Straight is boring. I guess. Anyone who knows me can confirm that drama is something I avoid relentlessly.
That’s why diabetes, with its ups and downs, or curves, was the exact thing I wanted to avoid. I don’t know that there was any causation factor (other than lack of maintenance). Both my dad and my mom had it later in life – that might be the biggest factor. I do wish that it would have hit my radar sooner. I did know something was wrong well in advance of my biggest curve, a 400+ reading of my blood glucose back in April that landed me in the ICU. That’s old news.
This post is about updating. And about information and advice that a 60 year old planet Earth resident can bestow on all those within the sound of my blog.
I’ve had several combinations of medicines that I started taking in April. Aside from Metformin, which is a drug that helps regulate blood sugar, I was on both a quick-acting and a long-acting insulin – Lispro for the former, and Tresiba for the latter. I’m also taking blood pressure medicine, Telmisartan, and a “statin” used to prevent heart disease, Rosuvastatin. I also use a CGM or continuous glucose monitor, the Freestyle Libre 3 (Abbott). I’ll note here that I stopped using the Lispro back in September. That’s 3 shots daily that have been eliminated.
The CGM is where the curves reveal themselves. I have a love/hate relationship with my CGM. At first, I thought it miracle-like with its ability to tell me with a glance of the app on my phone, what my glucose reading was. It was a welcome relief to having to prick my finger and tap a droplet of blood on a test strip to get my number. However, it became a bit of an obsession to keep checking my numbers and I had to keep my phone near me so that it wouldn’t “lose signal”. And then there were the false alarms. The CGM has an unalterable alarm on the app when glucose readings go below 55 mg/dL. Rarely was that the actual reading, and I began to be quite able to use how I felt at any given time to know when my sugar was ACTUALLY low. After waking me up, usually in the middle of the night, I began the hate that part of my CGM.
A bit about what I refer to as curves. My CGM displays graphs of my numbers. It updates every minute so there is a graphical trend line that gets generated. The line can be quite straight and within range (70-150mg/dL), which is good. It can also be quite wild in its ups and downs. Here are three examples of screenshots I grabbed from my iPhone in the Libre 3 app. The first is the “good and smooth” one (with an actual dip into the low sugar warning):
Here’s a “big curves” graph related to something I probably ate with higher sugar and then my body counteracted it:
And finally, a graph that is after a new sensor is applied when things go “nutty”:
I am now at the “whatever” stage of wearing my CGM. I know its limitations. I know its inaccuracies. I know how I feel and I know what foods I can expect to change my numbers. For about a month now, at the suggestion of my doctor, I have doubled the amount of Metformin I’m taking (1,000 mg) and have stopped taking the Tresiba, which means zero shots. That sounded appealing to say the least. My sugars have been noticeably/slightly higher, but not out of range. So I am debating with myself whether to slightly modify the plan and go back to taking the Tresiba. Perhaps altering the time of day for each.
It should be noted that cycling has been the best way to non-medically reduce my sugars. Riding my bike is a visible antidote to high blood sugar. I can see the evidence in graph-form. However, it’s “winter” in Florida, which not only means at least cooler temperatures, but also less available daylight. But now that it’s January, that will again change. Hey, guess what? Another curve and going in the right direction!
So reflecting back on 2024, and about curves. Well, a high glucose diagnosis and then a subsequent hospital visit certainly qualifies as a BIG curve, followed by bills and health insurance dealings. In my case I was quite lucky, but still my account was a couple thousand dollars lighter even with “good” Florida State insurance. Let’s not forget about hurricane season with Debby, Helene, and Milton paying visits. There was one curve in November (around the 6th) that was an unpleasant curve, as well as my son’s car having a transmission going bad (again, maintenance issues). Life’s curves are a constant.
Even before all of these life curves I had been thinking about retirement. It’s possibly less than two years away. Who knows if I can pull it off. However, after health events rearing their ugly head, enjoying my golden years seems to be a priority to make happen. I’ll certainly be blogging more about that process. The beginning of that process has begun with the folks in the place where I started my most significant retirement account – Fredericksburg, VA. Now begins the planning (and paperwork) for managing my income for those golden days, months, and years. Though lately I am constantly needing to remind myself to find happiness in the present.
Photo by Viktor Bystrov on Unsplash
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