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Dustin's Numbers Update

Posted by Dustin...

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

Farmers Market

A few weekends ago Dustin and I went to the Gila Rivers Farmers Market with a dear friend of ours, Kim Brown, who is walking us through this Type 1 Diabetes journey. She has shared sooo much great information with us and has really been the main reason that we haven't starved to death. She has been more than willing to share with us how to shop, what new veggies we should try and has even shared with us some incredible recipes. Kim asked us if we wanted to go to the Farmers Market with her and her daughter and one of their friends, Melissa, who happened to be a photographer. Kim is in the process of documenting thier type 1 journey through pictures so that she can share her experience with others. And on this day, we were lucky enough to be with her and have our experience documented as well. We snagged up my cute little neice, Kaelin, from her parents so they could have a peaceful morning and headed to the farmers market.

Dustin and I got so much fabulous produce - and it was really the first time that we did the majority of our shopping at a farmers market. I wish I could share with you a picture of our fridge because it was STUFFED with veggies. All the processed and sugary garbage was gone - and the color green was exploding from every inch of our fridge!! Hope you enjoy these few pictures from our day. If you want to see more, just click here.







Oh yeah... just in case you can't see in the picture below, Kaelin is holding a piece of Spinach. She absolutely loved it and didn't let it go the entire day :o)

Teach Every Child About Food

Thanks to Living Without Type 1 for bringing this video to our attention!! Now its our chance to share it with all of you!!

Sounds familiar

http://greensmoothiesblog.com/

I guess we may be buying this DVD too... all this knowledge is keeping us on our toes, and rocking our world. Dustin's blood sugar levels have slowly begun to react to his dietary changes, and that is all we need to have the hope that this may actually work. There are moments when we think that taking the medication would be so much easier, but we know that God continues to provide us with this information so that we can make informed decisions about our health. We pray for discernment that we are making the right decisions in regards to our health, and that if we aren't making the best decision that it would be clear to us so we can start researching other options. But as for now, the correlations between health and food is the ONLY thing that is really making sense to either of us.

Food, Inc.

Monday night (which happened to be our 4 month anniversary), Dustin and I rode our bikes to Blockbuster and picked up a copy of Food, Inc. As you most likely know if you are reading this blog, Dustin was recently diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, and also learned that he was allergic to wheat and dairy among other things. Through a lot of research, we have learned that the correlation between Type 1 diabetes and food allergies, specifically wheat and dairy, is not all that rare. So we have been adjusting our diet... a lot!!

We have been told by lots of people since Dustin's diagnosis that we need to see Food, Inc. To be honest, I really didn't want to watch it after reading the book Skinny Bitch. I was afraid that it would show too much animal cruelty. Dustin didn't want to watch it because he was afraid that after watching it he might not want to eat meat any more, and that is one of the very few things he can still eat. But after spending some time with Kim Brown last week, we knew that we needed to get educated. And watching it was one of the BEST things that we have ever done. It connected so many dots between Dustin's diagnosis and the food that we eat. It really solidified for us how important it is to know where our food is coming from and what is in it (chemicals/hormones/pesticides/etc).

Here are some of the most interesting quotes and take aways from watching the movie...

• The average American eats over 200 pounds of meat a year.
• 70% of processed food have genetically modified.
• 1 in 3 Americans born after 2000 will contract early onset diabetes; Amond minorities, the rate will be 1 in 2.
• In 1972, the FDA conducted 50,000 food safety inspections. In 2006, the FDA conducted only 9,164.
• In 1998, the USDA implemented microbial testing for salmonella and E. coli 0157h7 so that if a plant repeatedly failed these tests, the USDA could shut down the plant. After being taken to court by the meat and poultry associations, the USDA no longer has that power.
  *** All facts from http://www.foodincmovie.com/img/downloads/Press_Materials.pdf>

I think that this movie really opened our eyes to how corrupt the FDA really is, and how important it is to take responsibility for our own health by knowing what we are REALLY putting into our bodies. It is absolutely sickening thinking of how many genetically modified (GMO) foods I have consumed in my lifetime, and I can only imagine what harm that has done to my body. I pray that my children will not have to worry about this, and we will live in a world where food companies and our government care more about our health than the bottom line.

I will leave you with this quote from Food, Inc.

“Imagine what it would be if, as a national policy, we said we would be only successful if we had fewer people going to the hospital next year than last year? The idea then would be to have such nutritionally dense, unadulterated food that people who ate it actually felt better, had more energy and weren’t sick as much… now, see, that’s a noble goal.”
-- Joel Salatin, owner/farmer of Polyface Farms in Virginia, which lets his livestock graze on grass, the way nature intended.

