Well, it's been a year now since I got diagnosed with T2 diabetes, and what a year it's been! I started off with my A1C at 12.1. Metformin brought me down so fast that I had major problems with hypoglycemia even on a baby dose of 250 mg once daily, so I tried glimepiride. Same problem even on 0.5 mg once daily; as my diabetic educator phrases it, all you have to do is wave these meds in front of my face and I over-respond! I tried going off meds completely, but even though I was very strict with low carbs my blood glucose kept creeping up into levels that are unacceptable.
I've been on a baby dose of Januvia, just 25 mg a day, since the beginning of February and it's working out well, yay! I am currently unable to exercise due to a shoulder injury in November and developing 2 bone spurs in one of my feet, so diet and meds are my only methods of control. Last week my A1C was tested at 6.4 even though I had a corticosteroid injection into my shoulder that sent me into the 200s to 300s range for about
a week. I know I'll get it even lower, but it might take some time. I need to eat every 3 hours to keep things steady; when I was having all the low blood sugar issues I needed a snack in the middle of the night around 3 AM, but now I usually don't need one.
It was a challenge to completely change my diet without blowing the food budget through the roof, but through trial and some errors, I've managed to do so. Reading nutrition labels and counting carbs has become a solid habit that I know I can do for the rest of my life, and I'm a lot faster at it now than I was a year ago!
I'm having shoulder surgery in 2 weeks, and from what I've read, I can expect that to shoot up my levels, possibly even more than the injection did. For some reason the hyperglycemia always freaks me out a bit more than the hypoglycemia; I know hypoglycemia can be very dangerous and I've been lucky to (as far as I know) drop no lower than 45. Maybe it's because I can quickly reverse it and I can NOT quickly reverse hyperglycemia.
Anyway, that's what my first year of dealing with this condition has been like!
BooPuppy
