healthy attitudes?

This is a(nother long) diabetes-related rant post. No knitting or stitching or any kind of fun stuff. So, feel free to "mark as read" now... but the information may actually say as much about us all as people (or some of "us") in general in modern society than about those with diabetes in particular.

First, it's amazing how following the "doctor's orders" can make a difference in BSG readings. After only a few days of getting back to taking my meds as prescribed and cutting back my carbs (again), my numbers are back down and I am feeling better. I guess I was walking around in a "carb fog" and didn't realize it. The scale even went down a pound for a couple days -- I bounce 3 to 5 pounds some days, but I try to only weigh myself in the morning and no more than each morning. The greatest difficulty now (beside eating well) is remembering to take the metformin earlier in the evening so I don't wake up in the middle of the night with stomach pains. I thought it was the Vytorin and stopped taking it, but now I am beginning to believe it is the metformin.

Now to my real point: when my doctor first put the fear of god into me about how high my BSG had gotten, I was really scared. This was my third go-around with high BSG (gestational diabetes, and and then again in 1999 -- lost 20 pounds and everything went back to normal, hah hah). I took him and his instructions seriously and when I went back 2 weeks later, he looked at my numbers and started laughing. He asked me, "What did you do?" "I did what you told me to do."

If only everyone would, he said...

It's not easy to stay on track. And the U. of Chicago study mentioned the other day on Bernard Farrell's blog and on Daily Diabetic is scary -- there is a better article about the study at the University of Chicago Medical Center site.

The study is distressing because it speaks to our obsession with having a perfect life. Almost 20% of the participants would trade 8 to 10 years of life not to have to have to treat their diabetes:

"many patients found both complications and treatment onerous. Between 12 and 50 percent were willing to give up 8 of 10 years of life in perfect health to avoid life with complications. More surprising, between 10 and 18 percent of patients were willing to give up 8 of 10 years of healthy life to avoid life with treatments."

"Some patients, if you judge by their behavior, would rather be well on the road to future blindness, kidney failure or amputations then work hard now at their diabetes" (diabetes specialist Louis Philipson, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, who was not part of the research team).

I've not walked in a Type 1's shoes. I've been lucky so far to be able to control with only one med, diet and exercise. So, I certainly will not judge the participants. I can only hope that I never feel that hopeless.

An encouraging point in the report is that "Those who had experience with a specific medication or complication saw them as having less of an impact on quality of life than those without such direct experience." We always fear the unknown, and often unduly.

I would really like to read the full study article. If you happen to have access to Diabetes Care you can, too (that link will let anyone read the abstract, if you are interested). They have a three-month embargo, so I won't have access to it online for three months; campus library doesn't subscribe to the print version.