Day 16 - Frustration With Hypoglycemia Part 3

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sit in bed when I feel weak and feel that I have a low blood sugar , entertaining and allowing thoughts of hoping that the feeling will just fade away so that I can go back to sleep - signalling to the body that I do not care about what it is physically going through, I only care about the experience of myself in sleep

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to attempt to ignore and push away the feeling of being low while I am in the middle of sleep or on the edge of consciousness where I allow myself to attempt to ignore the physical feeling of the body and the physicality of the body and drift off into consciousness stating that I have no care or consideration for the physical body within the point of care and support for it within the point of diabetes

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that within that moment, if I hold off getting myself out of that sleepy state and going to go get something to eat or checking my blood sugar to make sure that I am low, then the feeling is not going to disappear so easily and I am going to get `worse` of a sleep than if I were to simply get up in that moment and correct the low that I am going through. As well, if the feeling does go away then I subject myself to waking up again feeling low and having to go through the whole debacle once more, so in this I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that what is best for me within that time and scenario is to get up regardless of questioning whether or not it is a low and eat something to support the body while being hypoglycemic

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define the relationship with the body to be less than the relationship with the mind wherein I have stated that I would rather participate in the mind than to correct and support the body via getting out of bed and treating the hypoglycemic episode - in this stating that I would rather go into the `dream` state that is involved with consciousness than to bring myself out of that state and into the physical reality via getting out of bed and getting something to eat in the middle of the night when I wake up due to a low

I commit myself to correcting my relationship with the body from being one of ignorance and suppression to expression and support and expansion via implementing this point of getting out of bed when I have woken up in the middle of the night due to a low = changing my relationship with the body through implementing this point of support for the body and moving my relationship to be equal with the body/mind/self wherein I support each point equally rather than only supporting myself sometimes within one aspect over another or favouring one aspect over another

When/as I wake up in the night due to a low, wake up, feel weak and there are thoughts running around in the mind of wanting to just go back to sleep and being frustrated with being low at that time and blaming diabetes for a lack of sleep and feeling disempowered because of the point of diabetes is creating this point within me - I stop myself from entertaining and moving within those thoughts/idea/beliefs, I breathe, I bring my awareness to the physical body and I implement change within myself by getting out of bed in that one breath and moving myself to go get something to eat to support the body within being low

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame diabetes for my feeling of disempowerment in relation to not being able to get a decent amount of sleep due to being waken up in a low resulting in physically feeling weak in this separating myself from the point of diabetes as if it is outside of myself and something that is able to be blamed - which it is not as I am the creator of myself and thus the creator of diabetes within myself thus I am not able to practically and REALly blame diabetes as it is not something that is separate from me to blame - it is not an isolated point that exists solely on it's own - it is in direct correlation to ME and thus all point revolving around diabetes are ME - thus I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame ME for having diabetes and blame myself for causing this disease to manifest within the body.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to remove all blame for myself for creating diabetes within myself and stand equal and one with myself in/as the point of diabetes, supporting myself unconditionally and not allowing emotions to direct my relationship with diabetes as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a relationship towards diabetes of blame, disappointment, frustration, disempowerment thus allowing these emotions to arise when I wake up low in the night time instead of redefining myself in relation to diabetes to be of support, care, consideration, acceptance and expansion and thus within this I commit myself to implement the new definition of myself in relation to diabetes each and every time this point occurs; practically meaning to not allow myself to react with emotions when I wake up low, but to breathe and direct myself to live/move within the new definition of myself in relation to diabetes which means to get up and out of bed to correct the low that I am going through in that moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist getting out of bed because of the experience of the bed being nice and warm and comfy and getting out of bed removes that experience, and thus I have stated in that moment that I enjoy experience more than real practical care and consideration for the physical body - thus I commit myself to correct my relationship with the body by getting out of bed and making the decision within myself to commit myself to care and support for the body rather than experiences.

Day 15 - Frustration and Anger with Hypoglycemia Part 2

To continue on from the previous blog there is a point of frustration that I want to write about in relation to going low or being hypoglycemic. A big point of frustration, anger, resentment, annoyance, agitation within diabetes is hypoglycemia while trying to sleep. This point is a bane to my existence. There have been many nights where I have gone low a few times during the night resulting in mornings of exhaustion and feeling distraught, feeling pissed off, and feeling like you want to give up on yourself and the world.

