Hands

Ok so I have had poorly controlled diabetes for 20 years. I am working on that.

It is not that often that I wake up with a "normal" blood sugar but when I do my hands are numb. This doesn't happen when my bgs are higher. I would have thought it would be the other way round. Also if I have a "normal" bg during the day and I do a bit of knitting my hands go numb - or more pins and needles really. I wonder if this will resolve itself once my bgs are always lower - if that ever happens!

On a similar note, my trigger finger and thumb appear to be resolving themselves without having the operation.

Back on the horse

Hi everyone,

It has been a while since I posted and that was a bit sporadic but I am getting back on the horse and giving it all another go, the blogging and the diabetes control! I was surprised to see that I have actually posted 27 times to this blog since I started it, i thought it was less than 10 (how the mind can fool us!) and that the blog has received over 1000 hits. I'm sure that is because it is linked to diabetes daily.

Anyway, to catch up on things chez Dee...........

The husband is doing very well, we have everything crossed that the tumour is a minor blip and that he will have no further problems. He is being kept an eye on with scans every 3 months so anything untoward will be dealt with quickly if needs be. But he is his normal self, and basically life is carrying on as if nothing ever happened which is great.

Sadly we lost our gorgeous dog in October but on 30th December we went out and bought a West Highland Terrier puppy and called him Charlie. Here he is at 14 weeks old. He is very cute but can have his moments and last week he nearly drove me to distraction. We are starting to do a bit of training with him now and I think he is starting to get the hang of it!!

On the diabetes front............... my HbA1c climbed to 11.5!! I was due to have an operation on my hands on 11th January but when I went in, they refused to do it because the blood sugars were so high and if I had got an infection it would have been really nasty. Also the healing wouldn't have been as quick. So my diabetes consultant decided it was time I went in and spent a few days in hospital so they could sort me out!! I spent 4 days in, while my basals were checked and I bolused correctly for carbs and the upshot was that my basals were pretty much correct, and that it is all the messing about with the bolusing that i do that was the problem. I am now paying privately for a psychologist (the hospital couldn't provide one on the NHS) and yesterday we really made some progress. I really need to do this because my consultant is threatening to take me off the pump if I don't improve my HbA1c, because it was actually lower on MDI - 9.9 before the pump.

Anyway this mornong I was woken by a hypo of 3.7 (66) and didn't panic. I had a couple of glucotabs and a biscuit and an hour later was at 7.3 (131).

So I am going to use this blog to chart how I get on. I still think I want to have a baby but I'm 40 in August so there's a hell of a lot to do if that is going to ever happen.

I hope some of my previous readers are still out there, I'd love to hear any comments or suggestions you may have for me.

Thanks for reading,
Dee

Ulgh, where does the time go.

Well circumstances have gotten in the way a bit lately and so I have had to postpone my operation for a month. I will now be going on 28th September. At least it is not something urgent that needs to be sorted out. And I'm only getting it done so that I can knit again!!

My husband is currently having some tests which are a bit scary and have taken up a lot of our thinking time, hence the blogging break. Hopefully we will be getting some good news on that front at the end of the week. Can't say anymore until then.

Date for my op

I am going in to have my trigger finger and thumb op on 29th August. I don't know if they are doing them one at a time or both on the same day. Hopefully it will sort out my problem though and I can get a bit of knitting done soon.

appointment and basal checking

I have an appointment for a pre-op assessment on my trigger thumb/finger on 9th August.

Last night I did some basal testing again because I will probably get a call from the pump nurse soon. Somehow I'd managed to get it down to 7.8 (140) before bed so I went for it. So..

11.00pm - 7.8 (140)
1.30am - 7.4 (133)
3.15am - 6.6 (118)
6.00am - 7.7 (138)
7.30am - 7.0 (126)

Pretty consistent I reckon. After breakfast it was 18.6 (335) - eerrrrrrrrrrr??????? But it dropped to 8.3 (149) by 12.00 noon. Incorrect bolusing again.

hands and floods

I went to the physio yesterday about my hands. I have been referred on now to the orthopaedic surgeons. So I have another wait for another appointment. The physio thinks that the little finger would respond to a steroid injection but that the high blood sugars that I run would make them think twice about giving it because it can raise the bgs even higher causing ketosis. The thumb however, will probably need surgery. Hmmm. It will be a day procedure if it happens though.

I have decided that I would probably go completely to pieces in a natural disaster. In the UK we have been having some dreadful flooding and on Friday we were almost caught in it. We were travelling down the country to visit a friend and about half way we got involved in the flooding. Luckily we turned around and headed back home before it got too bad, but the area where we were is now completely cut off. While we were in it, I got in a right old panic, and felt trapped in the car, with visions of going hypo and passing out and emergency vehicles not being able to get to me! I didn't tell my husband it was this bad but looking at my face told him enough to turn the car round. Just imagine if I actually had been cut off, what a state I would have been in. We are lucky really here in that we don't get massive extremes of weather like other places in the world, but with global warming it is only going to get worse.

Or is this just a case of me worrying about something else that probably will never happen to me?

Numb - part 2

So I went to see the GP this morning about my numbness. He had a feel around of my neck and face, and looked in my ears, eyes and throat. I then had to close my eyes and tell him if I could feel when he touched my face, first with a soft brush and then with a sharp point. Yes I could. He said that it could be an irritated nerve to my face, possibly neuropathy. Ulgh, here we go. Anyway, he said I could think about an MRI but that he didn't think I needed that at this point, and also some neuro tests at the hospital. But to give it a couple of weeks and see if it is still there, or worse, or whatever.

Next Monday I have to go to the hospital to the physio department to let them have a look at my trigger finger & thumb. I am an avid knitter and thought I had some kind of RSI from doing too much, but it is actually trigger finger probably exacerbated by the knitting. I cannot bend my left thumb or right little finger. So physio are going to take a look and then see if I need to see the ortho surgeon. I had it in my left little finger about 5 years ago which went off by itself, but I'm too keen to get back to knitting to wait this time. I haven't been allowed to knit at all for at least a month, it's driving me nuts.

Well, this weekend, my bgs haven't been great and my 7 day average has crept back up to 11.3 (203). And (whispers!) I had a 21 (378) earlier today. I think I need to take a bigger amount of bolus up front with breakfast, because even though porridge is supposed to be low GI it actually raises my sugars quite quick. I am also pre-menstrual which raises my sugars too.

PS Chrissie from Belgium - I will email you a response to your "rumblings" comment.