When Nurse Practitioner Karen Bruce told me in no uncertain terms that I had done a great job of controlling my Diabetes 2 through diet, exercise and lifestyle changes but that the time had come for some additional help in the form of medication, two things went through my mind: she was right, and this was yet another opportunity to get healthy, as my first diagnosis was. When I learned I had Diabetes 2, I changed my life, lost weight, studied nutrition, ate differently.
It’s time to do the same thing again, insofar as it is necessary. Next chapter.
I have always been active, if you have a farm you will be very active, and taken walks and hikes daily, but now I have to do some other things to keep healthy. I will continue seeing a naturopath, continue holistic approaches and medicines and now also take prescription medications to keep my blood sugar stable. When you are open about an in illness like Diabetes in America, you have to navigate an insane world of hype, greed, hysteria, insurance, a messed-up health care system, the evil manipulations of pharmaceutical companies pretending to be our angels and the nightmare that are the messages of the Internet.
There are three things to contend with right away. Medical “experts” on the Internet who trawl websites and believe they know more than doctors, hysterics who line up to tell you about the horrible deaths family members have suffered through pain, dismemberment, amputations and slow and painful declines, and the passionate advocates of home remedies no one has heard of or tested. I don’t know why people love to share amputation stories, but trust me, they do. Reading my e-mail and Facebook Pages is like sitting in a Civil War Battlefield hospital, I will be lucky to have fingers to type these words in just a few months.
It is interesting, people are fierce advocates for their own remedies from radio signal machines to home brewed concoctions. No matter that they know nothing my anyone else’s health or medical history, if dried prunes worked for them, it will work for me. There is a generous quality to these offerings, I know, but also a narcissistic streak. What about the idea of making up our own minds?
People love to warn you to death, not because they are evil, but because that is what has been done to them. Just go to any doctor’s office and watch the scare medical news on the monitor. Pity-me stories are the currency of the country.
The trick is to get the wheat from all of this chaff, and in the Information Age, chaff blots out the sun. You need to know that people who have Diabetes 2 and take care of themselves rarely lose their legs or hands, and live long and healthy lives, despite the scary signs in doctor’s offices and the breathless testimonies online. You need to know that pharmaceutical companies love Diabetes, the meters, strips, lancets and tablets you will be buying for the rest of your life, their diaries and pamphlets suggest taking your blood at least a half-dozen times a day (so the insurance companies can refuse to pay for strips if you do). And then there is the medicine, the pills long tested and established, but something that might be in your medicine cabinet for life. Good news for lots of companies, tens of millions of people have Diabetes 2, it is epidemic among children. Buy stock now.
The pharmaceutical chains also love diabetes, you can’t buy a thing without talking to a pharmaceutical counselor who wants to be your friend and will be, 24/7. I’ve gone into my local pharmacy for years and never been counseled, and I am suddenly everybody’s best friend, everyone knows my name and waves to me. My pharmacist too me aside and told me there are classes twice a week right in the pharmacy for people with Diabetes, they are free, get your lancets here, we can re-fill your prescriptions automatically. I am no longer an occasional customer, but a gold mine.
When you get Diabetes, who you listen to is as important as what you do. And sadly, most of what you hear is loopy. Some of it isn’t. I am making discoveries that are worth sharing. Metformin takes a bit to get used to, but it does bring blood sugar down. Exercise is very helpful, in addition to my farm work, I am also riding my bike again for the first time in four or five years. I like it a lot. Something to do in the morning after meditation, before writing, before putting photos up. I’ve already got a good diet, I don’t need to change much there but I am trying a couple of things people I trust have recommended: two tablespoons of organic Apple Vinegar Cider twice a day in 8 0z of water, and cinnamon tablets (two) twice a day at mealtimes. Both are believed to bring blood sugar levels down. Meditation helps, it often blood sugar levels down. Stress is a critical element in Diabetes, as it is in blood pressure.
Diabetes treatment is not one thing but many things, it is an organic, complex disease. Many things affect it, and blood sugar levels change all the time. I have already sharply reduced my blood sugar levels with these efforts in less than a week by about a third, I will keep at it. Diabetes 2, in fact, an opportunity to stay healthy, get healthier. It is not reversible, but unlike many other diseases, it is most often controllable. My grandparents both had Diabetes – he lived to be 92 with all of his limbs – and it did not come as a surprise to me, the doctors always believed it was genetic, I have always been active and eaten well.
As with other things, I see that Diabetes 2 is personal. Every body is different, we have different weight, genetics, eating habits, lifestyles, stress levels. All of these things matter. As much as people love to tell horror stories and tales of suffering and woe, it is clear to me that people who do their own research, make their own decisions, experiment with their own choices do well with this disease for long periods of time. Those stories of affirmation are not the ones you will hear, not from doctors, insurance companies, e-mailers, even friends. They system feeds off of fear and sales and blood tests and machines. And the system can really help, that is the irony.
The health care system knows how to treat diabetes in many cases. And it is, in fact, sometimes very useful to get on medications, and to understand how the blood sugar levels are affected by food and weather and movement. It is also possible in some cases to get off of it.
I don’t give advice to people, I do share my experience. So far, the big thing I have learned is this: take responsibility for your health and your decisions. Good decisions are rarely made by other people, and their stories are not my story, one way or the other. On the Internet, the idea of individual experience is lost. I will keep sharing mine.