For those reading this that aren't diabetic imagine that you have an important meeting tomorrow morning. You go to bed early so that you can get a satisfactory amount of sleep so that you can be fresh for the morning and ready to go. Now as you lay in bed you start to feel a bit weak in the body, you don't feel all here, you are kinda dislocated from your body and are more in your mind. Now you realize that this may be a low but you are weary of whether or not you should eat because when sleeping the blood sugar rises and it may correct itself during the night, so you breathe for a bit, close your eyes and try to sleep. After an hour or so you still feel weak, your now a bit agitated because you weren't able to get to sleep in time so that you could be fresh for the meeting in the morning, so you get yourself out of bed, you walk down to the kitchen, you grab some juice drink it and head back up to bed to wait for a while until the sugar kicks in and you feel strong enough to go to sleep. Now the middle of the night comes and you are in and out of consciousness for a while. You wake up for a few moments, not completely conscious of what's going on but fall back to the edge of sleep, not completely immersed in sleep and not completely awake. You're telling yourself to just go back to sleep because you need a good nights sleep but the feeling just keeps coming back. After a while of coming in and out of consciousness you finally decide within yourself to wake up and go get something to eat again. Now it is well past the point of getting a good nights rest in order to be fresh for the morning, so you bite the bullet in that moment, accept the fact that tomorrow your going to be tired and will give it your best during the meeting.

This is what is common for diabetics. I remember times when this same example would happen but there would be an exam in the morning, and I desperately wanted to get some sleep but going low throughout the night made it impossible to do so. I would get incredibly frustrated when these moments occur, because the body would not go the way that I wanted it to go.

I still experience this today and I have not corrected the relationship to the body which is the reason why I am writing this blog at the moment. I say corrected the relationship to the body because I still react in frustration and, almost like a form of disappointment, when this point occurs in my life. Within reading the second paragraph you may note that a point of frustration was coming through in the writing which shows the relationship that I am creating towards the body within this pattern. What I am saying to the body in these moments is that I care more about the experience of sleeping than I do about the health of the body and thus I am stating that I do not care about the body.

A feeling of weakness will come up in the middle of the night, but I won’t be sure of whether or not it is a momentary weakness or if it is an actual hypoglycemic episode. Once the feeling comes on, and once I decide that I am not sure about what it is, I will breathe and take a moment to close my eyes so that I can see if it is possible to fall back asleep. For the most part I do fall back asleep for a little while, but only on the edge of consciousness which means that I am still quite aware of what is going on. I will sit in this feeling until either it goes away or it becomes too strong for me to ignore. While this is happening I am becoming more frustrated with not being able to sleep the way I would like to; uninterrupted.

I am telling the body that I have more interest in sleeping than taking proper care of the body, but the body is going to need continual management because it is not going to `go` any time soon lol. Since I have placed more interest in sleeping than in support and care for the body in times of being low while in the midst of sleeping the frustration comes up. The frustration comes up because I am not getting what I want - uninterrupted sleep - and it is because of a point that I have defined within myself as a nuisance (hypoglycemia). This is not cool because I am stating that the experience of sleeping and the experience of not being aware or awake is much more pleasurable than taking practical physical care of the body. So this is certainly not how I want to treat myself in relationship to the body, I would much rather take care of the body and show it that I do need it to last a bit longer and do need it to maintain itself as best as possible - because like what am I telling the body as I react in this manner? I am telling the body that I do not want it, I am telling the body that I do not care for the physical functions and necessities of itself I am telling it that I just want to use it for the experiences that can be created here in the physical reality and that the physical functions of it come second to the experiences that are able to be created. If I continue to accept this from myself then a fucked up relationship to the body will exist.

The change here is to let go of the frustration and annoyance and/or any reaction that comes up when I feel low at night or when I am awoken from feeling weak and hypoglycemic, and rather than trying to fall back asleep and ignore what is going on, change that point into consideration of the body in that moment, and simply move myself to correct the low - the same point from the frustration when working applies here.

In the next post I will write SF and SCS on the experience of being frustrated when being low and corrections on how to approach points of being low from hereon.

Day 8 - Does Managing Diabetes Take 14 Hours a Week?

