Almost time to go back home for my birthday and my brother’s wedding.  I will most likely not be blogging while I am up there.  I usually don’t have any time to sit down at the computer to even check my mail, because I am so busy visiting all my friends and family.

This visit is going to be even busier for the fact that I have my birthday, which is my nieces also, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, and then Eagles game on Sunday night.  I also have the worst headache I have ever experienced in my life, which I hope is not leading to something else, because that would just suck.

I have been checking my sugars more often today because of the headache, 6 times so far today, which is usually what I do in two days, even though I should be testing this often everyday!  I thought the headache would have went away AFTER all the donation collecting I have been doing the past couple of weeks for the ADA walk this past Saturday.  And the Eagles even won yesterday, so I don’t know what is causing the headache.

Speaking of the Eagles, yesterday before I went into the sports bar to watch the game, I tested my sugar and it read 545!!!!!  My girlfriend saw it and was very concerned and said we weren’t going to the game if that was my blood sugar.  I knew it couldn’t be right, I didn’t feel that high, so I tested again, 505!  Theres no way I kept saying, also nothing stops me from watching an Eagles game.  I pulled out the control solution, and that read well into the 400’s.

I then remembered that I left the strips in the car all day yesterday, and the heat must have affected the strips or the meter and the reading was way off.  Luckily, everything is back to normal now, and the blood sugars were back to normal readings after the game.

Ok, finally after all the talk of me saying that I am going to get my bloodwork done I am finally going to do it.  I set up an appointment for Monday morning.  The reason I set it at that time is because I thought I was getting the whole nine yards down and had to be fasting.  I had my doctor fax me over the script for the bloodwork and it was non-fasting only for my A1C.

She said that my lab results from May were excellent.  My cholestorol was a great number, but I still need to excercise a little bit more.  I am still a little worried about my A1C level though.  My blood sugars have been pretty good recently, just a few highs here and there, but overall, I am surprised by them.  I have to get a new data cable for my monitor because my log book has been…… missing in action I guess we could say.

I’ll update on my A1c number when I get the results back.  Wish me luck!

I am trying to update my blogroll, well actually create one.  If you would like to be added, please comment with the title of your blog and I will add you to it.  I know it may not be in everybody’s top priority to make it on my blogroll as it is with Kerri or Allison, but my goal is to one day be as great of bloggers as them.

Thanks.

Well my birthday is now 8 days away, I am flying home in 7 days, so I already know what is in my near future, not to mention my birthday is the day after Halloween.  Extra pounds and higher blood sugars.  As soon as I land all I think about is all of those small family own places that I ate at on weekly basis that I get to go to maybe 3 times a year now.  I over eat at them because I just want everything on the menu.

My birthday is shared with my soon to be 8 year old niece, so there will be ice cream cake and a big dinner.  The very next day is the rehearsal dinner for my brother’s wedding at Olive Garden, so thats an all you can eat never ending pasta bowl and salad.  We all know what happened last time I went there.

I am going to make myself test my sugar at least 10 times a day, I do not want any highs while I am home.  I am also supposed to get blood work done here before I go home, but I never have the time to anymore.  The only day I have the opportunity is on Sunday morning and they are closed that day.  Oh well, I will figure it out somehow.

I am excited to go back home though, the Philadelphia Eagles play the Dallas Cowboys that day, so that will be great to be watching that rivalry game with my fellow Eagles’ fans.

Have a great hump day everyday.

I came across this article online today from somewhere near my hometown back in Pennsylvania.  Halloween is coming up and good thing I didn’t have Diabetes back when I was going trick or treating, but it is an issue for a lot of people.  So, what do you do as a child with Diabetes and you get all dressed up, collect all this candy, and then…. what do you do?

A store in PA allows children to take their candy and bring it to their store and they will give them a free toy instead.  They should do this with every child, diabetic or not.  I am sure a lot of parents would love the fact of their young ones playing with a new free toy rather then being jacked up on sugar running around the house with their old toys.

This is a great sign though that large companies are looking out for diabetics.  I know when I go back home next week for  Halloween, my birthday, and my brothers wedding, all within 4 days, I will be intaking a lot of sugar.  I also know that my nieces who I will be taking trick or treating will be intaking a lot of sugar also, so maybe I should try this exchange program and try to lower their sugar high levels, and also cut my urge to be eating all of those wonderful pieces of sugar filled candy.

Growing up as a non-diabetic, Halloween was never an issue for me.  The only issue I had to deal with as a child was bringing the candy home and letting my dad inspect it to make sure that none of it was opened yet and none of it was poisoned.  Unfortunately, while that was going on, I had to go through him putting some to the side for himself also.

Be smart when you go trick or treating.

I must confess that I cheated myself on Wednesday night.  My girlfriend and her family were going to an all you can eat pizza buffet, which I LOVE their salad and their pizza.  I only do this once every few months, and I felt I deserved the chance to cheat.  I took A LOT of insulin.  Luckily, I covered all the carbs I ate, but my injection site where my pump was is now irritated because of all the insulin I took in such a quick time.

I had fun eating all the food and it tasted good and I was ready to deal with the consequences later and to my surprise, they weren’t that bad.  My blood sugar was hovering around 185 for a few hours, which was lower then I expected it to be.

