Glucose Lowering Discovery

I'd been noticing the bottom of my toes were feeling a bit numb. 😳 A friend of mine told me how her brother developed diabetic neuropathy. Ack! 

I got this from the Johns Hopkins website:    

Diabetic polyneuropathy (DPN) affects multiple peripheral sensory and motor nerves that branch out from the spinal cord into the arms, hands, legs and feet. Typically, the longest nerves — those that extend from the spine to the feet — are affected the most.

I know that my fasting glucose levels had been rising in the last few years along with my A1c which is the average of 3 months of glucose measurements.

I went to see a substitute doctor because my regular doctor was not available. She did tests on my feet and fingers and told me I need to take diabetes seriously. 

OK... I realize my breakfast cereals were not the best. My nurse friend, Terry suggested I do overnight oats which she preferred. Oatmeal is OK... but I was rather liking the crunch (and OK...) sweetness of my morning cereal. 

Hooowever... I was willing to give it a try. I experimented a bit and came up with 1/2 cup of Old Fashioned oatmeal, 1 cup milk, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and some little cut up dried fruits (cranberries, apricots and prunes). I put them in a glass jar and it was ready for my morning breakfast. I didn't have to cook it. However, it still wasn't perfect so I started making it in the morning for the following breakfast. That worked best for me... and eventually, I didn't miss my cereals. 

So thank you, Terry. 😄

But all this wasn't enough. 

Confession: I haven't been exercising. That kind of stopped with the pandemic. I no longer went to Zumba because our teacher moved to Seattle. The other problem was our caretaking of mom as her dementia worsened. 

However... with Art's insistence that I resume our walks, I started giving mom her showers after dinner and we would take a 1 mile uphill walk. I knew mom wouldn't go out of the house with her nightgown. We also have great neighbors who would tell me if anything went awry.

We started walking in September.

According to the World Health Organization: "The expected values for normal fasting blood glucose concentration are between 70 mg/dL (3.9 mmol/L) and 100 mg/dL (5.6 mmol/L). When fasting blood glucose is between 100 to 125 mg/dL (5.6 to 6.9 mmol/L) changes in lifestyle and monitoring glycemia are recommended."

So you can see my glucose was NOT good. And it hasn't been good now for several years.

I kept a separate chart detailing what I ate and the glucose levels after 2 hours whenever I had a different meal. But the BIGGEST change was when we started that short 1 mile uphill walk. I also listed my glucose on my Fitbit app.

And even more telling was when I didn't get to walk for some reason (rain or whatever), the following morning's glucose level went up.

Walking in the morning when mom was at day care did not show the same results. 

I'll see my regular doctor next month and can't wait to show him my discovery and progress. Yay! 😁