This post is inspired by a disability fund here in Canada in the time of tax refunds. There is a portion of the tax refund that states that if you have a disability you can get some money back with an income tax return. Diabetes is specifically on that list but it states that in order for a disability to be valid one must be in a fatal state, need constant attention, or with diabetes specifically, it states that the care and support that one provides themselves with must add up to 14 hours a week and this 14 hours must be `tangible`. Meaning that the time it takes me to record the bg results each day, count carbs, test for the bg results must take me 14 hours or more which does not take me 14 hours a week therefore with all `tangible` evidence I nor most other diabetics are able to receive this tax refund for the disability that is diabetes.

This post is about the time that it takes to manage diabetes, the time that diabetics must be aware of themselves regarding diabetes and it is much more than 14 hours a week. Diabetes is something that is on our minds, something that concerns us every waking hour, something that we must factor in within all of our activities, something that limits us from doing what we would like, something that limits us financially. Diabetes is not something that takes 14 hours a week of our life, it takes our entire lives.

Diabetes is a dis-ease of the endocrine system and the endocrine system is the system that regulates homeostasis throughout the body through process of specific functions. The Pancreas is the organ that regulates blood sugar through various processes. In diabetics the pancreas either doesn't or has limited capability of regulating the blood sugar. Since blood runs throughout your body it is going to affect the entire body when/as the pancreas isn't operational and thus diabetics must consider the entire body within their actions, must consider the consequences and affects of all choices that we make in a day and whether or not it is going to affect the blood sugar or affect any other part of the body through/as the movement of blood. Within this there are many times within a day that I/we must keep in consideration our actions, we must decide how much insulin we need based on any exercise that we are doing, we must calculate whether or not we need food before the exercise, we must consider if we have injected our basal rate insulin before we've done the exercise, whether or not that amount of basal rate is going to have `too much` of an affect if we exercise and whether or not it will cause a low. And If we are unsure of all these things, which many of the times we are, we need to expect the `worst`, expect a low, expect a high and always keep food and insulin on ourselves so that we can keep ourselves alive and `healthy`

Diabetes doesn't only affect our health, it affects our lifestyles as well. It affects the choices and decision that we must make regarding our jobs, our education, our relationships, our geographical locations. For example, when I decided to go back to school to get the credits I needed for university; diabetes was my main concern, it was also my main limitation. Since the job that I had has benefits which helps out extensively with paying for insulin, meters, test strips, needles, I needed to keep the job. I had to switch to nights so that I could attend school. If I didn't have diabetes I would've stopped working and focused on school full time, but I needed to have the money for diabetes which meant that it was a limitation on the choices that I was able to make regarding school and further education. I am confident that I am not the only example of this.

Again, within work I must consider so many changes in the day/year/month/minute and calculate what the body needs within that moment because there are a lot of factors that are going to influence the blood sugar, I mean even a climate change from winter to summer affects the rate of insulin sensitivity that I must recalculate each time the weather changes, and even if it is a cold cloudy day within the fall it is going to change and I must calculate that each time that I eat and inject insulin. If the calculations are not correct or if it is the beginning of a season I must be aware of myself within whatever I am doing which means that I must separate myself from the experience of socializing, or separate myself from the experience of watching a movie, separate myself from whatever I am doing within that moment and bring myself back here with the body and check up on it to see if what I have calculated is accurate, see if I am going low, see if I am running high and then accordingly adjust the calculations and make the corrections needed within that one moment.

This process is so redundant that when I asked my endocrinologist if she would `co-sign` or be the representative for myself within the tax refund she said that she would `look` at it, but had high doubts that it would follow through because she has `tried` before with other patients only to have the government deny the request for the disability refund.

Another perspective within this is when I was 14 previous to being diagnosed my life was basically being set out in absolution. Meaning that who I was when I was 14 I was basically going to live for the rest of my life. Who I was when I was 14 was a slacker, I already had the conditioning to be a person who goes out and drinks every night, who only looks for their `next high`. I would have had done `nothing` with my life other than party and indulge in sex, masturbation, drugs, alcohol, I had no aspirations to do anything `worth while` in my life. When I was diagnosed with diabetes all that changed immediately, and my `life` in that regards was destroyed because of diabetes…I am not complaining the slightest about that change. I am grateful for diabetes in that respect because looking at it now, I would not like to have been what I was becoming in those years and am much more `happy`/ satisfied with who I am now.

