Living with Diabetes

For the last two months I have been running a test on fenugreek seeds. Back in India, one of the traditional remedies has been to eat fenugreek seeds. In the local language, Hindi, they are known as Methi Seeds. What do I do? Every night I take a spoonful of the seeds and soak it in water. Every morning first thing after I wake up and check my fasting sugars, I eat these soaked seeds. They can be bitter but over time you adjust to them. I just drink all the water and chew up the soaked seeds. Sometimes I need more water to push them down. Results I feel like my post breakfast sugars are down from where I used to be. My feeling is a drop of about 10-20 point. Hypothesis I suspect that the fenugreek seeds probably have some vitamins or minerals that help, but a lot of the help is from the fact that they are so high in fiber. Eating lots of natural fiber in the morning helps the gut get used to consuming sugars slowly. Also I end up drinking atleast a big glass of water. I have hear that ...

Like everything else in life, one has to setup boundaries around his/her diabetes. Self management of the disease is a very individualistic endeavor. You have to be on top of things and the only way to know if you are succeeding is to constantly check and record. Here are some of the boundaries I have defined for myself - 1) A1C to be under 6.5 2) Morning sugars under 120 3) Sugars 2 hours after meals under 160 4) Exercise atleast 30 minutes a day. I do the following measurements to keep these goals in check- 1) Get A1C checked once every 3 months. 2) Check sugars 4 times a day. Once after waking up and 2 hours after breakfast, lunch and dinner. 3) Try to exercise. The boundaries are set, and I am currently not living within them most of the time. Setting the boundary will help me get back in there. I hope that in a couple of months I have met these goals and then I can tighten the boundary a little more.

Got checked for my vital Diabetes numbers last week, my A1C has come down to 6.4 from 7.2 The doctor and I are both happy with the progress. I am beginning to get more exercise and am looking forward to garden work now that summer is finally here. Next target is to bring the A1C numbers down to under 6.0.

I came across a statement from the American Association of Diabetes Educators about their support for the Diabetes Screening and Medicaid savings act. You can read it here at - Support Statement I have talked about this act in a previous post - My Previous comments on the diabetes screening and Medicaid savings act My feeling on this act have not changed. I see that the bill has been recommended to the finance committee, but not sure what that means. Hope that they are now discussing how to fund this. I do sincerely hope that one of the major prevention items they add is getting people on a better health track. Healthy living is something that needs to be a key stone of any type 2 disease treatment. My personal opinion is that medicine and society need ways to motivate people to eat healthy and exercise. The thing is that the same formula does not work on each person. You have to change the message and its delivery based on the person. The current education is so cookie cutter that it ...

Last week there was a flurry of activity in the financial media about how much money diabetes is going to make in the coming years - Diabetes Drug Market So I start thinking, this is a lot of money. No wonder there are quite a few players in the market, but I still do not see much relief for the average customer. For me the largest expense of the disease is the test strips. I have a good insurance, but if not, I doubt that I might be able to afford testing 4 times a day. It drives me crazy as to how much money these things cost. Interestingly the cost is the same on the strips all over the world. So it is not that the folks in the US are getting bilked, folks all over the world are. I wish someone would start a non-profit that makes test meters and strips and sells it at cost. That would be something. Bring the cost of the strips from almost a dollar a strip to few cents. But I am also looking more into which companies to invest some money into so that I can get back some money from al...