Living with Diabetes

There is a whole series of articles- This post refers to: Kleinfield, N.R. “ Diabetes and Its Awful Toll Quietly Emerge as a Crisis .” Bad Blood, Part 1 . New York Times . January 9, 2006. Kleinfield, N.R. “ Living at an Epicenter of Diabetes, Defiance and Despair .” Bad Blood, Part 2 . New York Times . January 10, 2006. Urbina, Ian. “ In the Treatment of Diabetes, Success Often Does Not Pay .” Series: Bad Blood, Part 3 . New York Times . January 11, 2006. Santora, Mark. “ East Meets West, Adding Pounds and Peril .” Bad Blood, Part 4 . New York Times . January 12, 2006. Fountain, Henry. “ On Not Wanting to Know What Hurts You .” New York Times . January 15, 2006. Wade, Nicholas. “ Gene Increases Diabetes Risk, Scientists Find .” New York Times . January 16, 2006.

A great article on diabetes and its growth in the NY region. For the first time I thought of the disease as an epidemic. The article is very stark and depressing. Read with caution. It is filled with tales of horro of what happens with diabetics. It would have been nice if they had also conbcentrated on various new treatements etc. But it was a nice article to read and remember that there is a lot still to do to fight his epidemic. Read more at www.nytimes.com/2006/01...

Living in a cold climate makes it important to have some exercise quipment available for indoor activity regularly. I started seeing comments to my blog about people needing some recommendations on treadmills. Yes, I use a treadmill. I have a NordicTrack which does pretty good. I tend to use a preconfigured routine on the machine. It helps me raise my heartrate into the target region. I also have bought a Bowflex, but unfortunately have not had the time or the space to put it up as yet. I am hoping that I will have some space ready to get it up and going. I believe that strength training would make a lot of difference to my weight, sugar control and make me feel more stronger.

I have discussed this earlier. There is some evidence to suggest that it does impact and then there is some that suggests that it does not. Just very interesting. My suspicion is that it will impact in some way. There is probably a Brain reaction to stress that ends up leading to higher sugars. Also depends on how you react to stress. Stress at work mostly leads to inactivity as you spend more time sitting and thinking. Not a good thing when you want to be active and have your muscles consume more sugar out of the bloodstream. Stress at home can cause inactivity and eating of starchy foods, which I do not have to explain to folks that are diabetic. Had an interesting comment from Francois on my previous post on his impact on numbers. Last week it got stressful and I had a 2 hour later sugar on lunch of 200. The food I ate then should have amounted to about 145. That is a huge increase. The highs stayed till the morning when my fasting sugars were 160. Any amount of mental relaxation di...

Not getting enough sleep. Getting no exercise and the food consumption has stayed at the same with some extra sugar getting added from the food from over the end of the year. No wonder, the sugar numbers for fasting are now coming around 140s. This is a big bummer. Hopefully the baby will give some time to start back on the exercise routine. Wonder if it is time to go back on the pill... I do have a blood test coming up next week. Lets see what the results are. I am definitely worried that the A1C and cholesterol numbers would be off the charts.

My sugars are beginning to come more normal. I have started to get some exercise. Have to find time somewhere in the day to do this. I am not getting much sleep, so I am just trying to spend the time standing or rocking the baby so that my muscles can get some exercise. It is boring to just keep watching TV. Atleast in the nights PBS has some interesting stuff on and then there is the Bond series coming on AMC. The sugar numbers are beginning to look normal once more. I am getting around 125 as the fasting sugar in the morning. Also managing to keep the 2 hours after meals number under 150 at most times. It would be interesting to get the A1C reading at the end of the month to see if this control makes a dent in the numbers.