Just because the tangible evidence of recording glucose readings and testing and carb counting does not add up to 14 hours within a week does not mean that diabetes does not take up 14 hours a week of our life. It in fact takes up out ENTIRE LIVES, it destroys our life for the better or for the worse and we must change ourselves to adapt to diabetes so that we can take care of ourselves, change our diets, change our habits of that which will affect the endocrine system, watch our stress levels, stop ourselves from stressing ourselves out, and each of these things takes time. Consider taking out all sugar from your diet, all things that have sugar in them, bread, milk, crackers, cereals…the list goes on, and managing the reactions that your going to go through by stopping sugar within your diet because you have diabetes. It limits what we can do, no scuba diving because if we go low under the ocean we probably won't be able to surface fast enough to treat the low with food, no sporadic travelling because we must plan everything out before hand so that we know that we have what we need to support ourselves, no living in the woods because we are reliant on hospitals and medications from pharmacies, you get the picture.

It is an absurdity that the government has the audacity to suggest that diabetes must take 14 hours a week of our life in order to receive a financial benefit for having diabetes when the medications and test strips when taking proper care of ourselves are above $500CDN a month without insurance (I've been there). It is absurd that our doctors are not even willing to push this point for us because they find it redundant and a `waste of time`.

Diabetes does not take 14 hours a week, It takes OUR LIVES!

Day 6 - The Systematic Creation of Type 2 Diabetes

It is commonly known by diabetics that type 2 diabetes can be easily `cured` or managed through diet and exercise which can then bring up the question, does a lack in effective diet and exercise cause type 2 diabetes?

Type 2 diabetic's pancreases still produce insulin to counteract the food ingested, but it is usually the fat residing within/as the body that blocks or inhibits the effectiveness of the insulin because it makes it difficult for the insulin to transfer into the muscle cells for use via cellular respiration. Fat is the storage place for sugars and not the usage of/as sugars within the body. The muscle cells are where cellular respiration primarily occur, which is the combustion of glucose molecules into usable forms of energy. The mitochondria within cells are the end point of cellular respiration, and if the mitochondria are producing energy and the muscles are where the most energy is needed then the muscle cells will have high levels of mitochondria. If the body has too much fat then the excess amount of fat is going to inhibit the effectiveness of the insulin produced by the pancreas because it is going to have to work through the fat to get to the muscles, because fat is not where glucose can be used.

With that being said we must look at our diet and lifestyles that we’ve accepted to exist within/as through the acceptance of the movement of ourselves within/as this system and the generation of money. Consider someone who works at a desk job 9-5. They will be most likely driving to work where they will be sitting in a car for x amount of time, getting to their job where they will be sitting at a desk for 8-9 hours a day, they will get home and more or less sit down on a couch or chair and watch TV to unwind from the day. Their day consists of little to no exercise whatsoever, and since there is little to no exercise their bodies are not going to be able to use the glucose/carbohydrates/sugars ingested throughout the day and therefore will store the sugars as fats which can be a cause of diabetes depending on the genetics of the individual and the strength of the pancreas, which boils down to genetics. I say strength of the pancreas here because the pancreas is going to need to be strong in order to produce enough insulin to counteract the food ingested, and without exercise the pancreas is going to need to produce more insulin for an equal amount of food.

Exercise is a great benefit for diabetics. It increases insulin sensitivity because it warms up the body which will cause higher metabolic rates due to the temperature. For example, I work a physical job where I will sweat and increase the heat of the body due to exercise. A few days ago I went to the gym before work and the few days before that I had been pushing myself harder at work which will cause a lasting effect of insulin sensitivity for about 18 hours compounded exponentially through the time that I worked hard and I needed 330g of carbohydrates just to stave off lows which means that I needed to inject no fast acting insulin and only needed the basal rate insulin for the day. Those who do not know how much 330g of carbohydrates is, a banana is roughly 15g which equals to 22 bananas over an 8 hour period which is a lot of damn food when you consider it. Clearly it is obvious then that exercise is going to significantly increase the sensitivity of insulin within type 2 diabetics meaning they most likely will not need as much medication or any if at all. Again though the way that we have designed this system and our lives within work and within our home life is not helping the pandemic that is type 2 diabetes at this point in time. That is why I say it is systematically created because we cannot live without money and if our lives are designed to be without exercise because of the methods and patterns that we need to obtain money from then the problem is existent inherently within/as this system that we have accepted and allowed ourselves to exist within.

