Runny nose, watery eyes, sneezing, coughing, congestion.

Most people who read this set of symptoms think, "common cold" or today, "rhinovirus". But it also describes the symptoms suffered by many with seasonal or other allergies.

The general term is "histamine reaction" — and while these symptoms don't describe all histamine reactions (hives, localized swelling, and/or general bloating can also be present in a histamine reaction) — the correct diagnosis should be histamine reaction until an underlying cause (allergies, rhinovirus, influenza, etc.) is determined.

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In response to Mike Durbin's Diabetes Blessings Week, I've put together some first "thanks" we might have given upon our diagnoses...

The DKA Survivor — Thank goodness I'm alive!

Symptomatic Solly — Thank goodness we know what it is!

The New Type 1 (adult) — Thank goodness there's insulin!

The New Type 2 — Thank goodness I don't need insulin!

Type 1 (at Thanksgiving dinner) — Thank goodness I have insulin, so I don't have to say "no" to anything!

 

Just a Touch of "The Sugar" — Thank goodness there's a pill for that!

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There's an old joke about two blind men who, having never before encountered an elephant, are asked to describe it based on what they can touch of it. The one man, brought to the elephant's trunk, has a completely different description from the other, who was brought to its hind leg.

There's a famous experiment, proposed as a test for artificial intelligence, in which a person queries two entities about themselves and tries to determine which of the two is a man, and which is a machine.

And then there's the famous "black box" which, in theory, creates solutions from inputs, without any single entity knowing what it does to "create order from chaos". The black box is, in other words, magick.

Each of these requires that someone (or some thing) create a definition and a solution to a problem based on insufficient, empirical data.

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The most recent heat wave may have passed, but summer is still in full swing -- which means heat-related health alerts. While these issues are not directly related to diabetes, diabetes can confound a heat-related health issue, making it harder to recognize and treat. Heat-related symptoms can mimic sugar-related symptoms and vice-versa, so it is in our best interests to know our normal ranges and reactions to the greatest degree possible.

The most basic heat issue is hydration. For some of us, dehydration will cause our blood glucose levels to drop; for others, it will cause those readings to rise. For some of us, the physical stress of dehydration will, at one point or another, trigger an adrenaline response and its associated glycogen release, leading to u-shaped curves (think "Dawn Phenomenon").

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Charlie was diagnosed with diabetes four years ago today.

Charlie never was a good sleeper. So when his twenty-minute naps changed to two-hour naps in the late summer of 2003, we saw it as a godsend. By September and into early October, we had to wake him from naps approaching three hours.

Suddenly he lost interest in eating. Susanne thought he surely had some sort of stomach virus brewing. But he never got sick.

Soon after, his appetite for fluids increased greatly as he voraciously guzzled tall glasses of milk and clawed at the refrigerator for more. It was never enough. This was followed by Charlie often waking up in the middle of the night drenched in urine from neckline to toe. I can remember Susanne constantly changing the sheets in the crib. (READ MORE)