Tin man, let us kn0w how you are doing. Chest pains, shortness of breath and very high blood sugars are nothing to play with!!! Has your blood sugar lowered at all? are you stil having the chest discomfort?
Praying fot you
god bless,
Brunetta
You have an unusually enlightened endo, guitarnut. Congratulations. I don't know whether you realize what a small minority he belongs to.
i completely agree with maurie. id be at that emergency room.
my thoughts are with you, let us know how youre doing! xoxo
Hi Tinman, Something is so wrong here. Your doctor is either very incompetent or he is trying to force you into accepting surgery by withholding appropriate treatment. If the latter is the case that's worse that incompetence, in my mind it is malpractice.
Everyone that has posted has given great advice, There is much more that can be done besides surgery. Surgery should be the last resort not the first option. I control my T2 with insulin. I was doing both long acting and mealtime insulin but now I pump. I tell you this because I want you to realize that high BG can be tamed.
If you are not seeing an endocrinologist I suggest you find a good one ASAP. It is important that you get your BG down. I have not seen your numbers in quite a while but I do remember how crappy I felt.
simply amazing. And these people are getting paid 6 figures for this ridiculous treatment...although the people that decided on your meal are probably getting paid much less. I would refuse to eat anything..do some intermittent fasting until you get home.
I would suggest educating yourself, reading every article you can find about diabetes and its treatment, and making your own decisions about the best way to treat this disease(or at least find a dr who cares). Clearly your current drs do not have your best interests in mind.
That's why I run, don't walk when I see something labelled "diabetic". Sounds like they didn't even get the "no sugar" right, which is usually the only concession they make. I do disagree with many that we should eat "high fat" which I see as an overreaction to the overemphasis on low fat (did that make sense?). To me, limiting fat, especially when overweight is good sense for anyone. However it's not "diabetic." I would never order the diabetic meal (the vegetarian meal is what I specify if I have a choice in meals as that's non-negotiable to me). And I would certainly never buy a diabetic cookbook. But then I wouldn't buy a "low carb cookbook" either.
Anyway - off the subject. Tinman, please keep us updated on your getting help with your D.
A great cookbook I found/bought was "The Sweet Life", by Sam Talbot. He's a trained chef and also a very health driven type 1 diabetic; has some great, very healthy dishes, vegetarian too.
I'm sorry to hear of all the difficulty you are having. As others have noted, you are being "mistreated," no bones about it. It is right that your doctor started you on insulin, but usually your doctor will jump you 10-20% after a couple days, you seem to have been spending more than a month adding two little units. And the ER seems to have failed to evaluate you for DKA, and instead worked you up for chest pains. Jeez, chest pains can be one of the symptoms of DKA.
Once your blood sugar has gotten way high like you have experienced, it will take more insulin to normalize things. It may take much more than 94 units a day. A competent doctor would have used a rapid insulin to start to bring you back to a normal blood sugar (you want to normalize blood sugar over a few weeks, not at once). And taking 1000 mg of metformin a day is barely a useful dose.
Sometimes, we just have to take the situation into our own hands and advocate on our own behalf. In the end, only you can save yourself.
I know that you don't want to hear this, but you are going to have to get back in the trenches and demand proper treatment. And that may well just mean going to see a different doctor, going to that doctor's office and camping out and being insistent. There are several endocrinologists in Pittsfield (see this and this) and it would be appropriate to contact one or all of them and ask for help. Don't hesitate to focus on your most serious symptoms, blood sugar way north of 300, sight problems, chest pains and anything else that suggests the symptoms of DKA. And tell them you went to the ER and they failed to treat blood sugars.
And hopefully, one of those endos will see you. My endo would probably see you that day. Even if you need to sit in a doctors office for hours, it will be worth it to get competent care. And competent care means that you should leave that doctors appointment with a "plan" to normalize your blood sugars. That should be a clear actionable plan to intensify treatment monitored every couple of days with the doctor. You should be on the phone with your doctors office every few days to start. And it may mean starting a second rapid insulin to get things back to normal.
And as a final suggestion, you can also enlist the local diabetes center to help you (the center also has an endo on staff). You can call them right up or just walk in. They may require a referral, but if you are denied diabetes assistance with a blood sugar over 300 mg/dl, those CDEs will cry foul and help you. They can help you call other doctors and advocate on your behalf. Sometimes they can say those magic words that can help you get the care that you need.
Excellent post, Brian. Tinman, please follow Brian's advice and get the help you need. There is lots of great support and information on here but you have to start by being seen by competent medical personnel. And you need to do it ASAP.
Tinman: I want to add a note of hope to all the "dire warnings" we've been giving you: Though it may seem overwhelming right now, many of us, both Type 1 and Type 2 have been where you're at now and we were able to move on to get into decent control and to integrate Diabetes management into our lives and even feel healthier! Right now you are feeling awful due to the constant highs, the cardiac symptoms and the anxiety. When your numbers start to come down you will feel better physically. Many of us also when we are high on a prolonged basis feel exhausted emotionally as well as physically. I'm someone who hates not feeling normal and I get depressed when I even have a cold. Depression, whether mild or clinical can lead to feeling overwhelmed and even hopeless, which in turn makes it hard to be motivated to do what you need to do. Those feelings will probably abate as well once your numbers start to come down, but if they don't don't hesitate to get support for that as well.
Brian thank you for all the information and links to the Doctors and local diabetes center my BG was 491 this morning I checked it on 3different machines. Called the diabetes center they put me on hold called my doctor and got the referral. I spoke with a lady named Hope she said they will get back to me and get me on a fast acing insulin and I should be able to Lower the Levemir down my vision is so bad right now so it’s hard to see the screen I LOVE THIS CHAT ROOM YOU ALL SAVED MY LIFE AND BRIAN IS AN ANGEL!!! My dad died a month ago from diabetes/kidney failure
Yay, great news, Tinman! So this Hope works for an endo who will take you on as a patient?
I'm terribly sorry about your dad. I'm so glad you're here with us and on your way to getting your D under control. Let us know how it goes!
So sorry to hear about your Dad Tinman, it must make all this even more frightening for you.
SO glad you found someone to deal with the high BG!!! Please, keep us posted.
Yeah, Brian is an angel ;)
I'm so sorry about your dad. I think many of us have been deeply touched by diabetes both our own and in those around us. I'm glad my post was helpful, it is good to know that we have made a difference. Please keep us up to date on how things are going.
I'm so glad that you were able to find help!
Tinman,
I can relate to you, my bg were always in the 300-600 range. I also had blurred vision, felt like garbage, My dr was treating me with Novolog, but only 10 units at dinner. My fasting bg was 550 almost every morning. I finally told my dr I wanted to go on the Pump.. He doesn't deal with the pump, so I went to an Endo, who taught me the correct way to carb count, gave me the correct insulin does with corrections and a sliding scale, and upped my Lantus at night. I can truly say that with all their help my sugars have returned to near normal levels, and with their help I was just approved for the pump. I missed a lunch meal one sunday and my sugars were 450.
Please keep us posted and Good Luck.
YOU NEED TO LOOKING IN TO A NEW DR ALSO TAKE ACTION IT IS YOUR LIFE I AM ON THE NEW V-GO TALK WITH YOUR DR ABOUT THAT.
I can't read this thread without shaking my head. My heart goes out to you. Just know that things will get better.
So happy you're shouting, Lucy?