The other point here is diet. Take a look at the foods that we eat, specifically take a look at the foods the children are fed, speaking from a North American perspective here. The granola bars that are packed in lunches for school, the yogurts that are marketed to children, the cereals that are marketed to children, essentially 80-90% of the food geared towards consumption by children have a high amount of sugar within them. So if the parents are unaware and have not been taught effective dieting skills, diet here means the food that we ingest, not diet in regards to losing weight - then they will feed children these foods and nowadays with the level of convenience through mobile devices and computers and television to be entertained from, exercise is something that is severely lacking in their lives therefore diabetes is and will become more of a pandemic. Similarly in the adult life the convenience of fast food restaurants and the high level of carbohydrates and sugars within the foods and drinks available at restaurants and the lifestyle that one must maintain to generate money will again create diabetes to become more of a pandemic.

The Responsibility for this is distributed among men equally, we are all responsible for the lack of care and consideration that we have given the body and the bodily processes that keep us alive, and are all responsible for the creation of these health problems through our acceptance and through our self interest. There are those that are in power and that have `more` of a `say` of what foods are produced and what foods are marketed such as those within the FDA and other food administrative services whom have had a dictatorship over what foods are available for us to consume. Just as we are aware that the consumption of sugar has large side effects, those whom resign within the regulatory food agencies whom regulate the food available to us and who decide what foods will be available to `us` are equally responsible and are equally aware of the effects of sugar and the increase in diabetes. Since we have trusted those within the food regulatory agencies, there is a point of trust that the food that is provided to us through manufacturing processes is `healthy` to an extent and will not cause health problems that significantly decrease the quality of life. The main thing I am stating here is that the food that we are being fed and the food that we are marketed is, at the moment, a significant factor in/as the design of type 2 diabetes and it is clear that type 2 diabetes is not being considered by us living within the systematic design of our lives and money, therefore the `trust` that we have placed in the regulatory agencies is misplaced trust, and we should have never trusted them in the first place, never should have given people who's interests are clearly not aligned within equality the availability to dictate our lives and decide what food we will be fed, because as it is now seen through/as the increase of diabetes, their interest is money and power, not the lives of the beings that they have had dictatorship over.

Type 2 diabetes is a systemic creation through/as the way that we have accepted and allowed this system of/as our lives to operate. Some do not have the time to exercise throughout the day or can get in very little exercise throughout the day due to the design of money. We are brainwashed to crave certain foods through influences within media, such as a craving for ice cream or a fast food restaurant. For myself, I never considered where and how the thoughts of craving came from and were designed from, which as it turns out is a mechanism of the corporations to keep us buying, keep us wanting, keep us paying for their products. Have a look at a craving for McDonalds. Why is that craving there? Why is it a craving for McDonalds? McDonalds is just an idea, like we don't have a craving for a burger or a soda, it is specifically geared towards McDonalds, I have heard people speak "I want McDonalds", not "I want a burger" and then search through the myriad of options on how to obtain a burger. Or you can consider why corporations are such a large financial backing for the media industry.

So, As we look at the reasons and factors behind of and as type 2 diabetes one can see that it is due to our accepted and allowed structures of our lives based around money. The structure of the system of/as our lives is creating type 2 diabetes. It is imperative then that we implement a system in which life is considered, value of life is considered, quality of life for each being so that type 2 does not become a generational degradation of the human being's quality of life. It is also imperative that we as humans consider the body and consider the foods that the body needs and when the body needs these foods. For instance if one is lacking physical activity within their daily routine it is best to eat vegetables, because when I am not active, especially during the winter, the insulin sensitivity of the body dramatically decreases and I need more insulin to cover an equal amount of food I would eat if it were summer.

