Symlin, the Exposer
At my last appointment, my endo offered up Symlin as a potential tool to battle my post prandial highs. Seemed reasonable to me, and I jumped on board.
Got the vial home, tried it once, and spent the next 3 or 4 days nauseous. Not from the Symlin, but from a regular old stomach bug. Came out of that and started up again - only to find a serious flaw in my diabetes life.
I've always known my carb counting was a little... weak. Numbers flummox me. But what Symlin exposed about my routine is that I don't have one.
I'm all over the place. I snack. I graze. I nibble while I prepare meals for my kids, then eat a light supper only to be hungry before bed. I'm not sure I have a true '2 hour post-prandial' blood sugar... because I'm rarely 2 hours away from my last tidbit.
Symlin is only taken when you are sitting down to a meal of 30g of CHO or more. So I've been finding myself not taking it.
When I was diagnosed in 1986, diabetes was still about meal - snack - meal - snack - meal - snack and exchanges. Two 'breads, one 'fruit', a 'milk', and a few 'meats'. Flexibility? Not much.
Over the last 2o years, and especially after starting on an insulin pump in fall of '96, my diabetes has become much more about eating when I am hungry and not denying any carb I can successfully count. What has evolved over the past few years is a very flexible lifestyle. And that's not Symlin-friendly.
Actually, it's not all that diabetes-friendly. Yes, I believe that strict schedules and complete denial of treats only sets people (well, me) up for failure. But I'm starting to realize the value in a tighter routine and a more limited selection of foods. I am reminded of the advice Dr. Stu Brink gave a camp pal of mine years ago: eat the same thing every day until you get it down. Monotonous? Yes. Effective? Very.
Symlin may have served its function without even being injected. My goal this week is to skip the snacks and focus on the meals, to get some real post-prandial data. Then, I think, Symlin could be truly useful.
posted by Kassie @ 5:07 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Hey there Kassie!
How goes symlin? I have a Doc Appt. at Joslin on Jan. 26th. Should I try it?
p.s. Do you have email?I tried to reply to your email but it was returned. Thanks for your comments and feedback!
I applied for Ascensia contest...haven't heard yet...would love to talk with you??
when will your book be out? would love to read it.
I live south of Boston...would be interested in joining you for the JDRF Boston walk next year!
With Laughter, LOVE, Chocolate and Insulin
an email's on its way to you...
PS: Pretty much everyone I've talked to about Symlin loves it!
Hi Kassie,
I lack routine too. Like you say, how can you get an accurate post meal reading when you're never actually two hours out from your last food!
Carb counting can be such a challenge too - I've always hated math, and I wonder if it's because my life has been full of all these damn calculations.
With todays serving sizes it's terribly hard to be honest with yourself on how many grams you are actually eating! At least that's one of my problems (what do you mean the serving is only 12 chips?! :-) ).
I think you've got a good plan going - I'm anxious to hear how it goes.
Best of luck!
I could have written scott's post. So um... ditto!
Let us know how it goes :-)
I've been complaining about my post-prandials also - but I'm afraid I may be having the same problem. Still, I swear they are higher than they should be! Or higher than they were.
It is an excellent point that constant grazing makes measuring PP just the tiniest bit difficult.
I'm rooting for you Kassie. Even though I don't have diabetes, I have to get a grip on my grazing. With both sides of my family having history with heart disease (my dad had his first heart attack at 42), I can't afford to be laissez-faire about my diet.
Plus I need to be a good role model for Brendon who needs to be strict with his eating habits.
I know the battle you're up against. You have more pressure than I do.
I'm doing Weight Watchers just to give me some sort of structure and to lose that last bunch of baby weight from when I had Jacob.
Good luck with your new "lifestyle change" ;)
Wow that is a very awesome trick that can be done with a simple idea of configuration. It is very useful to make one of those just to have lying around because that is somethin that will definitely be needed.
-Kelly
Post a Comment
<< Home