Numbers Update

Here is my latest graph. Note the last 4 days (great numbers). Click on image for a bigger view.

Something new we learned is that even though I'm on a really low dose of insulin, I can still get low! Leah and I were going out to dinner so I ate a light lunch (but not nothing, it was a pork/salsa/avocado medley). It did have low carbs. Before dinner I told her I could tell I was low and she told me to take my numbers = 67. I've never been that low! I was stoked! The fact that I was "too low" didn't scare me, because I could clearly feel I was low, so now I just know I have to have something to eat if I feel like that again. I have only been taking numbers after meals and waking, so I guess it never occured to me what numbers I was in between meals. It will be interesting ot get my HA1C numbers 2 months from now.

I met with the Endochronologist and he said everything looks great and he doesn't want to increase the insulin. He also said that "getting rid of milk and gluten in your diet at this point should have any affect, as it's too late". That was after I asked if he has heard of any studies where people have eliminated those too and the pancreas started generating insulin again. I'm not putting stock in what he said, but an interesting perspective.

That's all for now. We are meeting with our friends that we have never met, but that inspired us to start this diet Thursday and we are really excited! So far I've kept to the no gluten/barley/grain/cows milk and feel great. I'm deep enough now it doesn't even occur to me to give up.

Glucose Graph

Here is a screen shot of my (this is Dustin again, I know, crazy), glucose levels. Click on the graph for bigger view.

February 11th is the first day of Insulin. Notice the drastic change after I started shooting up. It shows you the average for each day as one point, so I may have been elevated after 1 meal but good waking or after the other meal, but it was averaged so appears less. Either way, I'm averaging 141 over the last 4 days, a significant drop. Whats cool is what's happened lately.... I haven't really told anyone, but I've been eating potatoes every day for the last 7 days, whether it's sweet potatoes fried, french fries, grilled sweet potatoes.... I've had potatoes every day for the last week. If you notice something weird, I've consistantly had the lowest levels over the last 7 days (bigger view below). It also appears that I am consistantly trending down (slowly but you can still see a trend). Also something crazy is after a meal with potatoes, I've never been above 140...... According to the old naturopath, foods with high glycemic index (potatoes are the highest) are the ones that should shoot me through the roof, so this is interesting that my body isn't reacting to them. It's nothing to celebrate about, but something I'm paying attention to, since its been 2 weeks now since I cut all potential toxic foods from my system.The docs said it could take 2 days to a month before I see a difference, and up to a year before my pancreas is 100%.


P.S. if you like seeing this stuff I can do it more often, just tell us, cause if no one cares then I'll stop updating.

Hey World!!!!

Hey world It's Dustin, I'm gonna do something that will blow your minds, write a post! Leah is asleep and I thought I'd give you all an update from my perspective. Here are my thoughts:

1) Insulin shots suck- Don't get me wrong, they are easy and pretty much pain free. In fact, for the first few days I looked forward to it. But now it's just a constant ball and chain, making me wonder what I will do when I go on a retreat with the guys in April, will I go in the bathroom to take the shots? Will I just do it in front of them? I'm a guy that loves to be free, and this is something that grounds me. I did find out that the insulin I am taking can actually not be refrigerated for almost 40 days when its being used, which makes me happy from a traveling perspective. Carrying a lunch pail on the plane just sounds daunting. Overall, taking the shots is a piece of cake but Leah is right, I am a pin cushion. I have no problem showing you all how easy it is to put your minds to rest!

2) I'm allergic to everything! I did get potatoes back, which was huge for me just to get some good carbs back, but by taking cows milk, wheat AND rice out of my diet, it's basically a crap shoot on what I will be able to eat. We went to Pita Jungle tonight, a healthy modern restaurant, and there were less than 5 things on the menu I could eat. There was 1 thing I could eat at a mexican joint the other day, and even then I had to ask for it with no corn salsa and no cheese. I'm much more motivated this time around, as this diet is to eliminate foods I'm allergic to in the chance that doing so I will stop my body from attacking itself and regenerate my insulin production. Previously, I was avoiding wheat but also carbs in general, trying to keep it below 30-50 grams a day! It was just insane. Frankly, I'll eat twigs and berries for the rest of my life if I find out it could cure my diabetes. I don't know how anyone could make the choice of eating anything they want but living with a potentially life threatening disease. I'd take a 1 in a million chance any day, even if it means doing this for a year with no results.

