Both from Roche
I would start eating low carb and test before and after meals for a while. When you get it under controll, you can test less.
I hate to test in the middle of the night myself.
I use this one: http://www.onetouch.com/onetouch-delica-lancing-device. Super tiny and doesn't hurt (even after using the same lancet for over 10 months....)
I went 24 years without testing. Well to be fair, when I was Dx'd there was only urine testing and it was awful so I do not think I can technically be blamed for not testing during that time. Ok, maybe I can be blamed. Anyway, i didn't test, I didn't care and maybe worse yet, I didn't get worse. So the beat went on. Oh yeah, I stopped seeing doctors as well. Not some doctors, all doctors. Didn't like em, didn't need em, didn't want them. So here is the deal things changed first by getting a doctor and then that doctor saying you know son (I was 41) you can't come here no more unless you test. Well i liked the doctor and my insulin was getting more difficult to get. So, I started testing. By then mild neuropathy, a little spot of blackness left eye, I'd say i was about where you are.
So I hung with the doctor, got better and eventually I started testing. I got my A1C down to 6.2 and it sometimes dips to 5.something. Anyway today I test at about 7 times per day and I see 16 doctors. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and that dark spot was called a floater. Not a big issue.
So get a doctor and start taking care, you deserve it.
Hit me up if I can help.
Rick Phillips
Rick
Oh Mutliclix, best thing ever. I love my multiclix a lot.
Hi
This is my first post too. I’ve been reading the forum a lot but never have post before.
I just read your history and I think I’ll share my experience. First excuse my English but I’m from Brasil and sometimes I make mistakes.
Well, I’ve been diagnostic with diabetic about 11 years ago. I was 34 and thinking of getting pregnant of my second child. It was really a surprise for me, because I don’t have other diabetics in the family and during my previous pregnancy (4 years before) I didn’t even had gestacional diabetic. Soon after the diagnose, I got pregnant and I really thought I lose my child. I had to learn how to manage insulin (nph by that time) and keep my glucose levels very stable. I was very careful and my baby and me were very good at time of the delivery.
After that, the diagnostic of type 1 took some time. To be really sincere I don’t even know if I’m not type 1,5. Here in Brasil the doctors put you in one of the two categories only (type 1 or type 2). My current doctor says that I have type 1 but in the beginning I was in the “honeymoon fase”.
But I have to confess that since then, I had many, many periods of time that I went completely crazy and act like I didn’t have diabetic at all. I lost weight during the months I didn’t take much insulin (just Lantus in the morning) and some days I went without any insulin at all. Just like you, I went weeks without metering my glucose levels and eating a lot of sugar and carbohydrates.
But the good news is in the very first day of this year I decided that I will have a long and healthy life, and I will do whatever it takes to keep my glucose levels under control. Since 1/1/2013, I’ve been testing about 8 to 12 times a day and using multiple doses of rapid insulin along with Lantus in the morning. In the beginning I thought I could not keep this pace, but as I was feeling better, with more energy during the day, getting less sick and mostly have a peace of mind, I just got used to it.
I put one rule to myself: If I want to eat anything, I have to test first and take a rapid insulin to compensate the carbs in that meal. When I test I program a alarm in my cellphone to remind me to test again in 2 hours.
That’s it! My last A1C was the best in these 11 years : 5.8 !!!! And I was so, so happy with myself and really think it worth all the trouble.
I just want to say to you that you can get in the habit of testing and it will be less bothering as you keep testing. I worths!!!!
Anyways… ending my intro: I want to change this. I am getting old enough that I start to worry about my future, my bodies future, and what I am doing to it.
In reading your post you have taken the right first step in saying “I want to change”. I think deciding you want to change is a major hurdle. YOU CAN DO IT!!
Hey Dave! I went through that incredibly lazy stage where I didn't want to do anything, I could careless but the fear of complications scared the crap out of me. I did eventually get on track and have gotten my A1c down from a 13.6 to a 9.9 in a little over a year. I know that's not great in many diabetic eyes but to me that was a huge leap towards something good. About a year ago I decided I needed a change of my care if I wanted to live a long happy life. I started by improving a little week by week if you jump into it too fast it will over whelm you and you will burn out. Week 1 pick one time a day like right after you wake up or before lunch and check your blood sugar at that time everyday for a week. the next week add another check and so on and so forth. during each weeks improvement make sure you log you blood sugar too. There are awesome apps and forms you can download here islog 1 one and here is anotherlog 2. When you log your blood sugars you can see improvements and things that need tweaking which you and your doctor can work out. At the end of six weeks you should be checking you bg's at least a consistent six times a day. I hope this helps.
What a great first post. Congratulations to you, Liaquila. I've never gotten below 6.1 (and that was with a lot of hypos).
And yes, you ARE worth it! :)
Liaquila - Great first post! Your story is inspiring. Please don't let your English stop you from posting more. It is completely understandable and does not interfere with your message, even a little. (I'm embarrassed to admit that I cannot say anything in Portuguese.)
Congrats on your 5.8% A1c! I know it's "just a number," but it is a concrete expression of all your hard work. Your successful pregnancy with diabetes is a powerful testament. Your "new years' resolution" to closely monitor and control your blood glucose levels is impressive. Congratulations on your new habit and I wish you the best of luck!
Ha! I WISH I could forget to test. My BG changes so rapidly I test around 25x/day. My suggestion would be to reward yourself with something small for testing 1-2x/day for say 3 days - a massage, a pedicure (lol), a $20 trinket? And buddy up with someone here so you have some accountability, someone you can get support from that you text with or talk to once a day. Good luck!
Sam - Great job in getting started in making improvements to your health. Just thinking about any large project tends to drain motivation. You were wise to break it down into smaller increments. You cut your A1c by 28%! That impresses me. Your continued efforts will surely reward you with feeling better overall and more day-to-day energy. Keep up the great work!
