Off day...

Kind of a weird day for blood sugar. I don't test diligently, which is my habit because I don't want to see those high fasting values, but when I got up this morning I felt like I'd already had several cups of strong coffee. A low! Fasting BG was 3.9 (70.2 in American gallons). This is odd because around 6:45 pm last night I ate a huge plate of French fries next to a hot roast beef sandwich drenched in dark brown gravy on whole wheat bread, and a half cup of boiled mixed vegetables. I didn't take my dinner meds until I got home, and then I shot my usual night-time NPH, and worried a bit about the effect the fries would have on my FBG.


To back up a bit, the subway was taking a long time to get from station to station last night. About halfway through my 17-station east-bound trip we heard we'd go two more stations and then get off. So at Broadview station, like good Torontonians, we made like Burnham wood to Dunsinane and debarked. This was due to a "serious medical emergency" (jumper?) with police presence at a station about two more down the line. That didn't mean I could get off and walk a few blocks to the next working station in the cold, either. The next open station (Woodbine) was mine own, at least 45 minutes on foot.


So instead of taking a cab home I wandered down the main drag (Toronto has a few dozen main drags, but this is a MAIN main drag) looking in restaurant windows for a place to warm my feet (Blundstones, while waterproof and trendy, are not the warmest boots). I passed by Il Fornello (big glasses, little wine), Sher-E-Punjab (can't resist the naan, so didn't try), a few regular Greek, Italian, Thai, Japanese and other exotic places (did I mention that Danforth is a foodie's paradise?). I ended up at The Detroit Eatery (all-day breakfast; where the Wings are King). I didn't notice an entree over 9 bucks. I sat at the wooden counter and watched the evening news (first chance I'd had to watch the US inauguration stuff) on a big screen TV and sipped black coffee while the ice melted off my boots and my dinner was being prepared. And FUCK was it good.

Finally---medical evidence that diabetes intervention doesn't work!

Just kidding. "The major environmental factors that increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, presumably in the setting of genetic risk, are overnutrition and a sedentary lifestyle, with consequent overweight and obesity." This is part of a Medscape article that describes the difficulty in medical control of hyperglycemia (high blood sugar). It's pretty arcane in that it is written for medical professionals, but educated laypersons can get the gist. What your GP and endo usually recommend or prescribe doesn't work, long term. What does work is continuing education, which boosts motivation to follow the regimen. Dat's all, folks.

You need to register for this site but you get regular e-mail updates when new articles are published: http://www.medscape.com/ Lots of articles are pretty interesting, and most if not all of it is free. It's not as bland or uninformative as the Canadian Diabetes Association web site (ugh!). I'm not even gonna reference it. "See your doctor, see your doctor." Yeah, sure.

For people living with diabetes, Joslin (http://www.joslin.org/) is better. Lots more articles and research.