Endocrine daze 2011 part deux

[kjwcode]

Had my second (and apparently last) endocrinology appointment for the year today. hg A1C is heading in the right direction, *DL is right where it should be, K is a bit high (no doubt due to over-consumption of Diet Pepsi -- got to find some sucralose-sweetened cola with a heap of caffeine), but it won't kill me. It's just an outlying number that the endocrinologist couldn't explain until I pointed the source out to him. I've managed to drop my insulin doses by 30-50% and bring the numbers to a much more consistent state than they were before.

A lot of this is no doubt due to cutting out the gluten. Before it seemed that there was a hidden factor that affected me on a day-by-day, and often meal-by-meal basis -- it just seemed that consistent dosing brought inconsistent results. Looking back it seems likely that was a reaction to the gluten causing my digestion to do dodgy things. I feel a heck of a lot better now that I'm off the stuff, anyway.

Comments

[oda]

I'm celiac myself and oh my goodness does it make a difference to me, being off the stuff. Night and day, night and day. We recently found out my husband is at least a little gluten-sensitive, because he eats with me throughout the week, and has "free meals" on the weekend, and they usually zonk him out in various ways depending on what he eats! I am allergic to corn as well and he seems sensitive to both wheat and corn, though more mildly than I am. So yay for unintended benefits.

Regarding soda intake, if you like unsweetened coffee or tea at all you might consider weaning to them. (Or weaning to tea and then decreasing your sweetness dose.) I know there are soda people and coffee people and tea people (I'm in the last two camps) so it might be hard, but getting out of the sugar rat race, even if the sugar is sucralose, can make a pretty big difference. (Obv. sucralose is easier on the blood sugar than sucrose, but none of either is also beneficial.) I'm not currently no-sugar but I try to go light on sugar-not-from-fruit and it diminishes my sweet tooth to an astonishing degree. For me, more than a teaspoon or two of sugar in a day seems to wake up that sweet tooth and make it hungry for more sweets. Fruit doesn't wake it up to that point, though I still try to hold my fruit intake down to a few servings a day because very sweet fruit like dates can also wake up the sweet tooth. If you have sweet tooth issues it might be worth a try. It can go gradually by for example getting chocolate that's a few percentage points darker than you usually eat and getting a taste for it, then going darker again. (I refuse to lead a chocolate-free life!)

[kjwcode]

I'm a total soda hound -- I don't drink tea or coffee at all, actually. It's one of those things I can't imagine living without, so it's a bit tricky. I'm the same way with chocolate -- 80% and above is my favourite! **omnomnom** I don't eat it (or anything with sugar as an explicit ingredient) very often, so I don't feel too bad when I do. Diet Pepsi is my sweetness vice.

The real trick with being coeliac is tryint to dine out or order in. I've got a small list of meals I can get away with, and that's about it. I eat sushi five or more times per week -- it's a good, constant meal, and I don't have to dose much insulin after. It's also easily gluten free (if you don't use regular soy sauce -- I use sambal oelek), and there really isn't much excuse to put gluten in it, so I don't have to ask questions that most servers can't answer. We also hit White Spot every now and then, and I've got my favourite meal there as well that they go out of their way to make. I've never been a big "make it special for me" person, but the gluten content forces my hand these days. :/