Yeek, almost 2 months since a blog. Well, part of that is due to falling into the twibes of Twitter, so you've seen my sidebar popping up and updating a few times a day.
I did check out of life for a bit, though. Deep details not important, but ongoing sleep problems became so severe I did actually agree to pursue pharmaceutical adjustments & some lifestyle management, and got medical leave from work for part of that. I'm now sleeping something close to a normal number of hours though not always at the right times, and waking up feels like digging myself up from underground some mornings, but it's getting better.
I had some unexpected results from this break and various therapies - some good: lost weight. Some not so much: despite weight loss and more exercise, my glucose control went bugfuck. I went from having reasonable, acceptable A1C readings to slightly high at the beginning of this, and I'm afraid to get tested now when my daily tests have been regularly pinging between 2 and 22. Yeesh. This led me to looking into a bunch of stuff, including how exercise can negatively affect (that is, raise) blood glucose values. The root cause is a good one, for a non-diabetic: you're metabolizing stored fats INTO glucose which is dumping into your bloodstream. But for a diabetic? It means instead of lowering blood glucose, you're raising it, and you need more insulin to metabolize it. I've got a grip now but for a few weeks I couldn't keep up with the whacky.
This whole thing renewed my interest in what's the latest and greatest with diabetes care, and following chatter led me to discover a couple of products I'm just jonesing to try, but dammitall - typically, they're available anywhere but Canada. Abbot Laboratories/Therasense, who manufacture the meters I have used since the Freestyle Track and Handspring Visor combo, has a wireless continuous glucose monitor known as the Navigator. And a new small player has made it past the FDA with an amazing development in insulin pumps known as the OmniPod. How brilliant would those two be in combo? Slap the Navigator on one arm, Pod on the other, strap the gizmos to the bike handlebars and ride all day.
My ultimate fantasy? Package those together, integrate the software with the iPod touch, and get it all linked to GlucoseBuddy and Livestrong.com to boot. Total metabolic management wherever you get your Wifi.
Unfortunately, I'm Canadian, and despite being a relatively well insured one - we're an afterthought market and our system doesn't keep pace with cutting edge development in these fields. I might be able to get a prescription for one of the tubes-and-belt-clips pumps we have approved - we have 3 on the market here, I think - but I can't see one of those surviving more than a week of my gym/outdoor/pool workouts. I'm so far just signing up for the companies' mailing lists and waiting for news.
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