It will be a long, long time before I do something like this again.  Here I am trying to lose 10 pounds by November 3rd and I’m eating all you can eat buffets.  I was so disciplined several months ago on my diet, by eating well and going to the gym, and now I am lazy again.  No renewed gym membership, no healthy eating.  I cook on the grill just about every night, so its not as bad as the fast food was, but still not the way I want to be eating.

Also, having 5 classes and a full time job doesn’t make it much easier when I have about 20 minutes to prepare and eat dinner.  I use to do some crunches and push-ups everytime a commercial comes on, which by the way is a great way to get in excercise when your just watching tv, but now I have to read all of my textbooks during that time.

I will get some good excercise tomorrow though since I am going to an ADA Walk in West Palm Beach, FL.  To any South Floridians who may be reading this, see you there!

So, I have been asking all around and trying to do research to find out what the effects of coffee are on my blood sugar levels.  Some people say it doesn’t make a difference, some people tell me that the caffeine slows down the insulin, so when you eat while drinking coffee it will raise your blood sugar.

Well, I did the best research that anybody can do, and testing my sugars intensively on different occasions.  First, I ate breakfast while drinking coffee.  The results, my blood sugar levels stayed consistent, consistently normal that is.

Second, I ate without drinking any coffee to see how my sugars reacted to no coffee in my system.  Same results, everything was normal.

I then decided to drink coffee and not eat anything at all.  Today was the last day I did that and was all the proof that I needed for myself.  Pre-coffee level was 96, which was as soon as I woke up and the coffee was brewing.  At about 9:30 I just tested again and my sugar was 246!  What the hell happened there.  I have only one logical reasoning here.

When I am drinking coffee by itself, I do not calculate the amount of carbs I am taking in correctly and I do not take enough insulin and it makes my sugar go high.  When I am eating, the calculations are more precise and my sugar levels do not go crazy on me.  So from now on, I need to know for sure exactly how much insulin I need to take.

I use sugar free creamer and 2 sweet n’ low per cup of coffee.  Maybe my problem is not considering the insulin I should be taking for the sweet n’ low, or should I be?

Ok, first off I want to thank Scott for the great advice.  I really appreciate it.  The thing is, I just bought for my first grill recently because of getting my first apartment.  So steak, chicken, hot dogs, and burgers have been my main meals.  I grilled out just about every night back at home in Pennsylvania, then I came down here and I grilled maybe once or twice in two years.  Now that I have the grill, its all I want to do.

So, because of Scott’s advice, I tried to lay off of the grilled food last night.  I tried the veggie meal.  Some nice veggie lasagna.  It probably was not as good as it would be from someone who actually knows how to make it, but anyway thats besides the point.  So here is the important part.

Pre-meal blood sugar level at about 7:30 was 144.  An hour after eating it was at 176.  I had a quick little snack, it was a high fiber snack, I couldn’t resist.  At around midnight I tested again and my blood sugar was 210, “How is that so?” Ok, so I will set the alarm for 3:30 a.m.  After getting my senses together once the alarm went off, I put the blood on the strip, and…….. 290!!  I was so tired, I calculated the insulin amount I needed and took the correction.  I woke up and was 114 at 7:30 a.m.

So, once again I’m back to asking myself, “What the hell is going on at night?”  Even though I barely get a good night’s sleep now as it is, I will have to continually start to test throughout the night for several weeks until I figure this thing out.

Once again, thank you Scott for your advice, I’m open to all the help possible.

The past few mornings have not been good for my blood sugar levels.  Sunday morning, I woke up and tested at 242, Monday was 212, Tuesday was about 250, and then this morning it was at 361.  This morning’s I can understand a little because when I went to bed it was 272, but I took some insulin to cover it.

On Monday night for example, it was 74 when I went to  bed, so I took a little snack and bam I wake up at about 250.  I know I should be waking up at like 3 in the morning to see where I am at, but I don’t really want to wake up at that time when I just went to bed 3 hours earlier and have to get up in 3 1/2 hours after that.

I know there has to be a cause for it, so I will start to set an alarm to wake up at that time and test, because something is obviously wrong with the basal rate that is set for the middle of the night.  When I first set them, we were a little cautious with them, because my doctor would rather me be a little high through the night than get a low in the middle of the night.  I have adjusted them up a little bit, but not too much.  I think it may be time to make a larger adjustment to the basal rate.

I see my doctor/educator in less than a month, so hopefully I have some good numbers for her for us to discuss these crazy levels.  Have a wonderful Wednesday everybody!

Ok this I am really going to get my A1C test.  I was scheduled to do it in mid-August and I still haven’t.  I’ve been testing my sugar a little better, but still am not getting the bloodwork done as often as I should be.

When I go home for my brother’s wedding at the end of October, I plan on seeing my endo and my educator.  Whom by the way is the best and I nominated her for the educator of the year award.  I am also going to try and get an eye doctor appointment also.

That also reminds me that I need to find a local endo down here since I now have an apartment and live down here.  My mom works at the hospital back up north so she knew the doctor personally, so I was not worried about if he was good or not.  Now, I have to make this decision based on my own research on the doctors.

On another non-diabetic note, this rain in South Florida needs to stop.  There has been one sunny day in like 2-3 weels.  I moved down here so I can go to the beach and pool all year round.  I’m not paying a higher cost of living to just sit inside all day.  Rain, rain go away.