Friday, June 20, 2008

Happy Blood Draw Results

A1c is 6.3. My previous one was 7.0, and the ones I've had before are 7.0, 6.4, 6.3, 6.3, 6.5, 14, 16, going backwards and in order. I was hoping for lower than 6.3, but 6.3 is still OK with me and much better than 7.0. Maybe my next one will be lower, but maybe not. If it stays there even, that's not so bad.
The celiac antibodies were all in the normal range. WTF? I didn't realize that they could do that after being abnormal last time. But I'm still happy about that.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Endo Visit

My weight appears to have stabilized, good.
No neuropathy showed up when my endo checked, though he says that that doesn't absolutely rule it out.
Two tubes of blood were taken by the time my blood stopped flowing, which was perfect because that's how many were needed. The A1c will be in tommorow and the celiac antibody results will be back on Tuesday.
My endo was impressed by the Guardian and agrees that I should ask insurance to cover my sensors, says he will support me in that effort.
The endo says that allergy shots could be taken in my back if I want to avoid scarring areas that I inject with insulin. That sounds a little scary but I will ask about that.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Sensor 2



Jonah's SG Statistics
data date SG average Above range In range Below range Standard Deviation # of readings low high
Sensor 2: 108 10% 77% 13% 34.1 289840 252
June 8: 122 4% 96% 0% 19.1 143 80 164
June 9: 100 9% 73% 18% 27.7 288 50 166
June 10: 67 0% 14% 86% 11.5 37 56 98
June 11: 93 0% 80% 20% 25.7 287 40 146
June 12: 101 6% 85% 9% 27.8 288 42 194
June 13: 115 14%74% 12% 30.1 257 44 168
June 14: 148 38%62% 0% 44.7 288 72 252
June 15: 113 0% 100% 0% 21.5 288 72 158
June 16: 122 24% 73% 3% 36.1 285 66 214
June 17: 103 10% 80% 9% 26.0 285 64 170
June 18: 84 0% 74% 26% 20.6 288 58 144
June 19: 86 0% 66% 34% 21.7 164 52 134


On June 13, I removed the transmitter, recharged it, reattached it, hit new sensor. After two hours, I did a calibration and at that time my blood sugar was 46. Unfortunately, doing the first calibration with a hypo is a bad idea; the numbers from then until 1 AM on June 14 are inaccurate. On June 14 at 1 AM, Glukey said 128 and my blood sugar was 258. I calibrated. By the time I woke up in the morning six hours later and tested my blood sugar, Glukey was only 11% off, and in the afternoon when I checked, it was a mere 3% off. However, the last few hours of June 13th and the first hour of the 14th are highly inaccurate. Don't do the first calibration of a sensor while hypo.

The range I used during this sensor was a bottom limit of 70 all day, with an upper limit of 140 until 600 hours, then an upper limit of 160 until noon, and then an upper limit of 150 for the rest of the day.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Glukey

The battery cover on Glukey wouldn't unscrew, and I was chipping it with trying with the coins. The rep said not to use a screwdriver. I called the helpline, they said to use a screwdriver because they could replace the battery cap if needed, for free, but would rather not have to replace the whole thing, which is what they'd need to do if if the battery wouldn't come out. The screwdriver was like magic.
I inserted a sensor around 10:00 this morning. It is working fine. During the warm up I got crazy ISIGs like 160 and 0.00, but now it's at 17.72, and my blood sugar is about 170 (I just checked). I put it low on my right arm and it hurts a lot. Last time, it hurt pretty intensely for the first two days but not much after that. Right now if I move my arm wrong it sends a shooting pain through me. Yowch. I put IV-3000 down with a hole in it for the sensor beneath the whole sensor-transmitter contraption, and then band-aided the transmitter down.

Friday, June 06, 2008

Locker Renewal

I went to renew my locker and I was signing the contract and noticed that it says that the locker is subject to searches for drugs and other contraband. I was like, I keep medical supplies there, how often do they search. She was like, I don't think they actually search them regularly, do you have diabetes? I was like, how'd you guess- oh wait, was it my powered by insulin hat? She said no, my mother has diabetes.
I said what type. She said Type 1. I said How's that going for her?
She said it's going well, actually, her mother was diagnosed seven years ago in her thirties.
My locker is safely renewed. Good place to stash food needles and insulin.

Monday, June 02, 2008

Off Guard

It has been a bit over a week since I took out the sensor. My blood sugar has been not better or worse, really. The only real difference is that I feel rather uninclined to check my blood sugar.
One thing I learned from the Guardian is that I get much more acurate BG results if I wash my hands or feet, and so now if I don't want to wash my hands or feet, I don't want to check my blood sugar. And furthermore, my fingers and toes ache. They always ache. Checking my blood sugar a mere four times per day while on the Guardian was not a big enough decrease to allow my fingers to heal, or perhaps they are just very slow healers. In any case, I don't want to check my blood sugar.
Another thing the Guardian taught me is that my overnight blood sugars are not even vaguely linear. Not even three or four linear pieces. They go up and down and up and down and up and down and if I check my blood sugar an hour before and at bedtime, so what? That information no longer seems useful. My blood sugar takes a bumpy path all night long.
I am not super excited about wearing another sensor. Although my blood sugar was much better than average during the first week of sensor wear, it was not good the last week and I spent all night high despite the thing. I feel like my initial enthusiasm had more to do with it just being a good week.
One of the most frustrating thing about diabetes is that I have good weeks and bad weeks and I don't know why and the Guardian has demonstrated aptly that two nights in a row don't even tend to be as consistant as I'd thought. My nights are the most difficult. People talk about the pump allowing another basal, but that would do me no good because it is hard to predict which nights I'll go up; sometimes a night is just perfectly flat. All night long. And I didn't do anything different, it just happened that way!
The daytime isn't bad; the Guardian confirmed that I mostly don't have postprandial spikes and when I do, they're only by about 30 mg/dl. So not much of a big deal.
My meter average for this week is 113, and for the last 30 days is 117. My guess is that my A1c, when it gets tested in two weeks, will have dropped by at least half a point, back to the lower 6s. Maybe a little bit more. I am looking forward to finding out. I intend to also get screened for celiac again at that appointment.

I had some more teeth filled. I was half asleep through it again. The novocain really seems to make me drowsy, which is a known side effect that doens't happen to most people.