New One Touch Ultra Meter

Last week, in preparation for my journey to get my diabetes back in check, I bought myself a new blood glucose meter. After speaking with a couple of nurse friends, they recomended that I get the OneTouch Ultra Blood Glucose Monitoring System from LifeScan, Inc. They said that it is the quickest to return a reading and needs the smallest amount of blood in order to work.

This meter is great! My old meter took about 28 seconds to return a reading and i practically had to cut an artery to get enough blood for the test strip. Actually, the reason I stopped testing was because I got really trigger shy with my old meter. The lancet that it uses was very painful so I would hesitate to "pull the trigger." The One Touch Ultra, and the OneTouch UltraSmart Blood Glucose Monitoring System (I presume), takes 5 seconds to render a blood glucose reading. It also uses very little blood, making it work with "alternate site" testing. This basically means that you can check your forearm instead of your fingertips.

At first, getting the forearm reading wasn't easy. I'm not the type of guy that reads instructions, so I just opened up the box and went at it using the Ultrasoft blood sampler with the regular tip. I must have looked like a junkie with track marks, but I couldn't get enough blood out of my forearms for a valid reading. I thought maybe it was that I just didn't have enough capillaries there until I talked to my nurse friends again. They asked if I was using the clear tip or the blue tip. Huh? I did notice that there was a little clear tube-looking thing in the case when I got it, but I never paid it any attention. It turns out that this other tip is designed to push down on the skin and bring up blood to the surface capillaries. Then when you press the trigger and the lancet pokes the skin, you're supposed to leave it there for a few seconds to apply pressure on the area. When I tried it with this tip, it worked like a charm. I was able to get a good blood sugar reading right away.

I also learned that you're supposed to use alternate sites like the forearm for basal readings like in the morning or before meals (I think that's the term). This is because the fat under the skin in these areas take a bit longer to change in glucose level. I still use the finger tip for instant readings, but I've managed to knock out most of these by using my forearm.

LifeScan also has software that you can use to track your blood glucose levels over time. They even sell a 9-Pin Interface Cable for LifeScan Blood Glucose Meters that connects your meter to your PC so you can download your readings and not have to enter them by hand. I've downloaded the software and I ordered the cable. I'll report back with my impressions when I receive the kit.

Type 2 - So Now What?

At first, I remember being really upset about learning that I was diabetic. I really didn't understand why I got it either. It wasn't like I fit the typical characteristics of somebody that would be prone to diabetes - the closest family member that has diabetes is my grandmother's brother on my mom's side; I didn't eat a lot of sweets; I wasn't extrememly over weight; I wasn't sedentary; I just didn't understand.

When I first told my wife, I remember that she got really worried. The same happened when I told my familly. I remember that in the begining, I was very strict with my diet. So strict that I sometimes had hypoglycemic episodes (the first of which really freaked me out). I started to run or walk on our treadmill regularly. I would check my sugar four times per day. I even wrote a web application that let me log my blood sugar levels, chart them and then print them out for the next visits with my doctor. All in all, I was very good.

As time went on, I lost weight. I think this was a combination of the change in diet and the fact that my thyroid was now working. I'm now weighing 175 lbs. which may be a little too low for my 6'2" height. This is the thinnest I've been since early high school.

After about two years, however, I started to slack off. First, I stopped checking my sugar at night, then all together. Then my diet got closer to what I was eating prior to my diabetes diagnosis. You have to understand, bread and pasta were the cornerstone of my diet. I love bread! I started to have more of it than I should and my blood sugars started to climb up bit by bit. The insurance company that we're under forces me to use mail-order prescription for anything that's long term. This led me to be out of medicine on several occasions. What would happen was that I would run out of the 90 days supply they gave me and the three refills and then have to work in time to go to my doctor's office for a prescription that I could mail to AdvanceRx. It was a royal pain and it caused my blood sugars to get a little high during these times.

My wife has been trying to get me to eat better lately, so I decided to start this blog. I hope that it will help me (and anybody that happens to stroll by) to keep my diet, excercise and medication plan on my mind. I hope to be posting pointers to articles and news about diabetes, links to diabetes related resources and maybe even a book review or two. If you would like to contribute in any way, be it in the form of comments or by writing articles, please do so. You can contact me by sending a note to rdevarona -at- gmail.com.

Diagnosed With Diabetes

I guess the best way to start off is by describing how I found out I was diabetic. So here goes...

Back around August of 2001, my wife and I took a cruise with my parents. During this cruise, I noticed that I was building up quite a thirst... an incredibly strong thirst that wouldn't go away. I also noticed that I had to get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom; something I never had to do before. Several weeks went by and the thirst continued. I also realized that I could see a lot better if I used my wife's glasses, which were about twice as strong as mine, instead of my own. On September 17th, 2001, I went to my doctor's office for my insurance companiy's mandatory physical and happen to mention to him that I was always thirsty. He asked a couple of questions and told me that they would check my blood sugar to see what was going on. I didn't even realize they were checking for diabetes at the time. Our doctor happens to be related by marriage to my wife's familly, so while the nurse was checking my blood sugar, I was chatting away with him and his wife, also a physician. When the reading was done, the nurse blurted out 287 and my doctor's wife yelled "Ohh my God! You're diabetic!!"

At that moment, I had absolutely no clue what was happening. My doctor threw his wife out of the consultation room and started to explain to me that there were several other things that could be happening that would cause my blood sugars to be so high.

"What's high?" I asked.

He said that normally, since I had fasted for my lipid panel test, my blood sugars shouldn't be any higher than 105-110. A reading of 287 was fairly high, but it could be caused by a temporary infection or several other things. At this point, it felt like my doctor started checking off additional tests like there was no tomorrow. He ordered everything on the sheet and had the nurse administer an EKG, gave me prescriptions for an eye exam and several ultrasound exams. He also gave me a prescription for glucotrol along with a bunch of samples so that I could get started right away. This may have occured during the following appointment, but it all sort of blends together. It turns out that I am a Type 2 Diabetic which means that my pancreas makes insulin, but my body is resistant to it and doesn't process sugar the way its supposed to.

During this series of appointments and tests, I also found out that my thyroid wasn't working properly. I had a hypo-functioning thyroid. I didn't even know what the thyroid did! It turns out that one of the things it does is to regulate metabolism. I wasn't an obese person, but I did notice that it was very difficult to shed any weight. I am 6'2" tall and back then I weighed 235 lbs. For the thyroid, my doctor prescribed Synthroid, and for about three months, I was changing my dosage to come up with the right amount for me.