I'll do this again tomorrow morning, but here are some numbers the morning before my seasonal hospital visit:
BP: 89/70 (kinda low; I did a double-take when I saw this)pulse: 68
estimated A1c: 7.33 (it'll probably be higher at the hospital)
weight: 113 kg (249.1 lbs.)
This was a bad period, made worse by my trip to the States. I initially tried to stay chaste in the America, but that went out the window quickly: I did a lot of random snacking, not to mention that I ate plenty of carby food, from bibimbap to gyros to Jamaican beef patties (twice) to Middle Eastern-style chicken with couscous to party-mix snacks to cookies and high-glycemic fruits like grapes (damn, those were good grapes). I'm not exactly sorry, even if the indulgence shortened my life even further ("Nothing can stop that now"—Vader), but I'm going to get a talking-to from the diabetes doc tomorrow. I don't mind the talking-to; I just don't want her to increase any of my medication. But I guess that's always been up to me, hasn't it?
As I've mentioned before, this is the first time that cardio and diabetes appointments aren't happening on the same day. I'm not sure how I feel about that. My cardio/stroke appointment is in July, so I'll have to do what I can, between now and then, to salvage my A1c. Last time the hospital checked, my A1c was at 7.2, so it's gone up slightly since then. Ideal A1c (glycated hemoglobin, a 3-month average of your blood sugar) should be below 5.7. Dr. Sten Ekberg is even stricter and says 5.5. I can conceivably get my blood sugar down to that level by July, but it's going to mean a lot of salad, a lot of fat and protein, and almost zero sugar. Not to mention a great deal more walking and exercising.
It never ends. Until the Moirai finally cut the thread of my life.
Good luck with the doctor visit. Yes, that low BP seems concerning. Once I was under 110 for a couple of visits, Dr. Jo reduced my meds by half. I'm back in the 120s now. Ashley, the manager of IDM, had what her husband called a "ministroke" yesterday, and the symptoms (numbness, inability to speak) only lasted an hour or so. He blames BP (in her case, high). I'm not sure what's going on...I'd never heard of a ministroke until Scott's, and now I know of four in the last month. Scary shit!
ReplyDeleteLast year, my buddy Mike had had a stroke that had some characteristics of a ministroke (TIA—transient ischemic attack). Then this thing happened with his wife right when they got back from England, and luckily, that proved to be just a BP fluctuation caused by dehydration, so I think she's okay now.
DeleteGood luck to all of the TIA people you know. I hope their meds and their new, healthier habits ("Stay away from X and Y; do more of A and B") will stand them all in good stead.