So, about six weeks ago, I had the not so wonderful news of being diagnosed with diabetes. The diagnosis explained why I had been feeling so sluggish, tired, drained, etc, for about a year… maybe longer.
I guess what made it shocking kind of was that I thought I knew all the signs of diabetes. My ex is type 1 and my step-father was type 2. That’s why I was really surprised at myself for going such a long time and never realizing my blood sugar was high. And it wasn’t like I didn’t have the means in that year or more to for do a finger poke and see what my glucose numbers were. It simply never occurred to me to test and see if I had high blood sugar.
That is, until I kept getting recurring yeast infections that wouldn’t go away after repeated treatments with Monistat. I did some research and there were really only two reasons a female would keep getting them at my age that fit my life. One of those reasons was undiagnosed diabetes – high blood sugar.
So dear hubby did a finger poke on me to see what my blood sugar was. It came up 319. That was the night of January 19, 2018.
The first thing I did, literally, was immediately stop drinking the Pepsi that was in my insulated cup on my desk here. I didn’t take another swallow. Literally in the moment that I saw that 319 reading, I stopped all sugar, all white bread, all white rice, all white potatoes… pretty much about 95% or more of all carbs… all junk food.
To say those numbers was a wake up call is an understatement!
Within a week of totally changing my way of eating and drinking, the yeast infection was gone. This was after probably a month or more or it recurring. If you’ve ever had one, you know the agony of dealing with it. 🙄
I made an appointment to go to the doctor. Other than dental visits over the years and a fractured ankle in the 1990’s, this would be the first time since 1994 that I’ve been to a doctor. That didn’t help my anxiety at all. 🙂
After the lab work was done, I learned my A1C was 11 – obviously was up there. But honestly, not as high as I thought it was be. For a long time, I drank Pepsi like it was going out of style, ate junk food, ate what I wanted when I wanted and as much as I wanted. And I was of course overweight. Over the years, the weight just kept piling on and I wasn’t getting much exercise at all to take it off or keep it off.
In short, my body was in bad shape. It was to the point that I couldn’t stand up to cook something very long at all. If it took 30 minutes to cook something, I couldn’t do it.
Honestly, I truly believe if not for the recurring yeast infection that got me to test my blood glucose levels, I don’t think I would have been around much longer. That’s just how bad I felt.
So, fast forward a bit to the first couple of doctor visits. I learned that besides having diabetes, I also had high blood pressure. After lab tests, I also had high cholesterol and high triglycerides. So that meant low sodium, low fat, low carb…. and medicine for each of those issues.
I suddenly had to change not only my eating and drinking habits, but also watch sodium levels, cholesterol amounts, fat content, and check for carbs in every single that went in my mouth. I had to eat on a schedule. I had to start getting up and going to bed on a schedule. I had to take medicine on a schedule. I had to poke before I ate, after I ate, if I ate anything different to see how it affected me. And worse of all, LOL, for me, I had to get up off my end and move around.. all throughout the day, every day.
After the first couple of days when I realized everything that I could no longer eat or drink, I went in the bathroom and I cried. I allowed myself about five minutes to have a pity party for all the lost donuts, foot long hot dogs, cake, cookies, real ice cream, burritos, mac and cheese, pasta, pizza, etc. And real Pepsi… never to taste again.
Then I pulled myself together and told myself I can this and I will do this.
I was at first put on regular metformin, one 500 mg. pill with my evening meal. Oh that was horrible. It was changed to one 500 mg. metformin ER and the horrible issues were gone.
And I was put on a 10 mg. pill for high blood pressure. That was heaven! No more headaches! I was taking ibuprofen every day for my back hurting and the headaches, for probably two years. I had a headache for about two days after stopping the way I was drinking and eating, probably from the caffeine withdrawal. After that, I’ve only had a headache maybe two times in the past six weeks. And the backaches are all gone! It had gotten so bad that I could barely walk without being in horrible pain. Yet my kidneys are fine, thank God.
To date, in the past six weeks I’ve lost 20 pounds. I still have more to go. I weigh every single day. I walk around every single day, off and on throughout the day. I eat right, I drink Pepsi Zero now, but only about 10 oz or less and only at meal time to take my pills with. It gives me just enough caffeine to make me bounce off the walls and get that walking in.
Yet despite eating right and exercising every day, my blood sugar is not down all the time to normal yet. It pretty much stays under 200 now and much lower, just not low enough.
So today at my doctor appointment, I was upped to two 500 mg. metformin ER pills, one in the morning with breakfast and one with supper. I start that tomorrow, and hopefully that will work to get those numbers on down. My blood pressure stays normal now, except the one day I managed to forget to take my pill for it. But after that incident, I bought myself a double pill box so I won’t forget anymore. 🙂
It’s been a chore to totally change the way I eat, but so worth it. I eat healthy food now. I eat three main meals per day and two snacks per day. I use my Instant Pot to cook up some chicken breasts and boil eggs. When I steam veggies like broccoli or cauliflower, I make enough for a few meals. That way I have food already cooked and I can just heat it up for a meal. It saves a lot of time to do meal prep ahead of time.
Some people call this a diet. I don’t call it a diet. I call it a way of eating, a life change. It’s the way I will be eating for the rest of my life. Eating healthy, eating good food and not all the junk like I used to. I feel SO much better!
And I guess what’s weird to me is knowing that I feel so much better in just this six weeks and only so far 20 pounds of weight gone… I can only imagine how good I will feel when I get the rest of the weight off and when my blood sugar numbers get to normal and stay there.
I told the dear hubby I would probably be bouncing off the walls… 🙂 All this energy and feeling so much better… just amazing!