Sunday, January 25, 2004
The good news,
for Adult Onset Type 2 Diabetics, especially those who developed it for age related reasons rather than lifestyle reasons: Even a tiny little bit of movement helps keep one's blood sugar in optimum balance. My mother is an excellent example of this, especially lately, since movement, for her, has come in fits and starts and I've had to be extra meticulous about monitoring her diabetic medication.
Some days, for instance, if the pain is bad and she is particularly stiff or she's had a dramatic acupuncture treatment she may only eat two meals and may only receive the absolute minimum amount of liquids to keep her optimally hydrated, about two quarts. On these days she usually spends 16 out of 24 hours sleeping, not necessarily all at once. Typically I can get in a glipizide meal twice on those days. But yesterday for instance, her last meal was a non-glipizide meal (too soon since her last meal and she hadn't 'fasted' long enough for the medication to be effective), high, though on metformin in order to take advantage of the extended release effect of the glipizide. I already knew when she had 'lunch' at 1900, which was a hearty helping of some of her sour favorites: Sauerkraut and polish sausage cooked together; tart, fast-pickled beets with cinnamon; a dish of day old popcorn; 12 oz. of picante V-8 juice; that even if she remained up until midnight and thus qualified for more ibuprofen I very likely would not be able to get her to eat and would have to send her to bed without. That was fine with her and her earlier trashing tissue walk underscored as much.
Last night was good proof that a little goes a long way relating movement and blood glucose levels. Yesterday, although her sleep was prodigious, when she was up so was her incidental movement. She went to the bathroom a lot (thus I tried to feed her foods high in sodium as well as pumping her with liquids), wandered about looking for magazines to read (amazing that she remembered she might want to read; she's been forgetting this lately), cats to pet, etc. Her blood glucose readings were very nicely controlled, for her, despite the amount of sleep she stashed under her belt. We were both surprised. Yes, I feed her technical information about her blood sugar, we talk about it and during her clearer passages she remembers and uses the information to figure things out. It is not uncommon for her to ask me to remind her what her medications are and what they do as she's taking them. Some of the excellent control is due, of course, to her limited food intake dictated by eating only two meals. Some of it is that we've been very successful at keeping her blood sugar under control lately even though it's often meant giving her the limit of her prescribed medicines more often than I like. I'm sure, too, that she's somewhat anemic, considering the ibuprofen and the increased dosages of metformin. She looks good, though. When she begins to blanch around the edges I give her an iron pill. Her energy level is certainly higher when she's awake than it was when she was battling anemia all the time.
I believe she may be stirring.
Later.
Some days, for instance, if the pain is bad and she is particularly stiff or she's had a dramatic acupuncture treatment she may only eat two meals and may only receive the absolute minimum amount of liquids to keep her optimally hydrated, about two quarts. On these days she usually spends 16 out of 24 hours sleeping, not necessarily all at once. Typically I can get in a glipizide meal twice on those days. But yesterday for instance, her last meal was a non-glipizide meal (too soon since her last meal and she hadn't 'fasted' long enough for the medication to be effective), high, though on metformin in order to take advantage of the extended release effect of the glipizide. I already knew when she had 'lunch' at 1900, which was a hearty helping of some of her sour favorites: Sauerkraut and polish sausage cooked together; tart, fast-pickled beets with cinnamon; a dish of day old popcorn; 12 oz. of picante V-8 juice; that even if she remained up until midnight and thus qualified for more ibuprofen I very likely would not be able to get her to eat and would have to send her to bed without. That was fine with her and her earlier trashing tissue walk underscored as much.
Last night was good proof that a little goes a long way relating movement and blood glucose levels. Yesterday, although her sleep was prodigious, when she was up so was her incidental movement. She went to the bathroom a lot (thus I tried to feed her foods high in sodium as well as pumping her with liquids), wandered about looking for magazines to read (amazing that she remembered she might want to read; she's been forgetting this lately), cats to pet, etc. Her blood glucose readings were very nicely controlled, for her, despite the amount of sleep she stashed under her belt. We were both surprised. Yes, I feed her technical information about her blood sugar, we talk about it and during her clearer passages she remembers and uses the information to figure things out. It is not uncommon for her to ask me to remind her what her medications are and what they do as she's taking them. Some of the excellent control is due, of course, to her limited food intake dictated by eating only two meals. Some of it is that we've been very successful at keeping her blood sugar under control lately even though it's often meant giving her the limit of her prescribed medicines more often than I like. I'm sure, too, that she's somewhat anemic, considering the ibuprofen and the increased dosages of metformin. She looks good, though. When she begins to blanch around the edges I give her an iron pill. Her energy level is certainly higher when she's awake than it was when she was battling anemia all the time.
I believe she may be stirring.
Later.
