The 31 Days of Blood Sugar Control

(28,29,30...as the case may be.Warning:the below post is about women stuff!!)

If you don't have diabetes, or much of a relationship with a PWD..you are probably laboring under the assumption that blood sugar control is easy. You are either "in" or "out." (Think Top Chef) This is an assumption that has permeated every inch of society, to the point where even educating those willing to learn TAKES YEARS for them to get.(Namely,that blood sugars are a living,fluid thing...not at all static and stuck on "104")

- you go low in the grocery store,a kind soul hands you a sugary drink..and assumes you are fragile,etc.

-you eat a brownie,spend the afternoon shoveling snow, drop to 42 and your relative just cannot understand why (or they get the idea that because you ate a bad food, THAT is why you had the low).

Head smack. I'm sure you get the idea. I have been thinking though,that for a women with t1 diabetes, control is a River in Egypt.(much like the Nile) Why is this, you may ask? Well,much of it has to do with that monthly inconvenience (or lack thereof) which means in addition to the meds/exercise/other illness/food/no sleep/etc. normal ness of life,you get to deal with some pretty potent hormones which (in a normal cycle) drop to "normal" on Day 1, go flat-lining along merrily to the middle of the month and then skyrocket for the later part of the month (as do the insulin needs.) That's how it is for many women,anyway. (Others will drop their bgs.)If you get pregnant,that progesterone kicks in like a son of a gun and you can expect to see more high blood sugars along with your Endocrinologist going a bit/lot psycho.(later,the drop comes) I think that's why I will never not have highs (and lows)..you can live a lifetime with diabetes and not figure it out. (I have a very non-predictable life.)It's not entirely bad though, estrogen protects against heart attacks and the like.(however much diabetes is messing with that) Life is pretty tough for a woman with diabetes(DON'T YOU DARE GET PREGNANT OR I WILL KILL YOU MYSELF) along with the daily highs and lows. Options exist to smooth out those hormones, but that comes with the potential side effects of strokes/heart attacks and the like but in the eyes of the Endo,still better then pregnancy. It almost makes a person want to have a voluntary hysterectomy. And I guess it is better to have those options not to get pregnant, but one has to wonder what 30 years of diabetes plus pill taking is going to wrack on the circulatory system. But for a women with T1, still easier then going through multiple pregnancies.
One's body is just not ones own..

and then you are violently thrown to the Diabetes Police,masquerading as Health Care Providers, the supposed experts...who have no clue what you are talking about/doing..you've just got to realize that you are not a textbook,they do not have Crystal Balls and the future is an open book. But yes, it gets scary, because you think they are talking about you. Long story short,blood sugar control is rarely "easy"...you are thinking 1,000 things to stabilize one deficient hormone.

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