Things we have learned about Diabetes this week

1. There are many vitamins and prescription drugs that will cause your blood glucose to become elevated. There are three that Jed has been taking: Niacin, Fish Oil and Beta Blockers(high blood pressure meds).

2. Splenda is NOT a complete sugar substitute.(k, that one is my fault for not reading the package) It is a mix of sugar and the fake stuff...but it does taste pretty good in homemade doughnuts!

3. The Diabetic drug that the Dr. put Jed can also be used for weight loss patients. Apparently it decreases appetite quite a bit.

Things we have learned about Diabetes

1. The normal blood glucose reading for a non diabetic is under 130. Jed's was at 283 when they tested him at the doctors office the first day.

2. Diabetics have the same risk for heart disease and heart attack as someone who has already had a heart attack.

3. Diabetes is caused by genetics. If you are a carrier, it doesn't matter if you are skinny or fat or healthy or unhealthy. You have the gene and you are at risk for developing the disease. Obviously, weight and an un-healthy lifestyle will lead you down that road much sooner than if you are healthy.

4. The effects of diabetes can be reversed with a healthy lifestyle and diet. You have to be very diligent about this, but it has been proven to disappear when you are strict about your diet and weight.

5. It is hard to cut sugar completely out of your diet. Foods you wouldn't even imagine haveing sugar in them do. Like turkey sausage...we thougt it would be more healthy than regular sausage, but it has sugar. So do cough syrup and cold medicines and yogurt.

Here's the scoop

The last couple of weeks have been rough. Jed was waiting for some blood work results to come in and it seemed like it took forever! After I pestered the lab manager at the hospital, we finally got the results faxed over to the Dr. office. Jed got a call from the Dr. office and they said his test results did not look good. They wanted him to come in and discuss them. Yikes! They hinted at diabetes. We had a long weekend wondering what was going to happen. How do you deal with a thing like that when you don't really know for sure how bad it is. We went in to the Dr. office on Tuesday to discuss the lab results. Yes he most definately has full blown diabetes. Double Yikes! We knew something was up. For about the last month or so, he has not been feeling well...unexplained weight loss, excessive thirst, excessive sweating, fatigue. The Dr. ordered a full range of tests. He thought it might be diabetes or cancer, is what he told Jed. I guess we'll take Diabetes over Cancer any day! Because Jed is on medication for high blood pressure and high cholesterol, the Dr. has been ordering blood tests every three months to see how those numbers look. They were able to see a huge change this last time. The good news is it was caught early. We have a lot to learn about the disease. Mostly though, it will be a huge change in diet. We have already started that change and it is kind of daunting. There are so many foods that you think are safe until you look at the labels and see sugar of some form in them. Jed said yesterday, he will just assume that if he doesn't prepare it himself from scratch, it has sugar in it. I guess this time when we say we are going to become more healthy and watch what we eat we'll actually do it. He doesn't have a choice. And this is a good wake up call for me as well. Here's to getting healthy!