Here is my virtual attempt to motivate myself and potentially help others learn about Type I diabetes as I continue my efforts to earn the elusive number for me at least of a 6 on my A1C. According to different research, keeping a journal of sorts helps you to stay honest and on target as well as be able to go back and look for patterns. This blog is that space for me. My commitment is to update my progress at least once a week. Right now my A1C is 8.7. It has been hovering in this range for almost over a year. I will be working with my nurse practitioner over the next month to do the 5 day CGM test to see what my night patterns are. I am also working on procuring a CGM as well. Currently, I wear an ANIMAS Ping . I love it and how liberating it makes me feel. But before I get into any more details about where I am right now, maybe I should share a little bit about how I got here.
Two years ago on my 38th birthday, I went in for my routine physical. At that time, I was working out by riding my bike everywhere and running up to five miles a day. I was in the best shape of my adult life. A week later, I was called back into the doctor's office because my sugars were 400 after a 16 hour fast. Plus my triglycerides were crazy. Weird, right? Her immediate thought was Type II diabetes. Her diagnosis began a long summer of treatments. I was unresponsive to all of the medications that she put me. These drugs are traditionally used to treat TYPE II diabetics and included glucophage, metformin, and glucotrol. My diet and exercise were not a problem either. My gp was astute to realize that my problem not something she could resolve and referred me to an endocrinologist. Based on my progress and response to these drugs, he was savvy enough to realize that my response to Type II diabetes therapy was not working. He tested me for the antibodies for TYPE I diabetes. The day before my 2nd nephew was born in August 2008, I received my diagnosis of TYPE I diabetes or Type 1.5 as he like to call it. It is also referred to as Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults (LADA). From that day forward, it has been my quest to learn as much as possible about the disease and work to get my A1C to a 6, the magic number. My goal is to hit my target before my nephew's 3rd birthday in August 2011 or sooner.