The solution here is within and without. It resides within ourselves and resides within an overhaul of the system we are living. It resides within ourselves through making choices of what we eat based on the body, not based on desires, or wants, or cravings. It resides without through not accepting this system as `just the way things are`, and making the changes necessary to the foods that we are provided through corporations and in this making a stand within ourselves to not allow ourselves to accept a system, accept cravings, accept desires that are not based on the quality of life of/as the body/physical substance

Day 4 - Living with Diabetes Part 1

In this series of blogs that are to come I will be writing about a point relevant to diabetes that I go through in my day to day living and show how different a lifestyle it can really be, and to show, to the best of my knowledge through living with diabetes, biological functions, that I would be more than pleased to be corrected on, so do not fear leaving a `snarky` comment correcting me, I like to learn more and cross reference material with others; I may expand on such things as insulin, like how it is made, the resources needed to make it, the affects on the environment, monetary factors, and this will be a learning process for myself because much of what I just suggested I may write about I will need to do research as well.

Since this is the intro blog

Let me take you through my day.

Mornings: Wake up at 18:00-19:00, due to working nights in which I have to severely consider how much activity I am doing due to the affects of physical exercise and insulin sensitivity within my body, have to consider how much food I eat…there are many things that I could extrapolate upon in regards to work and diabetes - lets just title that work and leave that there for now.

I proceed to check my blood sugar, usually - have not been the spitting image of `perfect` in regards to diabetes - which again is something to take apart and dissect = the image of perfection within diabetes = perfection of care of health possibly - I'm sorry if I ramble, but as I write this I am noting this for myself later on so that I can refer back to it for topics to write about. And in the mornings I have been frequently high, so as I wake up, I've kinda just accepted this as `the way it is`, and reach for two needles that I have to inject 25 decilitres of one insulin, and depending on how high, or if I'm high, x amount of decilitres of another insulin into either my buttocks, the back of my arms, abdomen, or thighs. I favour the buttocks, thighs, and back of the arms for the insulin I inject 25 decilitres of ( I will go into further detail in time on the different types of insulin) and the abdomen for the insulin that I use depending on how much I eat and what the `level` of (my) sugar is.

I make breakfast, and consider what I will be doing in the following hours based on activity level of what I can and should not eat, and usually say "fuck it, I will eat what I would like to eat and inject insulin according to what I would like to eat", and sometimes all I like to eat in the morning is an apple and a banana. I will then inject insulin based on how much carbohydrates I will eat and what I will be doing in the next few hours and based off of `how I feel` meaning if I feel `heavy` then that usually means that the insulin sensitivity rate is low and I will need more insulin than if I were to not feel `heavy`. I then carry on with whatever task I have for the time being until I get ready for work

Before work I check the sugar again at about 21:30 - it is about 2 hours after my previous test - so that means that the insulin that I injected to correct the amount of food I ate will be at it's `peak activity` which I will explain another time, and since it is at it's peak activity the rate of transfer of sugar into the cells is highest here throughout the 4 hour lasting time of the injection and means that I need to consider if I need to eat before work in order to maintain a level sugar throughout the first period of work or if I need to inject more insulin to get myself to a stable point during work. If all is well then I make a lunch, which I stick to a routine within, meaning I usually eat the same thing each lunch so that I can work with minimal factors influencing the sugar level and stick to a routine that I have become adapted to at the moment.

Work: (23:00-7:00) Since it has become warmer recently I now bike to work that is about 15 minutes of activity which I have to consider how hard I am biking because as I get to work the insulin that I injected when I woke up will change sensitivity and it will affect the sugar level during the first period of work - so I suppose I can mention here that recently I have been going low just before work starts and usually eat a banana to correct it….since I started working nights, and even previously within the job that I do, days that I am not low during work is a rarity and I always carry 3 bananas with myself along with `emergency sugar` which is a candy that I will bring along because of the pattern shown throughout the time that I have been working. Since the job that I do is physically demanding I have to keep in mind when I've injected insulin and how much I've injected, like .5 of a unit will make a drastic change in the sugar level throughout the next period of work, and since it is physically demanding I need to cut back the amount of insulin that I would normally inject, which took a bit of time to figure out how much I needed to inject for the food that I ate, which is why I stick to the food routine. The sugar levels during work are usually in the `acceptable range` (4mmol-8mmol) and I suppose that is due to the physical activity and the balancing of sugar correction throughout the periods of work. A point to mention here, that I will write about later, is the affect of adrenaline and noticing the symptoms of being low.

