[Diabetes-talk] High sugars in the wake of skipping a snack?

Mon Nov 22 03:20:11 UTC 2010

Hi there.

The thing that makes people get the hell in with me for, is the fact 
that when I counsel, I nag, and nag, and nag about regular testing. In 
fact, I have even had words with someone who professes to be a doctor, 
outside of the diabetic clinic, I may add,  about the matter of regular 
testing.

Although I am a type II, I test regularly for the following reasons:

1. To learn to listen to my body.

2. To anticipate any mood swings I may have on account of unstable 
sugars. When my sugars go unstable, I have the most horrible mood 
swings, notwithstanding the fact that I am on medication to help me with 
that problem.

3. There is no real law with teeth in this part of the world regarding 
food labelling and everyone who wants to market their product, label 
their food as being diabetic friendly and then raise the prices 
appropriately. I have personally experienced what I have just said. 
Nothing that is said to be suitable for diabetics here, comes cheap. In 
fact, and I raised this point at a diabetes awareness meeting held in 
response to international diabetes awareness day, our artificial 
sweetener industry is a tragic time bomb just waiting to explode. If I 
had to tell you what I know about the industry here, I would be chewed 
up and spat out by way of a few lible suits, so I tend to keep my 
findings to myself. When I counsel however, I try to steer counsellees 
in the right direction in the most discrete manner.

4. I don't have medical aid and am on the government health system. I 
have my condition monitored for me by a very good team of people and am 
in this regard more fortunate than thousands of diabetics in this 
country. To cut a long story very short, if I don't monitor myself 
regularly and avoid so-called diabetic friendly stuff that is not 
diabetic friendly, I could be discharged from the diabetic clinic which 
I presently attend, not because the clinic wants to get rid of people, 
but we have a brainless pen-pushing little burocrat who has decided that 
our city with, I would estimate, 50000 to 60000 diabetics, including the 
undiagnosed ones, does not need a diabetic clinic. The clinic, IMPO, in 
order to keep costs down and to thwart attempts at closure, has had to 
take the question of monitoring more seriously, and in all fairness, has 
had to show people who are not really serious enough about their 
condition, the door. I'm told, and I don't want to sound arogant here, 
that I am the best controlled diabetic at the clinic that I attend, not 
because I am a so-called good boy, but because my attitude towards the 
condition is rankly different from the attitude that most people have, 
even to the point of being regarded as revolutionary and over the top by 
some, notwithstanding the very good results I have, not only on my 
charts but also when I have the HBA1C and the mandatory bloods that 
diabetics have to have from time to time, and as I always say to people, 
you can never credibly argue against results. If I were discharged from 
the clinic, I would have a brainless idiot that knows less about 
diabetes than I know about pregnancy, and I must respectfully say that I 
know nothing about the matter, treating me and I don't even want to 
begin to contemplate the possible results.

5. Diabetes is a progressive condition and while there is a technical 
and technological difference between type I and type II, they are both 
incurable. All we are doing is to halt the progress of the condition and 
prevent or at least minimise the occurrence of diabetes-related 
complications.

6. On a worst case scenario, the end of type I and type II is exactly 
the same. Therefore the distinction between the two is IMPO, purely 
academic, thus justifying my own belief that in order to manage the 
condition, type II's have to monitor as regularly as type I's. In any 
event, when type II's end up on insulin, which I am not yet, there is at 
that stage already, no practical distinction between the two, or at 
least not one, the discussion of which would be justifiable on this list.

7. One of the lessons my diabetes counsellor taught me especially in the 
light of 5 and 6 above is that, like it or not, and I am not partial to 
the finger prick either, every diabetic has to make friends with the 
glucometer and the lancet.

8. Finally, I am one who does not believe that a generic diabetic diet 
exists. When the dietition hands you that sheet of paper, that is merely 
a framework within the bounds of which you necessarily have to 
experiment with the different kinds of foods to determine what is best 
for you. it is a framework, just a framework, nothing but a framework, 
and definitely not a diet. To illustrate this point, I am allowed one 
medium-size potato with my meal. However, and even though rice is a 
starch as well, I actually have better blood sugars on rice than I have 
on my potato, not that the sugars on potato are out of range at all, but 
for the sake of optimal stability, and while I love potato in preference 
to rice, for instance, I only have potato as a treat. The rice I always 
have, is Basmati rice which is a very unrefined rice.

The other night I attended a diabetes awareness lecture in response to 
international diabetes awareness day and was thoroughly heartened to 
hear a general practitioner, and I must say that in general, I have 
little regard for what general practitioners say about diabetes, telling 
us that there is no such thing as a generic diabetic diet. "How informed 
she was," I thought to myself.

