Good News and Praises:
Well, the good news is that I survived the blood draw for my second A1C test last week. (Needles and I have a negative relationship) The other good news is that my count went down by 2 whole points. The other other good news is that I lost 17 pounds since July and the final good news is that I got high praise from my medical professional for being so diligent with my diabetes self-care.
It feels good to have your doctor praise you for taking good care of yourself, even though we don't usually seek approval from our doctors. In this case the praise is appreciated and taken to heart. After all, who better than your medical provider to know whether or not you are succeeding in your efforts.
Since I'm still not testing my blood sugar daily, it's been a challenge to watch my glucose count. The A1C results indicate that I've kept my blood glucose at a pretty steady 150 each day. While this is not a perfect number, it's better than if it could be.
Neuropathy:
Recently I did some research into diabetic neuropathy due to some severe foot pain. I found out that neuropathy can develop when blood sugars are consistenly very high over a long period of time. The first thing I did was to do some online checking. (See my reference section below for links) My research also took the form of a discussion with my friend, who has been Type I diabetic since she was about 6 yrs old.
After reading the articles online I wasn't sure if I was suffering from neuropathy or some other problem. So, I talked with my friend, who suffers from it herself. The sensations from neuropathy turned out to be very different from the pain I was feeling. This made me glad for now, but also gave me a better idea of what to look for in case that problem should arise for me.
Sensations:
The pain I was having was sharp and seemed to be muscle related. It turns out that I have a cyst on one foot that was exacerbating my troubles. After talking to my friend, and to my mother (who has the same cyst on her foot, in the same place), I determined that my foot problem was not neuropathy.
The sensations for neuropathy are tingling, pins and needles, and numbness. Numbness is one of the most serious because the lack of sensation in the feet can mask an injury. Infection in the feet and legs in a diabetic can be quite serious due to another complication, poor circulation. Since I'm not a medical expert, I will refer you to information available on websites such as www.foot.com that has a section on "the diabetic foot". Needless to say, I was happy to find that I was not suffering from neuropathy yet.
Research:
However, I do not think that diabetics should be ignorant of this or ANY possible complications to this disease. Knowledge is, after all, power. Don't let any foot pain go un checked. To fix my pain I just needed to get inserts for, and wear better shoes. An easy fix for now. But, down the road, I could be looking at a very different problem.
Remember to keep tracking your carbs, take your medication and test your blood sugar as prescribed by your medical provider. Exercise is also a must and I plan to talk about that in my next post. Keep up the good work and be healthy.
References:
http://www.foot.com/site/foot-conditions/diabetic-foot
http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/complications/neuropathy/
http://diabetes.webmd.com/diabetes-neuropathy
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