Getting home/school: (7:00-12:00) When I get home the sugar level is normally good because of the work that I just did and the affects of activity, although there have been times where I have been high returning from work which I do not exactly know the reason for, but have based it on the fact that I slow down my activity during work near the end of the night. I test my blood sugar and only eat something small like an apple because when I did eat cereal or something high in carbohydrates the time during school I would be running high for a while and correcting the sugar during school has been a pain in the ass for sometime because if I am high and I need to correct the sugar, the affect of dropping in sugar level is similar to the experience of being low and I find it incredibly hard to concentrate when this is happening, so I decided to eat something small which I normally don't need insulin for, because of the activity of work, which has been supportive recently since I do not experience too many lows during school any longer and thus can concentrate a lot better, not to mention give myself the ability to process the information. During school I inject 23 decilitres of insulin again. I used to be very self conscious about injecting insulin in front of people to the point where I would not inject insulin when eating if I was in public which was quite dangerous now looking at it.

When I get home from school, I test again, eat, inject insulin and sit down for about 2 hours studying if I need to or fall asleep. Eating so early to bed has been a problem and is most likely the cause to the morning highs, although I have noticed some other factors that can really influence the sugar level in the morning such as stress or simply resistance to working on something.

In the next posts I will certainly go into much more detail and take apart many aspects of a diabetic life and expand on the relationship lines between each aspect, but for now I hope that this overview gives you an insight into what a diabetic lives with and has to consider on a daily basis, and possibly information that you can apply to your own life.

Day 2 - Should we Trust Nutrition Labels?

As a type 1 diabetic I rely on the nutrition food labels to be accurate and concise with the information that they put on the nutrition labels and I, in some ways, need to trust that information is correct on all packages and foods, but I've found that this is not the case on all foods…there is only one instance that I've found so far that the information is misleading, but I am sure that there are more - specifically with the foods being labelled "organic" or "Healthy"

 

There is a bread that I use to make sandwiches for lunches and on the nutrition label it says "per 1 piece (40g) there are 20g of carbohydrates in each slice". This information I need to rely upon to calculate an accurate amount of insulin that I need to inject to counteract the sugar being processed in the body from the metabolizing of the carbohydrates. This bread is a bread that is descending in size throughout the package, so like there are pieces that are larger and there are pieces that are smaller than the previous one.

In order to be much more accurate I decided to buy a scale a few months ago and start to actually weigh the food that I was eating so that I could be as accurate as possible - using the weight rather than the serving size - because like with boxes of macaroni it says per 1/4 box = 60g of carbs, so I mean how do I accurately measure 1/4 of a box or estimate what 1/4 of a box is, so weighing the food that I was eating made the calculations much more accurate because I could divide the amount of food that I was eating by the serving size in g written on the nutrition label and multiply that by the amount of carbs in each serving size in grams. So back to the bread - I started to weigh out the bread and found that each time I weighed the bread, each reading was far over 80g (2 slices), the highest reading I found the bread to weigh was 150g which is nearly double what the nutrition labels says each slice weighs and thus nearly double the amount of carbohydrates in those 2 slices of bread.

Before then I did not have a scale and was still using this bread for sandwiches for lunch as work, and this could have severely fucked with the sugar levels and insulin injections throughout work - luckily though my work is a physical job and during that time I was finding the right amount of insulin to inject because of the effect of the amount of exercise the job has on the bodies sensitivity to insulin, so I had to deduct insulin from the injection due to the physical exercise - but there were times when I would have this bread on the weekends or on days when I was not physically active and inject 4 units of insulin for the 2 slices that I was eating, basing my injection off of the information on the nutrition label - my carb to unit ratio is roughly 10g/1u - when really I needed was 150/40=3.75 3.75*20=75 <- 7.5 units of insulin for the 75g of carbs in those slices of bread, and thus this would cause my sugar levels to go higher than I had expected due to the misinformation printed on the nutrition labels, …each unit of insulin reduces the sugar level by 2mmol/l so each 10g of carbs increases the sugar level by 2mmol/l which  escalated the sugar an extra 7mmol/l above my target when calculating an accurate amount of insulin to inject for what I was eating, and if you didn't know, 7mmol/l is a drastic difference in blood glucose.

