Saturday, September 15, 2012

what i have learned about diagnosing diabetes- mostly thx to jenny


this is what i have learned:

1. test your blood glucose with the most accurate meter you can get. in the diabetes solution book dr. bernstein doesn't recommend a meter since he says the technology is always improving. dr. bernsten says in the book to call his office and his secretary will tell you what they are currently recommending. his number is: 914 698 7525. as of now his secretary says he recommends the accuchek viva. so the strips are a little expensive. nov 2011 consumer reports mag also lists this meter as one of the most accurate. could be 15 point off in either direction and this is the most accurate!!! that means a reading of 85 might mean anything from 70 to 100. so you want to shoot for 85 because 70 to 100 is the healthiest range we can shoot for with the current technological accuracy of meters.

2. don't share a meter with someone- you never know if they have a blood borne disease and you don't know if you sterilized the meter/lancer well enough. i'm on the careful side and i can afford an $18 meter for peace of mind.

3. realize plenty of people can have a normal fasting glucose but also have high, even damaging post prandial blood glucose numbers that they don't even know about. don't just depend of the fasting glucose test.

4. don't just depend of the A1c test either since it is an average of blood glucose levels and doesn't reflect spikes. it is years of blood sugar spiking over i believe 140 which damages organs. my mom has delayed stomach emptying since her vagus nerve has been damaged by high blood sugars. that makes taking insulin even harder for her- she has to be careful not to give herself too which would risk life threatening low blood sugar.

5. if your numbers look good on fasting blood glucose, the A1c, and your do-it-yourself post eating testing, you still need to test how much insulin your pancreas is pumping out. maybe you have good numbers because of a massive amount of insulin your pancreas has to put out because you are insulin resistant. professor de vany recommends the fasting insulin test. i have seen the c peptide test recommended by bernstein for this. i don't know if one is better than the other or not. hence the title of this thread.

6. here is the kicker for me. if you only get the fasting insulin test that professor devany recommends- it still may not be revealing enough. professor de vany says a low fasting insulin result means you are insulin sensitive. but what if you have a low level of fasting insulin because your pancreas for whatever reason ( like auto immune disease casuing beta cells to be destroyed as in LADA; beta cell burn out)is not pumping out sufficient insulin? then a low fasting insulin level can be a sign of disease. on the NMR lipoprofile test i got an insulin resistance score of 2. that means i'm not insulin resistant. i should be putting up great post prandial numbers if i am that insulin sensitive, shouldn't i? my lipid numbers are all excellent and not indicative of insulin resistance. so in that case, more extensive testing needs to be done. now i have to go around begging medical professionals for GAD antibody tests.

- i'm laying this all out so that if anyone sees any flaws in my logic that can point it out to me as andrew has been. it would make my life easier to be proven wrong. 

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