For the past few days, I've been battling a terrible thing (I'm being quite sarcastic here, with a little hint of truth). This thing comes around every once in awhile, but usually it comes with explanation (hello, Mother Nature!). However, this thing of late is out of the ordinary. This thing is hunger.

For the past week or so, I've been ravenously hungry all the time. Occasionally I get this way when it's that time of the month so I eat a little extra and go on my way. But this time, I'm perplexed. And annoyed.

Is it the extra exercise? Have I been skipping lunch? Am I not consuming enough calories in general? I'm quite annoyed because food is such an integral part of everything.

Food is expensive. Food is time-consuming. Food spikes blood sugars. Food can lower blood sugars (by this, I mean crazy crashes after boluses). Food is life. But now, food is just plain annoying. (READ MORE)

Here I sit wearily, just my favorite meter and me.
Staring at a blood sugar of two hundred and thirty three.

I was happily rolling smooth, and on track all day today.
But now am confusedly flustered and in the grips of dismay.

How did my glucose get to be so darn high?

I know my tubeless pump is secured firmly to my thigh.

It wasn't the early lunch of carb free salad with chicken.
Guess I should have just had water or stuck to lime wedge lickin'.

Time to punch in a bolus and get some more insulin to flow.

Oh hell, I don't have my pump's controller- where oh where did it go!?

It is not in my bag, there's no bulge in my front pant pocket, (READ MORE)

Tidbit number one: I almost deleted the message because it sounded like a salesman. We get those calls sometimes--you know, people who leave messages for products or services. I really wonder if they really think they'll get calls back. Anyway, so it actually was a salesman and I still almost deleted it, but then I heard the keywords: Dr. C asked me to give you a call. Then I realized he said he was from Medtronic. So the three "I really hope you're having a good day" comments were part of his sales pitch. Ugh. This is how it starts. I hate being sold to. I mean, if you mask it well, then I guess I'm OK with it, but if you're going to sell me something and you're going to kiss my ass the whole time then I, frankly, don't want to hear it. I'm seriously thinking about telling him upfront, "Dude, don't talk to me like a customer. Talk to me like you're trying to convince your brother to buy your brand of pump. (READ MORE)

I should have known my blood sugar was high. The Hunger was back. Not the it's-been-hours-since-my-last-meal hunger. Or even the low-blood-sugar hunger. But that insatiable Hunger. The eat-everything-you-can-get-your-hands-on-but-still-be-hungry Hunger.

I hadn't felt the Hunger in years. Not since 2003, when I was first diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Once I got my blood sugar under control, that insatiable Hunger was gone. Now it was back, with a vengeance.

At first, I chalked it up to breastfeeding. After all, breastfeeding is rumored to burn about 1,000 calories a day. (In me, it's probably closer to 200 calories a day, if that.) Then I thought it was from stress or fatigue, after all, new moms really don't get a lot of sleep.

Then, when I started taking my blood sugar again, I recognized it for what it truly was. The Hunger. That beast I thought I'd caged years ago. It had gotten lose. (READ MORE)

Even though I started hating Byetta toward the end, it still offered me at least one redeeming benefit. I held on to Byetta a lot longer than I should have mainly because it zapped my appetite. From roughly a week in I was hardly ever hungry. In fact, I found myself routinely having rabbit food several meals a day and feeling just fine about it.


I feared the hunger almost immediately, and within days of giving up on Byetta for a number of reasons, I started to experience that dreaded hunger once again. I even did some Google research on appetite suppressants hoping that I could try to have the best of Byetta and Novolog with some herbal or OTC remedy. (READ MORE)