So then the question is posed can we as a society trust the information printed on nutrition labels? From this example the answer is no, No because there, more or less, is always a motive behind the labels or within/as the labels themselves defined in the word `nutrients`. This bread that I gave as an example is defined as a `healthy` bread and from the starting point of wanting to look and be perceived as `healthy` they do not give accurate information - they only give accurate information on the smallest slice of bread in the package - Why? To make it look healthy, to lower the carb counts and the calorie count in on the information presented, but this improper use of the information on the nutrition labels can have severe affects on those whom are diabetic, or whom have other food illnesses, such as celiac disease where one much look at the ingredient list for any substance that has wheat or wheat based additives, and there has been times where the information printed on the ingredient label is deceiving as well, I know this because my mother has celiac disease and when she consumes gluten she throws up violently for a few hours - meaning she has bought products that has no ingredient listed on the list that has gluten in it, yet from eating that product she has reacted in such a manner, physically proving that there was in fact gluten on in the product

The entire point behind the misinformation and mislabeling of nutrition labels or food labels is due to money, for the example with the bread, the company wants to market their product as healthy and for those who are `health nuts` to buy this bread. The company clearly has enough wherewithal to understand that their consumers will be looking at the nutrition label for the `indicators` of the product being healthy such as a low calorie number or low carbohydrate number and thus accordingly only place the `1 slice serving` as the smallest piece of bread in the package allowing the label to be `acceptable`  with the lowest numbers possible yet, quite misleading and quite dangerous for those who rely heavily on and need to trust that the information presented is accurate.

 

What is the solution here? The solution would to `govern` the labels much more severely and put the labels through much more testing before they are allowed to be placed on the product. The solution would to eradicate the point of profit from the companies so that instances like this do not cause harm to life as it has with myself and with any other diabetics who are unaware of this fact, remove profit because it is from the point of profit and greed that this abuse towards life exists, and this solution is presented with the Equal Money System which can be read further in detail at http://equalmoney.org

I also suggest to read http://mayaprocess.blogspot.com/2013/03/capitalism-joke-is-on-us-food-labelling.html for more of a perspective on this issue and on the solution presented.

Day 1 - Introduction to Myself within Diabetes

Hey all, In this blog I will be writing and sharing posts pertaining specifically to the processes that I am walking being a diabetic, processes in which I have allowed myself to sabotage and mistreat myself as life being a diabetic and the correction processes to value myself as life and remove the habits/patterns that I've accepted myself to live that has caused untold harm to myself being a diabetic. I will also be investigating points related to diabetes - solutions, cures, tools, effective support methods for diabetics that I myself have lived and/or realized/applied in my day to day living.

I am a type 1 diabetic and have been for just under 9 years now. They say that 10,000 hours of application in any form can make one a master of the form - that adds up to about 7 years of 40 hours of a week in application, and I can say that I am far from being a master of myself in diabetes. The blood glucose readings have a large variety of factors are of influence and effect and making those calculations each day and finding/understanding those factors can be quite difficult to calculate each time one injects insulin and thus mastery of diabetes means mastery of self, mastery of stress levels, mastery of exercise, mastery of timing, mastery of sleep patterns, mastery of unit to carb ratios, mastery of depression, mastery of emotions, mastery of feelings, mastery of desire for foods, mastery of biological functions, mastery of living as a pancreas, mastery of self control, haha, quite a lot to master with no? So I embark on this journey to life to give myself the BEST support for myself as life as a diabetic and share this here so that other diabetic can hear and share support for each other.

For those who are not diabetic, the information shared here can also be quite assisting and supportive in realizing how much the body in fact does for us to keep us alive, because through being a diabetic I've had to stand in for the body and act as the pancreas and make sure that who I am as the pancreas is in absolute support of the body such as the pancreas is/was when it is/was active and functioning properly...this is where the journey to life is - becoming, in absolution, support for the life of the body equal and one to the body itself, life itself, back to the point - through standing as the pancreas I have to live what the pancreas was when it was functioning properly so within the insights from living as such those who are not diabetic can see those insights for themselves as well  - so I invite all who read this to share this with others

The next few posts will be from my other blog (http://paulsjourneytolife.blogspot.com) where I've written a few posts regarding diabetes, but from here on I will be posting all diabetic related points here in this blog to keep them grouped while I walk other aspects of myself in which I do not value myself as life and walk the correction processes here within.