Gary_W
03-01-2007, 02:38 PM
Evening all,
I had a clinic appointment today. It was my first one with a 'DAFNE' nurse since I discovered by accident all of the information that I really should have known years ago.
Anyway, before my accidental discovery, my HBA1c was 8.1, and that didn't tell the whole story. If you take into account the number of evil hypos I had then you can only guess at the horrible highs. My life stank healthwise.
My big mistake was not using the Internet for healthcare advice. I had assumed that the doctors would be far better. Indeed, I was told that the 8.1 was 'not too bad at all, we like to keep them under 8 if we can'.
Anyway, since getting the basics right (correct basal settings, actually knowing that there is a correlation between carbs and insulin as opposed to taking a guess, not overcorrecting hypos) I have been feeling a million dollars.
My HBA1c was down to 6.5 today. I expected it to be lower, but then remembered it averages over 3 months, and the first of those was horrible. I recon if I got tested in 4 weeks time it would be under 6; my Ultrasmart tells me I've averaged 5.5 for the last 2 weeks. For the whole of December, I averaged 9.2 on the Ultrasmart, so you can see what has helped skew the HBA1c up a little.
The nurse was very nice indeed, and I did learn a couple more things. But I just want to say thank you to the community here, as, unfortunately, I've had to get an awful lot of the info from you guys as opposed to the healthcare system.
It makes me very cross that a lot of people can fall through the net like that. I'm an intelligent bloke (he says with trumpet blowing loudly), as can clearly be seen by the rapid turnaround in my health once I got some of the facts straight. I've got a reasonable grounding in biology, am self-motivated and fairly honest with myself. How does your average self-deluding individual ever get themself right if the standard of education is that low?
Had I seen this particular nurse in the first place, the last few years of my life would have been a lot more pleasant. She was appalled at the info I had been given (or lack thereof). There are only a couple of nurses there that have the DAFNE training, and I'd never seen one before. Consultant visits had invariably been with a junior who had his 3 month rotation in the diabetic centre before moving on...
I'm very glad to be seeing her now as at last I feel I can get somewhere with healthcare advice on a 1 to 1 basis, and that is something that has been missing until now. I still think that the community here is going to be vital for my overall health, as there are lots of things I've picked up on here that she did not agree with / didn't know about which I've already found out are correct. For instance, I asked her how to judge bolus doses for protein and she said that you needed zero insulin for protein. You guys and the large steak I had 2 days ago tell me a different story :D
FWIW, the nurse said she'd never seen an HBA1c that low. And she wasn't just saying that to make me feel good; it was a really rare thing for her. I guess that speaks volumes for the fact that I'm not the only one locally that has had problems from an educational point of view. Don't get me wrong, I was really happy with it having come down this far this quick but I know that 6.5 is still not what I'd call ideal. I didn't think it would win me a medal...
She's also given me a doctors letter to change over to Levemir from the Lantus that I'm currently on, but that's a whole other thread. Still considering what to do with that one for reasons I'll explain elsewhere when my typing fingers come back :)
Gary
I had a clinic appointment today. It was my first one with a 'DAFNE' nurse since I discovered by accident all of the information that I really should have known years ago.
Anyway, before my accidental discovery, my HBA1c was 8.1, and that didn't tell the whole story. If you take into account the number of evil hypos I had then you can only guess at the horrible highs. My life stank healthwise.
My big mistake was not using the Internet for healthcare advice. I had assumed that the doctors would be far better. Indeed, I was told that the 8.1 was 'not too bad at all, we like to keep them under 8 if we can'.
Anyway, since getting the basics right (correct basal settings, actually knowing that there is a correlation between carbs and insulin as opposed to taking a guess, not overcorrecting hypos) I have been feeling a million dollars.
My HBA1c was down to 6.5 today. I expected it to be lower, but then remembered it averages over 3 months, and the first of those was horrible. I recon if I got tested in 4 weeks time it would be under 6; my Ultrasmart tells me I've averaged 5.5 for the last 2 weeks. For the whole of December, I averaged 9.2 on the Ultrasmart, so you can see what has helped skew the HBA1c up a little.
The nurse was very nice indeed, and I did learn a couple more things. But I just want to say thank you to the community here, as, unfortunately, I've had to get an awful lot of the info from you guys as opposed to the healthcare system.
It makes me very cross that a lot of people can fall through the net like that. I'm an intelligent bloke (he says with trumpet blowing loudly), as can clearly be seen by the rapid turnaround in my health once I got some of the facts straight. I've got a reasonable grounding in biology, am self-motivated and fairly honest with myself. How does your average self-deluding individual ever get themself right if the standard of education is that low?
Had I seen this particular nurse in the first place, the last few years of my life would have been a lot more pleasant. She was appalled at the info I had been given (or lack thereof). There are only a couple of nurses there that have the DAFNE training, and I'd never seen one before. Consultant visits had invariably been with a junior who had his 3 month rotation in the diabetic centre before moving on...
I'm very glad to be seeing her now as at last I feel I can get somewhere with healthcare advice on a 1 to 1 basis, and that is something that has been missing until now. I still think that the community here is going to be vital for my overall health, as there are lots of things I've picked up on here that she did not agree with / didn't know about which I've already found out are correct. For instance, I asked her how to judge bolus doses for protein and she said that you needed zero insulin for protein. You guys and the large steak I had 2 days ago tell me a different story :D
FWIW, the nurse said she'd never seen an HBA1c that low. And she wasn't just saying that to make me feel good; it was a really rare thing for her. I guess that speaks volumes for the fact that I'm not the only one locally that has had problems from an educational point of view. Don't get me wrong, I was really happy with it having come down this far this quick but I know that 6.5 is still not what I'd call ideal. I didn't think it would win me a medal...
She's also given me a doctors letter to change over to Levemir from the Lantus that I'm currently on, but that's a whole other thread. Still considering what to do with that one for reasons I'll explain elsewhere when my typing fingers come back :)
Gary