Since you all don't pay attention to Facebook, you may not know that today I received my Hemaglobin A1C and I have gotten back down to 5.5, from 8.9 this January. Although that sounds amazing, it was the level I was right before the wedding, so I have seen this number before. What makes me happy was the C-Peptide value of 1.3 (within the normal range of 1.1-4.4). C-Peptide is produced during insulin production from the pancreas, and thus can be a good metric on insulin production for those that artificially inject insulin (C-Peptide isn't present in synthetic insulin). What does this mean? I'm back! Well, my pancreas is. Although it's on the lower side of the scale, its still in the "normal" range, and given that I eat very few Carbs, it makes sense that I would be on the low side. Unfortunately, the Endocrinologist stomped on my hopes when I showed him the results from a recent study.... This is typical of them, who for some reason counter all engineering logic, where if even a glimpse of a solution exists, you pursue it until you prove it doesn't. Modern medicine seems to only test if someone is funding it, and believe it only if it exists in a medical journal. I've been holding out posting the results of thes study until I met with him (to update on the A1C at the same time)....
Leah, the engineer by heart, thought of the idea to monitor my glucose levels every hour to see what's really going on with my numbers, as I have had vastly variable results by only taking numbers 2 hours after eating. I also thought it would be cool to see it every half hour, and to see what would happen if I tested if for a few days while taking insulin once each morning, and not taking it at all. The results area amazing! Take a look:
click on Image for larger view
This graph essentially shows that after a meal, I will shoot up to as high as 170, then come down to ~100 by 3 hours after the meal. This is still not good, and after today I will begin taking meal time insulin to control these spikes. (Side Note: The doctor didn't necessarily recommend meal time insulin, but we more or less asked for it. I believe that if I can give my pancreas even more rest my insulin production will go up even more!!) The cool thing is what happened when I stopped taking insulin:
Click on Image for larger view
The results are almost identical for with and without insulin (with in blue, without in Red). What this means is that unlike this January, where I would eat carbs and wouldn't ever come down from ~300, now I spike up but my insulin is able to produce enough to keep me within control. Again, this doesn't mean all is well, we still need to figure out why I spike, which part of me wonders if I'm insulin resistant, but that's what we need to figure out in the next few months.
Let me know if you have questions. Love you all
Dustin
Wow this is really interesting! Have you discovering anything else lately? Mom
ReplyDelete