3) This new naturopath.... So as you know from Leah's previous post, we are going to see the daughter of a friend that actually cured diabetes! That's what I tell people at least, that I'm going to cure diabetes. That's how I see, it. If you can reverse Type I diabetes by just eliminating foods in your diet, why is there still Type I out there? Doesn't make sense to me why more people don't know about it. My plan is to fix myself, then tell the world. I keep telling people my goal is to be on Oprah in a year. Anyway, Kim (check out her blog), told us to see this naturopath then come see her so she could teach us how to live with the food adjustments. So I did. Kristi came with me, and thank God she did, cause I wouldn't have believed this treatment style if she wasn't there..... It was an acupuncture/energy test to pinpoint my nervous system which acts as a way to communicate to vital systems in the body. For example, when he pressed on an pressure point that was for the pancreas, it weakened my body, and when he pulled against my straightened hand that was once rigid and unmovable, he could easily move it with almost no force... It sounds strange, and believe me it was a bit strange to me, but it was cool too. He did this in a number of places to see which organs in my body were under stress (of course my pancreas was, but also my small intestines which makes sense with my stomach issues). So this continued until he got to the good part. He then "activated" my body so that if something was to come in range of it, it would also have the same affect. In other words, if he brought a vile of wheat over my chest, he was easily able to move my hand when 5 seconds before it was unmovable (I'm huge as you are all obviously aware...) He did this with a bunch of stuff, of which he found the following allergies

Wheat, Rice, Barley, Hops, Corn, Cows milk, Mercury and MSG

That about wraps up my eating career! Thanks for the great food dad, but its steak and potatoes from here out! Kidding. This was of course a good test from a holistic standpoint, but long term I'll get a thorough allergy test done to be sure on every thing (my previous test only tested a limited range of foods and only 1 strand of antibodiues. Good test have 500 foods and test 3 of the major antibodies that show food allergies).

Well that's about all my thoughts. Thought I'd get that off my chest.

Just to be clear, this isn't affecting me in any way other than my diet. It's actually making my stronger and giving me something to work towards, which I thrive on. Everyone has given me amazing support, most notably Leah who has been insanly supportive and helpful in this crazy time, so thank you! Don't be afraid to write or call with questions, because talking about it can be therapeutic - as apparently is writing about it :)

Oh and I just remembered, I got a call from my little brother's mom today. She told me he had a class asignment to write a paper about someone who inspires him... he wrote it about President Bush.... just kidding! He wrote it about me! That made my day! Have a good night

Dustin

Pin Cushion

This morning was the first time since *the first time* that I watched my dear hubby give himself an injection of insulin. I have tried to give him some space and privacy in this endeavor. After all, who wants your wife watching you do absolutely everything. But today I was walking out the door as he went to the kitchen to grab his insulin pen, and I asked if he minded if I watched. Of course, being the kind person he is, he said no. He makes the entire process look so easy and he doesn't even flinch when the needle pokes his skin. So of course, being the curious person that I am, I asked him if he still gets nervous. And he said yes. Then he went on to tell me that once in a while the injections still sting, and he thinks that those are the ones that you can still see the little marks from on his stomach **imagine at the same time that he is lifting up his shirt** And thats when I see it... about a half a dozen tiny red marks on his stomach. And then I realized... my husband is a pin cushion =( And this is the reason that we are on this journey to natural healing, because I pray for a day when he no longer has to give himself the injections, when we can get a blood test result and his A1C levels are normal.

As we are on this road to natural healing, I am learning more and more about how incredible our bodies are. And I am learning how distorted our society has become in our relationship to food. Food is no longer just about our need to nourish our bodies, it has become the way in which we entertain, a source of happiness, and a comfort. We have made food something that I don't believe it was ever intended for. Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely guilty of this! Although it is fun to sit around with friends and family over a nice meal and catch up, I am now often asking myself what is most important, the time spent with friend, or the food? And I ask this because for me and my husband food has become a challenge. Dustin grew up in a family where food is a central part of their daily lives. His dad is an amazing cook. He owned a restaurant and a catering company, and now just cooks his delicious foods for his family and friends. So to say that Dustin enjoys food is an understatement. He loves food!! He has grown up eating great food!! So this journey is rough, and brings us back to our relationship with food. What is food, and why do we need it? And this is what we must continue think about as we are on the road to make my hubby less like a pin cushion!!

Now... what to do with all those girl scout cookies I ordered two months ago?!?!?!

Talk to Everyone

My mom's theory through this entire Type 1 Journey has been TALK TO EVERYONE!! Her theory was tell everyone what we are going through in case someone has something incredible to share with us. We won't know if we don't keep seeking out the knowledge. In the beginning Dustin was a little hesitant about this, and I think this was mainly because the more we talked to everyone, the more it made this real. And that was a hard thing to accept.

