Diabetes

I have been borderline or pre-diabetic in my opinion, for YEARS. My fasting blood sugars have always been 99 or 100 (that's the absolute highest number it can be and still be normal!) so I was always told "all clear". I KNEW I was at a high risk to get it since my Dad has it, his Grandma had it (My Great-Grandma) and on my Mom's side my Uncle had it. I knew a lot of the systems and over a few weeks in June I realized I was thirsty all the time. NOTHING I drank or how much I drank could quench my thirst. I decided to ask my Dr. to run my fasting blood sugar because I suspected I had it. She agreed and I did my labs and waited for the call. After being put on hold for FOREVER, I walked across the street and asked to get my lab results since I was on hold with them and they were taking all damn day! (I was at the hospital across the street for my visit with the butt Dr.!) My Dr. couldn't see me since I didn't have an appointment, but the nurse did talk to me for a few minutes. She said "Uhhh, yeah you definitely have diabetes.. She said the Dr. wanted me to schedule an appointment so we could talk about treatment options, but in the mean time take this monitor and check my blood sugar, K thanks bye! HUH!?!? That's it?

Soooo... I went home and stuck my finger because that's what you do when you get new things, you play with them.. My blood sugar was 340.. I said "WOW that seems bad" I called my Dad. He said "YES, that's VERY BAD" and proceeded to scare me to death with all of the bad things that diabetes can do to your body (shut your organs down, make you go blind, in addition to the things I already knew like losing your feet/legs) I was freaking out!! Hubs told me to chill and just check it in the morning. So that's what I did.. The next morning, I stuck my finger and waited on my new, LOW number.. (Denial's a B*TCH isn't it?) 260 it said. That's JUST waking up and not even brushing my teeth. WHAT THE HELL?! I decided to call my Dr. and let them know my displeasure with how they were NOT taking my diagnosis serious and I needed to be on medication ASAP, not to mention tell me what the hell I need to do to fix this!! I started reading what I could google as fast as I could in the meantime..

My appointment comes and I wait for her to tell me what the results mean. A normal A1c (Hemoglobin A level) is 6 or lower. My A1c was 11.2  this indicated that I have had diabetes at least 6 months undiagnosed. A normal fasting blood sugar (check your glucose level after you haven't eaten since Midnight) is 100 or below. My fasting glucose level was 226. NOT....GOOD...AT....ALL... The Dr. explained that my eating habits had to change and I needed to lose weight and she prescribed me Met.formin 500mg 2x a day (Ugh.. Full disclosure, I lost about 20 or more lbs in order to get to the egg retrieval the year before, but stressed during the entire pregnancy and gained ALL of that back plus some more.. Then inducing lactation added more weight from all the drugs...AWESOME) as I was at my highest weight ever.. I wanted to cry! How could I have diabetes!?!? This was NOT FAIR!! After my 45 second pity party, I asked her could I reverse this? She said YES to a point. Since I have a history of diabetes on BOTH sides of my family, there's a chance that I was going to get it no matter what and I might not be able to "un get it" even if I lose the weight. BUT that I should lose some weight, take my meds and stay away from "white flour". 

When you have diabetes, carbs are NOT your friend. Sugar is your enemy. I LOVE SUGAR. I love cake, donuts, candy, chocolate and swedish fish (don't judge me) I also LOVE potato chips. Plain with salt.. OMG.. Well, white flour, white potatoes, white rice are ALL not on my list of approved foods.. Sweet potatoes, brown rice and anything else that isn't made with white flour or sugar is. I was not a happy camper.. I went to the grocery store and RETURNED all the food that I had just bought 2 days before. All the delicious juice, ice cream, snacks... ALL OF IT.. And replaced it with vegetables, fruits and whole grain bread and low carb pasta. I found diabetic friendly recipes online and I texted Christy and Toby (yep, surro SIL and BIL!) because they BOTH decided to get healthy this year and have lost about 150 lbs  between the both of them! They introduced me to my.fitness.pal and told me to log what I eat. So I did. And I started losing weight! I didn't even exercise and I started losing. (I HATE exercising.. I HATE to sweat..EVER) I felt like I would be able to beat this! 


it's been a couple days over 3 months since I was first diagnosed. I had my follow up bloodwork drawn last week and today was my appointment to discuss my results. I...AM..AWESOME!!!... My new A1c is 6.9!!!! My Dr. is SO pleased with this! YES, I know it isn't below 6 BUT it almost is only 3 months later and it's a HUGE improvement from 11.2!!! My new fasting glucose level is 102!!! Again awesome!! HUGE improvement over 226!! Oh and my weight? Down 17lbs! My Dr. asked me what I was doing and I told her "I listened to what you told me. That diagnosis scared me and I have a baby that I would like to see grow up." She smiled and said she was so happy and proud of me. I told her about my new diet and that I still hated exercise and hadn't done a lick of exercise yet. She said I should. She went over my cholesterol (amazing, but it was amazing in June too, thank goodness) but that my good cholesterol could be a little higher and that exercise would help raise it the 6 points it needed to go up to be. I was told I could cut my medication dose in HALF and that if I kept up at the rate I was going, at my next follow up in Dec, I might be able to discontinue the medication all together!!! That is my goal now, to lose 20+ lbs in the next 3 months and be medicine free! 


So these 3 blog posts, ALMOST brings y'all up to speed with what has been going on.. We have made our decision about a sibling and I will blog about that next!


Until then... :)