Living with Diabetes

Author: kathleen

  • Amy’s appeal to Jobs – I disagree — Animas does it right!

    Nope, absolutely not.  Although Jobs might need a pump, didn’t he go through pancreatic cancer?  I’m not sure what the implications of that is.

     

    What do you all think?  Would you, could you, sign your name to an appeal like this to the Big Man of Consumer Design-ism?

    Source: Diabetes Mine

    First, Amy, shame on you — the picture you have on your post is the OLD Animas pump.  It wasn’t bad BUT I have the new pump — the 1250 and the 12xx series is quite cool.  The 2020 pump is even cooler and it should be arriving soon.  It even has a color screen.

    I’ve never been a huge fan of Apple products.  I own two mini Macs, I’ve taught Webmastering on Macs, and I’ve had to support Apples in the classroom for years, as a teacher tech.

    They are extremely difficult to support from the technical end.  I’ve always found PCs easier to program — and yes, I’ve tried it.  I will give you that Macs to digital cameras better than PCs.

    I will give you that the Minimed and the Cozmo is clugy, but I love my Animas pumps!

  • Endoscopy

    Blood sugars have gone extremely well.  I was hoping my blood sugar would be a bit high this morning — and it was — 125.  I did turn my pump off for an hour about two hours before the procedure was scheduled per the doctor’s request.

    When I went into the procedure my blood sugar was 135.  When I left the day surgery center and went to eat, my blood sugar was at 120.

    Honestly I don’t think you could ask for anything better — and my brunch dosing even work well, I was at 119 at 4:00.

    I’m quite proud of myself!

  • DexCom Gets Positive Medicare Response: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

    This is good news — I am definately going to wait on getting one know until it may be covered. 

    Medical device maker DexCom Inc. said Monday it is one step closer to gaining reimbursement for its continuous glucose monitoring devices.

    Source: DexCom Gets Positive Medicare Response: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

  • Gastric results

    Won’t know the full results for several days but the sonogram found one very large gall stone. It could be causing the GERD or contributing to it.

    There were polyps in the esophages and I think lesions which were removed and sent for biopsy. I’ll know in 5-10 days.

    My protonix is on the way.

  • Progress!

    I actually haven’t been focusing on losing weight, because it’s been really hard for me since I’ve been diagnosed with diabetes.  It was hard enough before with my sleeping issues — though if I do sleep well, I did lose weight before diabetes.

    Well, since I’ve started with Fitness4Diabetics, I’ve lost two pounds.  I think.  Between the edema issues and diabetes, I won’t count them entirely gone until they stay off the scales for at least a week, but the two pounds have been gone for two days so far.

    More progress.  Since I started their second week workout last Thursday, I’ve been able to get in more than 10,000 steps! 

    The workouts are going well too!

    My fitness coach has been super responsive.  I was having trouble with the streching exercises, because they were not written in English, so she sat down this weekend and rewrote the ones I was having trouble with.  That’s helped tremedously.

  • Trial Report Day 2

    It was STILL cold.  A bit warmer though.

    Maggie took a first in Novice Preferred Standard.  Glad I didn’t go home.  Thought about it though, especially when she did so poorly in Jumpers.  She just didn’t have her head in the game.

    Marcie didn’t Q, but she tried.  And I tried.

    I got in 13585 steps.  Food wasn’t great but I’ve gotten down to 2 carbonated beverages a day so that is good.

    I also think I’ve lost weight, I’ll know more tomorrow.

  • Medco Games

    Medco has been jerking me around, yet again, over Protonix.  During spring break, I went to see the primary care doctor to see if there was something different we should about my GERD, since I was almost out of Protonix and to let him know we were playing the Medco game.

    He is fed up with, decided I needed to be scoped anyway since it had been a while, so he sent me to a gastric doctor (I think I’ve posted about this, sorry for the repeat).

    So I saw the gastric doctor.  She decided I also needed a gall bladder ultrasound since gall bladder stones can cause a backup of bile, looking like GERD.  She also gave me a medication, Carafate which is supposed to help if it is bile reflux.

    It doesn’t seem to help.

    She also prescribed Reglan which set off all sorts of red flags because it counteracts Symlin.  I tried it for a few days, it doesn’t seem to help.

    Then the Endo said to back off on the Symlin — so I went to 10 units.  Amazingly enough it didn’t seem to affect my blood sugar.

    I have had to make another change to the Symlin, unrelated — I’ve been having trouble with crashing in the evening during my new workouts, so I’ve changed my evening meal, so that I take no insulin and no Symlin.  I can’t decide if that is helping or now, and I’m still low at night.  That means I still need to eat something before I got to bed which DOES affect the reflux.

    Anyway, back to the Medco games.  Gastric doctor prescribed Protonix, 2 x time which is the only thing that helps.  Most of the time.  I still get break through depending on how much I have to eat to fix the nightly low.

    So Medco needs an authorization for Protonix, because it isn’t Nexium.  Then they need a second authorization for the amount of Protonix, because it’s an extra amount.

    So the gastric doctor had to fill out both authorizations — and I think that is where everything got screwed up at the primary care physicians.  The good news is that I’m authorized for the extra dosage until October and I’m authorized for the medication until April.

    I had the sonogram on Friday and am supposed to get the results back tomorrow.  I’m getting scoped tomorrow, early in the morning.

    All this, because Medco has to play games on GERD medications.

  • Trial Report – Final

    Running Maggie didn’t go well.  First, it was snowing.  Maggie is a bit deformed — she has no outer coat — and she was freezing.  At one cold trial, she stopped and cussed me out for making her run.

    She actually attempted the JWW course, got ahead of me twice and came back.  Wouldn’t have been too bad, but she took a jump and you’re not allowed off courses.

    Standard was actually worse, we were whistled off — she took the trap, and then was on the wrong angle for the A-frame.  Four paw rule came into affect — if they put all four paws on an obstacle and bail, they can’t retake it.  Even though I didn’t call it, we were whistled off.

    Got in 11553 steps so far, blood sugars have been perfect, came home with a 135! 

  • Trial Report 2

    Marcie and I ran clean in our second run but were probably way over time.
    I was at 135 when I left the truck with her and came off that run feeling low. I tested anmd was at 124 but am eating a bag of goldfish crackers anyway.
    I am at 5692 steps and haven’t started with Maggie.
    More later…

  • Trial Report 1

    I have run Big dog – Marcie – I am not fast enough for to have confidence in me and she blew a pole.
    I have walked the second course and am 4700 steps!
    More later…