The problem and I guess this also explains the reluctance of many 
diabetics to test regularly, is the fact that most diabetics I know in 
this part of the world at least, have this attitude of "you must just 
keep the doctor happy". I don't think the full implications of this 
attitude has or ever will, dawn on these people. Theirs is a life where 
you just do any old thing and a day or so before seeing the 
diabetologist, they starve themselves in order to hopefully have a good 
reading on the day, but as the classics say, and these people lose track 
of that little truth, the old HBA1C does not tell lies.

Truth be told, if one were to take a random sample of people who display 
this kind of attitude, it is most likely that one may find that an 
overwhelming majority of them do not test regularly, let alone, test at all.

I endorse the view held by people like David Mendosa and many others, 
ten thousand percent, which is to the effect that diabetes is the one 
condition that the diabetic can treat better than even the best doctors 
can, and part of that self-treatment is regular testing. Without the 
diabetic's co-operation in any respect, even the best doctor is rendered 
totally incapable of giving out the proper treatment. Without regular 
testing, the doctor is deprived of crucial data which is needed to help 
medicate the diabetic, and without that information, it is ultimately 
the diabetic, not the doctor, who suffers.

Michael Park
"I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God Than dwell in the tents of wickedness." (psalm 84:10 NKJV).

We support NVDA, a free screenreading program for the blind, giving high quality computer access to many commercial applications, as well as portability.

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On 2010/11/20 21:06, cheryl echevarria wrote:
> Well Michael:
>
> This is for people that monitor there blood sugar a lot of diabetics that
> are type do not do it as often as us type 1s why I don't know but it should
> be done.
>
> Anyway, yes you body even if you are not diabetic, normal blood sugars raise
> and lower during the day, that is why when someone is trying to lose weight
> that they eat 6 small meal and eat like every 3-4 hours, your metabolism
> will speed up, and you will lose weight.
>
> Being a diabetic, if we don't stick our regimens they sugars go off, and our
> stress levels go up.  In affect, the makes our sugars go up.
>
>
> The biggest compliment you can pay me is to recommend my services!
>
> Cheryl Echevarria
> http://Echevarriatravel.com
> 1-866-580-5574
> Reservations at echevarriatravel.com
>
> Affiliated as an Independent Contractor with Montrose Travel CST-1018299-10
> Affiliated as an Independent Contractor with Absolute Cruise and Travel Inc.
>
> join my yahoogroup
> echevarriatravel-subscribe at yahoogroups.com
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Park"<pageforpage at gmail.com>
> To: "Diabetes Talk for the Blind"<diabetes-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2010 1:05 PM
> Subject: [Diabetes-talk] High sugars in the wake of skipping a snack?
>
>
>> Hi there.
>>
>> During the course of the last week, I made an extremely interesting
>> observation, and I must stress three very important things here before
>> waxing eloquently about my discovery.
>>
>> The first is that what I have observed, stems from the fact that I test
>> my sugars on a regular basis.
>>
>> The second fact that I must point out is that I do not guarantee that
>> this observation is true of every diabetic, but it is definitely
>> something I am going to use a lot in my counselling of diabetics.
>>
>> The third thing that might also be a factor in this discovery is the
>> fact that I am not only diabetic, but I also have to manage the problem
>> of diabetes-related depression which occurs when my sugars go all over
>> the place. The result is that I am not just on a diabetic diet but my
>> diabetes counsellor has also put me on a particularly stringent diet to
>> help me manage that problem. The object here is to keep blood sugar
>> levels within an acceptable range, but also to try and keep them as
>> stable as possible.
>>
>> In terms of this diet, my snacks that I have between breakfast and lunch
>> and between lunch and supper, must be fruit only, while my late night
>> snack is more flexible, and I usually have apples which, thanks to
>> technology, are now available twelve months in the year. Apples have a
>> low GI value.
>>
>> In short, my diabetes counsellor explained to me that Fructose has more
>> of a stabilising effect on blood sugar levels, because of absorbing more
>> slowly and because of being a complex sugar.
>>
>> Normally, my sugar levels fluctuate somewhere between 85 and 135 during
>> the course of a day.
>>
>> I lead a very hectic life which has caused me this week, to forget to
>> have my fruit snacks on two different occasions. The result was that in
>> one instance, my sugar rose to 144 and in the other instance, it went up
>> to 151.
>>
>> I wondered if anyone else on this list had the same experience?
>>
>> -- 
>> Michael Park
>> "I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God Than dwell in the
>> tents of wickedness." (psalm 84:10 NKJV).
>>
>> We support NVDA, a free screenreading program for the blind, giving high
>> quality computer access to many commercial applications, as well as
>> portability.
>>
>>    NVDA 2010.2 has been released.
>>
>>
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