Not to hijack this thread…
But do you pay for your strips out of pocket? I would love to test that often!!! But my insurance won’t approve an Rx of more than 10x/day, and I’ve come close to running out a few times…
There’s already some fantastic advice on here, but I have a suggestion. Do you like or follow sports at all? You could think of your BGs like a stat sheet. For example, your pre- lunch BG is 120, so you think to yourself, well I want my post-lunch BG to be at least that good or better, so think of it like a game and if you get it right you’re beating the odds. You could even find someone on here to compare sugars to, not in a competitive way but more in the sense that you’re both trying to improve your stats by working with each other, training if you will, to beat the odds. That way it doesn’t feel like work, it just feels kind of like you’re checking the scores of your fantasy football team and it’s totally in your control to be the best you can. If you treat it more like checking scores than a chore you’ll be a lot more likely to be motivated to do it and to get your sugars where they should be. Good luck!
insurance pays for 600/month of the freestyle. I pay out of pocket for contour TS strips because they're pretty cheap online but they suck :/
Damn, who’s your insurance?? BCBS Illinois won’t pay for more than 300/month…
I had to get my doc to write a prior authorization, they only wanted to pay for 200 strips. I live in NYC so my health insurance is ridiculous
It might be that you have to feud with them. I've had 2x 45 minute conversations with their rep at the pharmacy company. The second, recently, she explained "if you have your doctor call us and tell us to make the request 'urgent', we can make it urgent" at which point I launched into a huge tirade about "why can't I make it urgent, I have about 5 strips/ day and the rx is 14. That sounds urgent to me. Do you know how dangerous it is to drive without testing your blood sugar (I had to ask this about 5x before Stephanie admitted that it is, in fact, dangerous to drive without testing your blood sugar...) and that I have to drive to go to work, if I drive through a crowd of toddlers and kill say half of them, I am certainly going to point a finger at HCSC and specifically your refusal to make my request "urgent. What do toddlers go for these days? Quite a bit I imagine.
It's sort of apples and oranges with the Pennsylvania electrocuted mom who got like $110 million but well, toddlers might be worth more... After ranting like this for a while, the rep eventually capitulated and, since she'd already told me the doctor's letter had been there since April 30, she agreed that they could "front" me a refill at Walgreens, rather than the mail/rx refill service so I did that and it was, in fact, for the full amount of 500/ month that the 14/ day RX provides. You have to stay on them and attack them viciously when you call them. I talked to one rep who assured me that "we can't do anything..." [while their stupid nurse reviews my $#!+...I also demanded the nurse's phone number about a dozen times, to keep the pressure on during the conversation..."who is this nurse I've never met...I know she's in Texas because y'all like to do business in 3rd world dictatorships like that place because thugs are running the government. Thank goodness I can sue you in good old Cook County, right here in Illinois...".
I work in insurance claims and have dealt with all sorts of insinuations of slack on my part because that can be an element of these claims. I get totally riled up about test strips and feel that it's critical to attack this issue. I have two attorneys in mind for a class action suit if they deny me, one buddy and one "good firm in Chicago" who did some interesting work on the 9-11 cases that made me respect them. To me, this would be an enormous case and, perhaps unusually, I could care less if I get any $$$ out of it, as long as the test strips are provided.
AR - I am just as sensitive to anyone that wants to limit my access to test strips. I once had my mail order firm call my doctor's office in an attempt to reduce my large order of test strips. Unfortunately for me, the doctor's office had a temporary nurse on duty that day. She agreed with the mail order phone caller that testing 4 times per day was good enough for me!
When I got the short order with a note in the box saying that this reduced quantity of strips was authorized by my doctor, I was ticked-off!
I called the pharmacy and talked to a clerk. I told her that I wanted to talk to the pharmacist that signed for my order. When the pharmacist came on, I asked her why on earth did they even find a need to call my doctor's office fishing for a reduction in strips? I told her that it's her job to fill the script as written. Only if the RX was illegible or if she knew that there was a drug interaction conflict did she have any reason to call my doctor.
Then I asked her a series of questions. When do you think I, as a Type 1 diabetic, should not test? Should I not test when I get up in the morning? Should I not test before I eat breakfast? Should I not test before I get in the car to go to work? Should I not test after eating to see the effect on my BG? Should I not test if I feel a little funny? Should I not test before I get in the car to drive home? How about when I pick up my four year old daughter? How about if I felt funny while I was working on a critical electronic component that helped keep a commercial airplane safely flying five miles in the air? What about when I'm sick?
I then told the pharmacist that I will not put up with any MBA-type attempt to save money cutting my strips. I asked her if she realized that a T1D could die from an insulin overdose? I got her name and pharmacist license number and told her that this short order needs to be made whole right now and if it was not then I would file a complaint with her state pharmacy board against her license for malpractice. She apologized and I received the missing test strips a a few days later.
We take a medication that can and does kill! Don't mess with my test strips!
I did a 3 way call with BCBS (first, to make them wait while I rounded up the other participants...), Walgreens and the doc. The doc was very cool to take an outofthebluecrazycallinthemiddleoftheday and it went like" BCBS "you can only have as many strips as the doctor rx's" So I then ask the doc "how many do you prescribe?" to which he replied "how many do you need?" "14/ day like your last rx they tried to trump with your prior 7/ day rx" doc "ok, he needs 14/ day" "ok, we'll approve the 14/ day..." me, to Walgreens..."when will they be ready?"
The insurance companies do so much baiting and switching with this stuff that it's really ludicrous and is one reason that I'd rather invest diabetes resources in fighting about this stuff (# of tests/ day...) than shoveling money into cures, although I'd like both.