Constitutional Religious Freedom for ALL

The argument that I have seen NOWHERE about the Republicans' effort to deny mandatory insurance coverage for women's reproductive health is this:

By giving my employer the right to deny benefits on the basis of HIS religious conscience, they are trying to deny me the right to health care according to MY religious conscience. I happen to be Jewish, and my religion is fine with contraception and early abortion. Letting the Catholic Bishops have their way amounts to favoritism toward one religion, and that seems to me to be clearly against the First Amendment.

Shifting the cost to insurers or the individuals themselves doesn't solve the problem, which is carve-outs for specific religions. Jehovah's Witness employers could use the same arguments to deny payment for blood transfusions, etc. etc. etc. and it leads to a slippery slope where the employer can actually determine whether an individual lives or dies.

So this is not only unconstitutional; it's WRONG!

New thoughts on A1c

I went to my APN on Tuesday, and my A1c was 6.3, up from 5.8 the previous time, and I personally know it was because I was depressed and bingeing part of the time, and I HATE to get praised for a great A1c when I KNOW it isn't. The medical profession has not yet figured out that some people are low glycators, even though there was a study on it many years ago, and for ME, a good A1c is under 6.0. The APN told me my A1c was wonderful, and poo-pooed my explanations to her as to why it wasn't. See this post http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1921328832838010683#editor/target=post; fopostID=5398758637352847997 for more of my thoughts. The APN's reaction just reinforces my knowledge that the only one who can care for my diabetes properly is ME, because no one else knows anything or cares. I'm always amazed when people say their endo told them their A1c was too high, or they were having too many peaks or lows, or whatever, because no one ever tells me ANYTHING! All they say is that I'm doing great. My former endo told me I was doing great right until I went into a coma. As my grandmother would have said, Pfeh!!!

Thin Type 2?

I am convinced that thin T2 is one of 3 things. It could be misdiagnosed LADA (Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults, a slow-onset form of T1), which could be proved by getting antibody tests (not that expensive), or it could be undiagnosed MODY (Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young -- a monogenetic form of diabetes, which is neither T1 nor T2), which can be diagnosed by a strong family history and by genetic testing, although that's pretty expensive, and is not common, or it's another disease which hasn't even been noticed or described by the medical field. This type would be antibody and genetically negative, and so far as I can tell, NOTHING is known about it.

I've taken to calling the third form Type Weird, because it's NOT classic T2, although it can affect people who are initially overweight (not usually obese?) but when they lose significant amounts of weight, they observe no improvement and sometimes worsening of their diabetes. T2 drugs sometimes work and sometimes don't, and insulin is often the best choice of treatment, but as usual, YMMV.

I personally have called myself Type Weird for years, because I'm CLEARLY not classic T1 OR T2, and I never had the testing necessary to confirm either LADA or MODY (and at this point, it's not worth it to me). I was on Glucotrol, a sulfonylurea for 5 months and it did absolutely nothing for me, and then I went on insulin and never looked back, so I never tried metformin or any of the others, and at this point refuse to do so, because I have enough GI problems as it is.

I had a coma in Sept. 2010, for various reasons, including major depression, bingeing on sweets, and not taking enough insulin (i.e. didn't omit it completely, but didn't take enough), and in the hospital, the T2 protocols didn't work for me at all, and my BG was going up instead of down. The CDE had to fight with the hospitalist to get him to use T1 protocols. (There's no such thing as Type Weird protocols!). Then I started getting better.

So, for reasons of safety, we decided that I should tell medical folks that I'm T1, because I need T1 treatment protocols, regardless of what else is going on medically. And in fact, my diabetes acts more like T1 than T2, and so I'm comfortable with the oversimplification, even though I KNOW it's not quite the whole picture. I truly don't fit precisely into any of the known boxes, so I decided to go for proper treatment, and not worry about labels. There are a LOT of different animals in the diabetes herd, even if the academics haven't figured that out yet.

Update on Wisdom Teeth!

Just to bring things back into perspective: After 2 days of doing absolutely nothing (and me thinking whew! home safe!), today my body decided to wake up, figured out that maybe something HAD happened, and tried to decide what to do about it!
The lowest part was 108, quite acceptable, but the high was 357. Then it decided to go down to 146, and immediately changed its mind and went up to 375 (not shown on picture, because it's still going up with 2 arrows). And it's 9 PM and I haven't had anything to eat since 1 PM. So I think I'm going to change my set and take a shot, but don't you think this is a TRIFLE ridiculous???? With my luck, I'll plunge myself into a low, but at the moment, I'm sort of nauseated, and that's a good reason to change my set as well. No one ever said this would be easy, did they???? And they never mentioned that I have diabetes, either, did they????

Getting wisdom teeth out -- when I'm 64!

Yeah, I know people are supposed to do this when they're around 20, but hey -- I didn't know any better!! LOL!! Actually, my wisdom teeth came in perfectly, and did their job for about 44 years, but I was starting to develop some gum disease and bone loss, and I've read in many places that diabetics need to be extra careful to take care of their mouths.

So, out they came. Now, what is the AVERAGE diabetic supposed to do with a procedure like that? Go high, maybe? NOOO! Just as soon as the dentists started giving me the anesthetic shots, I started to tremble -- my CGM showed 63 with a down arrow, and my meter showed 97. Then the dentist told me that there was epinephrine (adrenaline) in the shot, but knowing what was coming, I decided not to take the risk, and popped a couple of glucose tablets. I figured better safe than sorry. And adrenalin SHOULDN'T shove BG down, should it?

The procedure itself was weird -- my whole lower jaw was numb, and although my upper lip felt normal, the back of my upper must have been anesthetized pretty well, too. So I felt some wiggling and pressure, and then POP! out came the tooth. That's what really took me by surprise -- I almost jumped out of the chair. Repeat for 2 more teeth, and then the last one came out smooth as jelly.

Then, while I was waiting for a few minutes to make sure I was OK to go home, I checked my BG -- 149, well, OK. When I got home, checked it again, 76, and I couldn't get it over 100 for the rest of the day or night. Twice I went down into the 60's; that's OK, because that level is easily treatable -- but I'm mystified as to why, in spite of the epinephrine in the shot, and the fact that I WAS eating -- mostly milk tea and Greek yogurt, both of which ALWAYS raise me, my BG didn't act ANYTHING like I expected it to!

Hang on to your hats; Type Weird strikes again! :-)