28 January 2009

Progress

Today was my first appointment at the DRI here in Miami. I was very pleasantly surprised. I didn't have to wait for very long [other than for the actual appt...] and the doctors were very nice and actually spent time talking to me. Other than the "yeah ok you have diabetes... how are your numbers?? need refills??" in and out kind of visits. How refreshing. People that care. Feels good. I like.
My past endo visits have been less than thrilling to say the least and had left the office more frustrated than ever. I hadn't found an endo that I liked since I was first diagnosed at Children's Hospital in New Orleans. Geez. What a relief. I feel better just knowing that I like my doctors!
And right then and there they checked my HbA1c... only took 6 minutes. 6 freaking minutes can you believe that!? Even got all the bloodwork taken care of after talking with my new doc across the hall from the room. So simple. Except the girl who drew my blood was a newbie and pressed down a little too hard during the process... made me feel faint. But all is well. No fainting.
Aaaaand my A1c is down! Woohooo!! I've really been working hard on that and I think I would have gone crazy if it hadn't... even though I still don't believe in the complete accuracy of them [and you can read a prior post for why]. But still it gives me a major sense of accomplishment.
Dr. M also suggested that I go talk to a CDE about management since I've been having too many low's in the AM [because of the lantus I say...] so I'm obliging and going on Monday afternoon. I hope my insurance won't freak out about so many doctor's visits... I go back to see Dr. M in two months. Hopefully with less morning lows.

To tomorrow.

27 January 2009

Momma always said...

there'd be days like this... eat all your veggies... stop bugging your sister... go outside and play.
ok momma always said a lot of different things. as a future public health practitioner i must agree with all of the above. which brings me to my point. i'm taking a course this semester in which we've had two very interesting assignments so far. 1. track everything i consume for 2 weeks then analyze it. 2. track all physical activity for 1 week then analyze it. for those of us with diabetes we know how important physical activity is for management. i'm still in the middle of week 1 of assignment 2 but i get a lot of physical activity... not quite sure how to analyze it or change any behaviors that i already have. maybe i could buy that bike i've been thinking about??so as i was consuming my 100 calorie yoplait light vanilla yogurt [thanks assignment 1] the thought crossed my mind... what would i have to do to burn off these 100 calories... so i googled it. here are some very humorous and rather random things one could do to burn 100 calories:
-run a mile in 5 minutes [or less]
-jump rope for 9.5 minutes while humming the "Rocky" theme song
-play racquet ball for 7 minutes, 17 seconds
-play tennis for 9 minutes
-tread water for 14.5 minutes
-walk uphill for 13 minutes
-go two rounds with Mike Tyson [geez i thought it'd be less...]
-play half a period of hockey
-slow dance through 7 songs
-sip ice water all day long. 8 16- oz glasses of ice water raises your metabolism (the rate which your body burns calories) and burns an extra 100 calories.
-paint the house or clean gutters for 16 minutes
-shovel snow for 12 minutes [thank goodness i don't have to worry about that! maybe i could shovel sand....]
-push a pencil for 45 minutes
-type for 48 minutes
-jump up and down on the bed 1336 times
-do 97 pushups @ 10/minute
-plant 2 medium sized trees [does size really matter?!]
-do 146 crunches @ 15/minute
-ride your bike to work [as long as it takes about 20 minutes]
-man a sailboat for 26 minutes
-read the newspaper for about an hour
click the link on the first one for more ideas ;)
Good Housekeeping also had some ideas for those who keep good houses...
or you may prefer this quick 10-minute workout.

on another note... tomorrow in the AM is my first endo appointment here in Miami. It's at the DRI. I'm anxious to say the least because my last HbA1c was, well, not what i expected.

and stop biting your nails!

26 January 2009

Baby steps...

Some quick and exciting news on the stem cell research front ... to begin this summer in patients with spinal cord injuries...
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/23/stem.cell/index.html?iref=werecommend
This could lead to major developments for other injuries and conditions... like ::ahem:: diabetes. Could a cure be closer than we think?

21 January 2009

I know...

I've been M.I.A. in MIA... what can I say, I'm a busy lady. But in the midst of all the New Year commotion and new President excitement I saw a link to this article on PubMed from Children with Diabetes. It's a study of young children with Type 1 in which they were randomized to either be on the pump or a rigorous insulin regime [geez who isn't!?] and the results they found were rather... interesting.

Here's the link again in case it doesn't work:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=19140899

Loving the change.