A few weeks ago at our small church class at church they passed around a sign up sheet for various couples to stand at a table before each service to tell others about this awesome class that we are going to (I was going to do an entire post today on what we learned today about marriage, but this is too exciting that I am bursting at the seams to write this. So I will save that for another day). Dustin really wanted for us to sign up, and the first week that they asked for volunteers I told him "no" since we were so new to the class it wasn't quite yet in my comfort zone. But the following week they asked again for volunteers, Dustin asked me if I would be interested and I thought "what do we have to lose."

So we showed up early this morning and started talking with our small church leader. He asked what is going on in our lives and we shared our Type 1 Journey. He listened and then said.. "I have to get you connected to my daughter-in-law. My granddaughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in the last year. They met with one of the leading endocrinologists in the Valley and didn't want to accept that insulin was the only solution. Long story short, our granddaughter is now living without Type 1 diabetes and is the normal ranges for everything." As you can imagine our eyes lit up. He got us in touch with his daughter-in-law immediately by email, and a series of emails has gone back and forth all day. Can you believe her daughter is no creating normal levels of insulin on her own? She told us to get in touch with a certain doctor in the valley (a naturopath). She told us to immediately get an appointment with him, and then she would set up a time to talk with us about food and how to live this out in our day to day lives. We mentioned to her that we had already met with another naturopath, who will remain nameless, and she said that they also had talked to this individual and she was far to strict/radical for them. This again made us thing that there still may be another option!! In the meantime she recommended that we read Diabetic Solutions by Dr. Bernstein. A book that we purchased months ago and has been collecting dust on our bookshelf since. Isn't that embarrassing??

Over the past many months we have been praying for another solution. Praying for God to open a door if there is another route that he has intended for us to go on. We are not saying that this is in fact His plan for us, but we are excited that He has opened another door. We are willing to try anything to avoid being insulin dependent for the rest of our lives. We will be calling the doctor that she recommended first thing tomorrow. And if they are closed for the holiday we will call back again first thing on Tuesday!

If you are interested to read more about her journey, and the road she is traveling just go to her blog.

After the Doctors Appointment

Huge sigh of relief!! The doctor's appointment is over and it went far better than we were anticipating!! Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support! We felt an amazing amount of peace throughout this appointment (quite different than last week). My parents went with us so that they could be the extra ears and hear all of the information that we may forget and ask any questions that we may not have thought about.

Today we met with the diabetes educator, Margaret. We had a little bit of an inside scoop about Margaret, because the photographer that I work for (Cristi Owen) is also a registered dietitian and used to work with Margaret at Banner Baywood. Cristi couldn't have been more right about how sweet and knowledgeable Margaret is. we were told that our appointment would only be 30 minutes, and Margaret used a full hour to be very thorough in her description of everything that is going on, and spent a lot of time answer all of our questions.



So let me start giving you the information that I got from the diabetes educator and the doctor today:

Q. How often should Dustin check his blood glucose (BG) levels?
A. Dustin should check his BG levels at least twice a day. Once in the morning and once before dinner. It he wants he could add a third time, being before lunch. We shouldn't be surprised if the amount of times checking his BG levels increases as the years go on. This is normal.

Q. What are the BG levels that Dustin should be striving for?
A. Around 100 is what we are striving for at any point in time (give or take 20)

• 160 two hours after a meal is good
• 180 is a little high
• 200+ on a consistent basis means that we need to come back to the doctor and look at new treatment options
• When Dustin's levels are seriously high (i.e. above 250) we should stay away from vigorous exercise until they drop

Q. What kind of Insulin Injections will Dustin go on?
A. Levemir. His daily dosage is 12 units. Levemir is a synthetic insulin. Years ago they used to use animal insulin, but now it is mostly all synthetic. This means it is exactly like human insulin and has very few side effects

Q. What time will Dustin need to give himself the injection?
A. Dustin will need to give himself the injections in the morning. It needs to be at a consistent time. Always within an hour of the same time

Q. Why does Dustin need to give the injections in the abdomen?
A. This is because it will give the best and most even absorption. There is a small area on the back of the arm that you can also give the injection, but it is hard for a person to do that on their own without help.

Q. Where should Dustin store the insulin?
A. The insulin needs to be stored in a cool place, preferably the refrigerator. When traveling we will need to have a little cooler that we can carry everything with us.

