New Blog

With the demise of Posterous thanks to the evil Twitter Corporation, I've been forced to find a new blog.

Blogger will have to do!

I've been wondering what to write about; my old blog had a lot of things about photography in it, but I haven't been doing any of that lately. But then I saw that next week is National Diabetes Week.

I'm gonna admit, I have no idea what that entails. Are there events? Fundraisers? Could be. But it's definitely on my radar more than it has ever been.

Let me share a little TMI with you.

So for a while, i'd been tired. I mean REALLY tired. Coming home from work and being in bed and asleep by 7pm tired. I'd been peeing like a pregnant woman. I could barely get through a movie; I'd go right before heading in and need to go as soon as I came out, even without a large icy cold coke going through me. And of course, I was super thirsty. I figured because I was actively trying to drink more water it was making me pee more, hence making me need to drink more... or something. And yes, a nagging little voice in the back of my head suggesting maybe it's my prostate. I mean, I shouldn't be getting up three or four times in the night, right?

I'd meant to go to the doc, and when I finally did it was about something else entirely, and I kind of forgot all that stuff while I was there. But she sent me off for a blood test, just to see if my cholesterol was a bit high, but I was a little surprised to get a call asking me to come in for another test. My blood sugar was nearly double what it should be. It might be diabetes.

Well, had I REALLY fasted that morning? Maybe I had a glass of cordial before heading to the doc; I hadn't intentionally fasted before the test, I just had run out of cereal so was going to grab something after. But I paid a visit to Dr Google, so I wasn't surprised to find the next result was even higher.

Anyhow, the doctor lady sent me off for the proper test (we did a standard blood test first, just in case, because 1 needle vs 3), and sure enough, BAM. I've got diabetes.

Was I overweight? Sure. I mean, not much, but just a little.
Did I eat crap food? Yep. But no worse than a lot of other people I know.

Anyhow, I very quickly changed my diet and when I went in for my diabetes appointment with the doc she was pleased to find my blood sugar where it should be, so we're controlling with diet. But now I have a little blood test device, have signed up with the National Diabetes Service Scheme, and am looking to avoid medication as long as possible.

Was it easy? Sugar withdrawals didn't help. But knowing what it can do. Increased risk of heart disease, blindness, losing feet. It ain't pretty. And I guess knowing what my symptoms were actually from was a relief somewhat. Especially now I know I can do something about it.

So now I'd say i'm at the normal level of tired after work, I can often sleep through the night, and in about a month I've actually lost 10kg, so my BMI is no longer overweight.

The bonus is, a diabetes diet isn't at all awful. In fact, I'd say it's nothing more than a standard healthy diet, with plenty of delicious food. I DO miss chips, Coke and indulging my sweet tooth, but I can still have treats, just not huge amounts.

So with National Diabetes Week looming, keep it in mind. Diabetes can creep up on you (especially when you don't know the symptoms), and as I'm finding, it's actually not that hard to eat well and hopefully avoid the entire situation to begin with.