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During the last month or so, since January 10th, I've been taking the drug Janumet to treat my type 2 diabetes.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, Janumet is a combination drug which consists of Januvia and Metformin. In my case, the dosage is 50 mg of Januvia and 500 mg of Metformin, all rolled into one tablet.

I will admit that I was rather skeptical when the doctor suggested this medication because I’ve taken both Metformin and Januvia separately, and have issues with both.

The Metformin worked for a little while and then quite working. What it lost in the way of blood sugar control, it gave back in the form of nasty stomach related side effects.

The Januvia never really did anything more that cause my blood sugars to rise, which was just the opposite of what the doctor told me it was supposed to do.

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It's been eight months since I started the bio-identical hormone treatment. I've seen progress. I've seen some setbacks in my progress. Overall, the last eight months have been interesting, slightly grueling, and very trying on my patience.

Between the supplements and medications that I take, my blood sugars have seen highs and lows. I have no idea how much this process has affected my blood sugars, but I do know that it certainly plays a part. I'm always wondering which supplement raises blood sugars and which lowers. I try to watch for trends, but it's too much to handle when you're taking this many supplements and prescriptions.

Just how many supplements and prescriptions am I supposed to take (I say supposed because I seem to lack discipline in this area)? Well here's my daily list:

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Yeah there’s actually a name for what I’ve apparently been going through. I don’t think I would have thought about it, though, had I not had a follow up with my psychiatrist today. But the last few days as I was thinking about what Dr. L and I would talk about today I realized that I had regressed to where I was before I saw Dr. L the first time.
 

Remember how happy I felt almost immediately after my antidepressant dosage was doubled? I didn’t think about it until now, but that happiness didn’t last long. I had gone back to feeling pretty crappy all the time, not relating to the kids well, getting frustrated easily and generally not being a happy person. But it had been so long since I felt “happy” that this just felt “normal” to me.
 

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This morning, getting ready for work. I looked at the scattering of dots on my thighs from old pump sites. And then I wrote this...

We test, we write it down - we test, we store results - we test, we examine results - we test, we make decisions about what to do next.

We eat, we calculate - we eat, we guess - we eat, we dose - we eat, we hold our breath and hope we've done everything right.

We take our medication, we adjust our doses - we take our medication, we wonder if it's the very best medicine for us - we take our medication, we hope that it serves our body well - we take our medication, and wait for the next big advance.

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Last Friday afternoon, this was my Facebook status: "Salty Seniorita. Rum and Diet Coke. Love me a 2 p.m. Friday."

Fridays during the summer around here we get off at 2 p.m. It's a fantabulous job perk, especially when those "extra" two hours or so mean that you can sit at a bar with a friend and have a drink or two.

Several days later a friend posted this in response to my status: "Can diabetics drink?"

It's an innocent question that leads back to a myth that people with diabetes can't drink. At all. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind the myth is, but I suspect it's rooted in beer and fru-fru drinks like daquoris and margaritas and other drinks with sugary syrups and high and/or simple carbs.

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Yesterday, I responded to the question about "things you wish your doctors knew about diabetes and the daily task of living [with it] by mentioning that many healthcare providers' knowledge of diabetes is incomplete and/or out of date. Rather than be a part of the problem, I've proposed a first-draft solution — some things I would put into a Continuing Medical Education (CME) syllabus to fill in some of those gaps. I'm sure I'm missing rather a chunk of stuff, but then again, this is a first draft.

If I were to develop a syllabus to fill in the gaps in professional diabetes education, as I perceive they exist today, these are some of the things I would consider:

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I mentioned the other day that there were some issues with my health during my blogging hiatus, and I thought I should share a bit about what was going on during that time.

I've written previously about the trials and tribulations that I've had with oral medications; they've either worked great as far as blood glucose control is concerned but had horrible side effects that I couldn't handle, or they just didn't work well at all.  It's been an on again/off again struggle for the last couple of years and, unfortunately, I dealt with more of that during my time away.

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My father’s sister Margaret died of complications from diabetes at the age of 51.  It was an awful thing to watch.  The years between her fortieth birthday and her dying day were overfilled with pain.  She had issues with her toes, issues with her eyes, she had multiple strokes.  My father, a decorated Marine and police officer, held his little sister’s hand through too much heartache.  When she died, in a nursing home, too young and too sick for words, he cried.  

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I’ve never been formally diagnosed with depression. After having post-partum depression after No. 1 and No. 2 were born, I pretty much recognized the symptoms. It took Harry looking at me and actually calling me on it (“How depressed are you?”) for me to finally get help for it.

But back then one of the reasons I didn’t seek out a more professional opinion was because I was unemployed and scraping every penny I had for everything I did. In fact, after Harry prescribed an anti-depressant for me I wasn’t able to take it because insurance didn’t cover it and I couldn’t afford to shell out $100 a month for it.

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As everyone here who takes insulin will agree, diabetes cannot be "cured" by diet alone. And as everyone whose diabetes is currently controlled in part, or entirely, by diet and exercise will agree, just like "insulin is not a cure", "eating the right foods" is not a cure, either.

Merriam-Webster defines "cure (noun)" in our sense as the following:

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