Toward the end of January 208, I went to my general practitioner for my semi annual check up. I was feeling wonderful. The doctor checked my heart. He tapped and poked, and prodded me every which way but loose. He took the requisite blood to be tested. Of course being over the age of 45 I asked about all of the standard tests for prostate and colon cancer. The only thing that had my doctor concerned was that I had gained some weight. He said I needed to eat a bit less and the weight would come down. I left his office feeling pretty good.
A few days later I check my voicemail. There is a message from the doctor. He needed me to see me right away. Panic!!!! See me right away? That can not be good. My brain went right into the worst case scenario mode. By the time I got to his office I was a nervous wreck. With the sweat beading up on my brow I at and listened. "John, you have diabetes". What? I don't have cancer? Great.
Then my doctor said the first words that made me start to worry> "Don't worry". "all you have to do is take a little pill". "It'll lower your blood sugar". "Everything will be back to normal". He went on to explain that person's propensity for diabetes is genetic. Ok. I trusted my doctor. You know what I mean. He's the doctor. I'm the patient. He know best, right?
So like a dutiful patient I took the prescription to the pharmacy and filled. He prescribed "Glyburide". A little green pill that was going to make it all right. I took one the next morning before I went to work. Twenty minutes later I feel like hell. Unbeknownst to me the little green pill had lowered my blood glucose levels so low that I was having a hypoglycemic episode. This"hypo", as they are called, mad me feel horrible. Sweat pouring off of my head and feeling like it was sloshing around in a fishbowl. I figured this was just an early reaction. For the nest two days I felt like crap.
Then I started to do the research. I googled the medicine. I googled diabetes. I googled anything that I could think of that may be related to diabetes. That's when I started to learn about the adverse side effects. And sure enough what do I find? All of the bg lowering meds had terrible side effects. And what's on the top of the list? Heart related problems. Screeeech!! Hod up! Time out! Heart problems! Now I'm scared again just like I was when I got the first call.
The single most important thing yo need to do to begin to combat your diabetes diagnosis is to learn as much as possible about the ailment. For years all we know was that you would have to take insulin for the rest of your life. We didn't understand or were never taught what the early stages are. If your were told that you had cancer you would attack it with gusto. You would want to know all there is to know.What would your treatment options be? What were the contributing factors?
Next time I'll talk about how I began to turn it around. See you then.