Q. Tell me more about the injections?
A. The insulin is not stored in a typical looking syringe. They call it a little pen. It carries up to 300 units of insulin in it and has disposable needles. So the one pen will last us approximately 3 weeks. Dustin will need to prime the pen using 2 units of insulin and then inject 12 units of insulin daily. This is a VERY small dosage of insulin. To give you an idea, this pen can inject up to 80 units of insulin at one time. It is a very small needle, and very fine. They told him that it goes in gently (not like throwing darts). You would give it the same force that you would use with a pin to pop a balloon. Dustin gave himself one placebo injection and one real injection while we were there. The placebo injection hurt more because it was sugar water, and this burned a little. He said that although it wasn’t comfortable, pricking his finger to get his blood glucose levels hurt more.

Q. Can Dustin drink alcohol while on insulin?
A. You should limit your alcohol content while on insulin. Although many people don’t adhere to this, this is the best thing you can do for your body. He can have 2 drinks a day. And Margaret was quick to tell us that if you didn’t have your two drinks one day, you couldn’t save them for another day. Alcohol can lower your blood sugar levels, but you typically won’t see this happen until hours after you stop drinking. The liver does actually play a role in insulin production. But when you drink, it spend so much energy processing the alcohol that it stops helping the pancreas produce insulin. This is the reason he should limit his alcohol intake.

Q. What should Dustin' diet look like?
A. As most of you know we have been on a very strict diet the last six months as we have tried to manage this. The doctor, diabetes educator, and my friend who is a registered dietitian do not believe that this is a diet we should remain on. Dustin can consume 60-75 grams of carbohydrates per meal. He needs to be prudent with his fat content and have reasonable size servings of protein (i.e. not too much). Here are four things Margaret told us to remember in regards to his diet:

1. Be consistent with your meal routine. The time and volume of meals should be consistent day to day.
   
2. Be smart about your portion sizes.
   
3. Keep added sweets to a minimum. Sugar substitutes are fine. Coke Zero and sports drinks such as Propel and Power 0 are okay as well.
   
4. Keep down the fat in each meal

We will meet with Cristi Owen soon to learn more about diet!! Thank you Cristi!!

Q. What other things did we learn?
A. It is not uncommon to see wheat sensitivity and celiac disease with diabetes, because this is also an auto-immune disorder. We should continue to manage this as much as possible, while keeping up with the 60-75 grams of carbs per meal.

Many of you asked us why Dustin’s case was unique. Mainly this is because of his deficiency with his GAD antibodies (I still don’t understand this). And mostly the doctor said that Dustin is unique because he was able to manage to survive with almost no insulin production without being hospitalized. PRAISE GOD FOR THIS!!!!

Q. Whats the next step?
A. Back to the doctor in four weeks for our follow up and to see how Dustin’s body is reacting to the insulin. It is very likely that we will go up with insulin units at this time. He started Dustin on such a low level of insulin units because of the very strict diet that he has been adhering to. He didn’t want to shock Dustin’s system with the new treatment.


I hope that this is helpful and gives you all a little insight into our day!! Love you all very much and am so thankful for the support and help you have given us!!

Type 1

At 2:30 today we met with Dustin's endocrinologist. We made this appointment six months ago and have just been waiting for the day to arrive. It was a blessing that our appointment was today after finding out last Tuesday's news.

We knew that today would be a difficult day, but we in no way anticipated how hard hearing the news would actually be. We were very well prepared patients and took in with us a copy of Dustin's last three blood test results. We took a record of his blood sugar levels from the last several weeks and a food diary. The nurse was very impressed by our preparedness. And in fact this worked out well for us because they didn't need to take a baseline blood test and were able to make an official diagnosis right on the spot.

Short Story... Dustin is Type 1 Diabetic and will need to begin daily insulin injections as soon as we can meet with the diabetes educator (which will be next Wednesday)

Long Story... Dustin has lost 90-95% of his insulin production in the last six months. When we first began on this journey over six months ago his levels of insulin production were labeled as normal on his blood test. The blood work that he had completed just a few weeks ago came back with insulin levels that were undetectable. It is a little unique that Dustin has developed Type 1 Diabetes so late in his life. Technically speaking his doctor said that he isn't quite yet Type 1 Diabetic (I'm not sure the reasoning for this and will hopefully learn more on Wednesday), and would be officially classified as having Latent Autoimmune Diabetes of Adulthood (LADA). The doctor said that he was really shocked that Dustin hasn't been hospitalized as of yet, and said that this is most likely due to the strict diet that he has been keeping. We still have a ton of questions, so I'm sorry that I can't give you more information. But hopefully we will be finding out more very soon!

Please pray for strength during this difficult time. Although we knew that this was coming it still doesn't make it less difficult to hear.