Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Tonight I've decided to discuss...
...July 13th's dinner stats here.
At lunch I gave her glipizide instead of metformin to see how it would affect her blood glucose. As a precaution I measured her blood glucose level a few hours after lunch. I was concerned that she might run low and I'd need to feed her. If you've been following the meal stats (and, I'm pretty sure you haven't been, regardless of who you are, because almost no one visits there), you know that between lunch and dinner her blood glucose measured 140. I came to the hasty conclusion that the conventional research, stating that anything over 20 mg glipizide per day seems to have no effect, was reliable. I expected her blood glucose to be even higher at dinner. Instead, it came in at 90, a nice, normal range number.
Three years ago when we were finding it difficult to control her blood glucose with prescribed medications and I was struggling with her to eat healthier and exercise a little, during the periods when we seemed to be having some success I devised a habit, on my own, of testing her blood glucose several times a day. This practice caused me a great deal of anxiety. On the days when it seemed as though there was every reason for her blood glucose to be normal all day long it was only normal when I took her readings before the meals she ate. Between meals it would regularly soar, sometimes as high as the 160s. At our next visit I reported this to her PCP (the same one she retains, now). Although he didn't explain the zig-zagging to me specifically he told me not to worry to stop taking her blood glucose all the time and that, if at the next blood draw her Hemoglobin A1c came in normal everything was fine. It did. Thus, I realized that the etiology of type 2 diabetes, at least in my mother's case, is that, at this time in non-alternative medical practice, it is almost impossible to bring her type 2 diabetic blood glucose under control to where it tests at or close to normal no matter when a sample is taken. When I saw the normal reading this evening I realized that her blood glucose is probably now performing exactly in this manner and has probably been doing this the entire time that we've had it under excellent control. I am thinking, now, that the glipizide at lunch did work as I was hoping it would. I might be able to control her blood glucose, now that she is eating healthily and I am occasionally able to either excite her or badger her into movement, with glipizide alone. I'm still planning on supplementing her treatment for type 2 diabetic blood glucose instability with aloe vera gel. I'm hoping the addition of this will normalize her blood glucose through most of the day instead of allowing wildly out of normal range peaks between meals (and probably at night when she sleeps). At any rate, as long as her Hemoglobin A1c (which will be tested on July 23rd) remains normal and her kidneys continue to function normally, as they have throughout these last four years (except for the times when she is severely anemic, and then, actually, her kidneys are functioning normally as they reflect her severely anemic state), I'm not going to worry too much about the peaks, although I will worry, a bit, about possible valleys and will probably, throughout the next few weeks, take a few extra readings here and there to see if she's dropping too low in order to adjust medications and supplements and bring her back up with food, if necessary.
I have a few more aspects I want to mention, but I think I'll wait until morning. We have some business to which we need to attend and I need to regress Mom's awake time to 0900, so I'll be setting my alarm for an early rising and need to get to bed, now.
Later.
At lunch I gave her glipizide instead of metformin to see how it would affect her blood glucose. As a precaution I measured her blood glucose level a few hours after lunch. I was concerned that she might run low and I'd need to feed her. If you've been following the meal stats (and, I'm pretty sure you haven't been, regardless of who you are, because almost no one visits there), you know that between lunch and dinner her blood glucose measured 140. I came to the hasty conclusion that the conventional research, stating that anything over 20 mg glipizide per day seems to have no effect, was reliable. I expected her blood glucose to be even higher at dinner. Instead, it came in at 90, a nice, normal range number.
Three years ago when we were finding it difficult to control her blood glucose with prescribed medications and I was struggling with her to eat healthier and exercise a little, during the periods when we seemed to be having some success I devised a habit, on my own, of testing her blood glucose several times a day. This practice caused me a great deal of anxiety. On the days when it seemed as though there was every reason for her blood glucose to be normal all day long it was only normal when I took her readings before the meals she ate. Between meals it would regularly soar, sometimes as high as the 160s. At our next visit I reported this to her PCP (the same one she retains, now). Although he didn't explain the zig-zagging to me specifically he told me not to worry to stop taking her blood glucose all the time and that, if at the next blood draw her Hemoglobin A1c came in normal everything was fine. It did. Thus, I realized that the etiology of type 2 diabetes, at least in my mother's case, is that, at this time in non-alternative medical practice, it is almost impossible to bring her type 2 diabetic blood glucose under control to where it tests at or close to normal no matter when a sample is taken. When I saw the normal reading this evening I realized that her blood glucose is probably now performing exactly in this manner and has probably been doing this the entire time that we've had it under excellent control. I am thinking, now, that the glipizide at lunch did work as I was hoping it would. I might be able to control her blood glucose, now that she is eating healthily and I am occasionally able to either excite her or badger her into movement, with glipizide alone. I'm still planning on supplementing her treatment for type 2 diabetic blood glucose instability with aloe vera gel. I'm hoping the addition of this will normalize her blood glucose through most of the day instead of allowing wildly out of normal range peaks between meals (and probably at night when she sleeps). At any rate, as long as her Hemoglobin A1c (which will be tested on July 23rd) remains normal and her kidneys continue to function normally, as they have throughout these last four years (except for the times when she is severely anemic, and then, actually, her kidneys are functioning normally as they reflect her severely anemic state), I'm not going to worry too much about the peaks, although I will worry, a bit, about possible valleys and will probably, throughout the next few weeks, take a few extra readings here and there to see if she's dropping too low in order to adjust medications and supplements and bring her back up with food, if necessary.
I have a few more aspects I want to mention, but I think I'll wait until morning. We have some business to which we need to attend and I need to regress Mom's awake time to 0900, so I'll be setting my alarm for an early rising and need to get to bed, now.
Later.
