemed to take forever to arrive.(Bloody Locum.) to cut a long story short this Doctor breezed in and I do not recall him even looking at my file, he told the nurses to give me Cortisone for the babies lungs as a precautionary method and then I could go home.

The next morning when I tested my blood sugar it was something like 25. I found out later that this was due to the Cortisone and I probably did not need to have had it.

 I went in for a C-Section with this Locum Doctor.

Out of the 6 Mothers and myself that had a C-section while our Doctor was climbing Kilimanjaro probably only 1% of us where a really emergency that could not have wait to the next week,
when our chosen fantastic Dr who was fully aware of all our other problems was back in Johannesburg.

So that is how I got to know about the effects of Cortisone on a Diabetic.

I have stopped taking the Cortisone and the question is how long will it take to get my blood sugar under control again and how long will it take to get rid of the cough?

Time will tell, I will update this post with the readings and symptoms regularly until I am all fixed.

Bye for now,

Kim

 My conclusion- 
1. If you are a Diabetic go to the Doctor when you get sick , even if your medical savings have finished and you think you are a super hero, you are still after all a Diabetic that puts you into a higher risk group.
2. Do not take oral cortisone , firstly you will not take it for the full 5 days they recommend as you will see the high blood sugars and eliminate what is causing them. (That is what we are trained to do.)
Secondly having Diabetes and an infection and taking medication that ups your blood sugar is not recommended. If there is no other alternative ask to be hospitalized so you have medical help.
3. If your doctor wants to give you oral Cortisone question it , maybe they can give you inhaled cortisone for your lungs that does not effect the blood sugar.  

Keep well and have a great weekend I have an active weekend with a not so healthy kids party to enjoy. My youngest son is turning 8.