Friday, April 26, 2024

morning numbers

blood sugar: 108 (thanks to fasting plus walking)
BP: 104/63 (sure to be way higher at the hospital, especially as the meds wear off)
weight: 113 kg (again, fasting)
pulse: 65 or 73 (BP cuff or oximeter; they always give different numbers)
pulse-ox: 99
estimated A1c since 4/15: 7.14

The A1c number is in no way accurate: at the hospital, when they do the blood work, it'll be much higher because A1c is a three-month average. The date of April 15 just happens to be when I started measuring my numbers in earnest again. Last time I had my A1c officially checked, I was at 10.2, which is scarily high (under 5.5 is ideal for normies; I've never been that low). In a few months, though, I ought to be in the 5 or 6 range.

So far this morning, I'm not feeling faint or woozy, so I should be able to survive into the afternoon with no problems. I'd been worried about taking my meds on an empty stomach, but truth be told, my stomach wasn't entirely empty: before midnight last night, I indulged in a mug of coffee with a ton of cream and some artificial sweetener.* Despite the sweetener and its BS/insulin spikes, I woke up to a blood-sugar reading of 108, which is a major step down from previous numbers.** That's definitely because I've started walking again. For the moment, these are relatively short walks of about two hours. At my currently slow speed, that's not even quite 8K in terms of distance. I just walk out to the Han River and back to my place. This weekend, I'll do my first long walk, maybe down to Bundang (18K).

__________

*The hospital said I needed to fast nine hours before coming. My appointment today is at 4:50 p.m., so I need to be at the hospital two hours earlier, i.e., by 2:50 p.m. I've had nothing since that coffee, so by 2:50 p.m. today, I'll have fasted at least 14 hours—more than enough time by hospital standards.

**From April 15: 

165 (4/15, then skipped a few days)
178 (4/18)
190 (4/19)
175 (4/20)
157 (4/21)
163 (4/22)
152 (4/23)
140 (4/24)
155 (4/25)
108 (4/26)

See the sudden drop at the end? That's fasting plus walking. I'll start eating again later today, so the number will go back up, but as you see from 4/15 to 4/25, there is a slight downward trend from 165 to 155. That's the important trend to note amidst all the fluctuations.



3 comments:

  1. Very impressive downward trend in blood glucose and BP in such a short amount of time. An A1C of 10 is scarily high, but now that you're on the mend, it will hopefully come down to your old post-stroke level of 5.5~6.5. Hope everything goes well at Samsung. Wouldn't worry about your walking pace. Slow and steady wins the race in terms of health. Keep us posted and keep walking.

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  2. Regarding the pre-bloodwork fasting, the last time I went in for that process and told them I hadn't eaten for 12 hours (I was instructed to fast for 8), they said I had OVER-fasted. I still have no idea if that's a thing; it doesn't make any logical sense to me.

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  3. I haven't been confronted by docs with the "overfasting" problem yet, but I do feel as if I may have overfasted this time around. I fasted all of Thursday until almost midnight, then drank some artificially sweetened coffee with cream, then had nothing until after my hospital appointment. So that's about 36 hours with only one mug of coffee—much longer than the 9 hours' fasting that the hospital asked for.

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