So, another rough night, mostly lower belly pain which sis not abate during the night or yet today. Just after midnight my reading was 132, and I sat up and had 2 cups of coffee before going back to bed around 2:00. Really fitful uncomfortable “sleep”, got up around 6:30 and my normal morning reading was 113.

I went to see the diabetes counselor at the clinic, still in pain, but it was a good visit. She seemed impressed with the general trend of my numbers coming down. She also explained the whole sugar process:

• I eat food, it turns into sugar (fuel), which gets into the blood stream.
• In order for the fuel to reach my organs for optimal operation, the glucose has to pass from the blood into the organs.
• Insulin acts like the door keeper, opening the path for the glucose to move from the blood stream into the organs.
• The pancreas creates the insulin; if the pancreas isn’t creating enough insulin to move the glucose from the blood to the organs, the glucose stays in the blood stream and thus shows as a high reading on the finger stick; i.e., too much sugar in the blood.

So that makes sense.

She also helped me to better understand about portion control and balancing what I eat, especially so that I eat a protein with a carb-rich food. That means I have to be more conscious about what I eat, even though I am a pretty good eater most of the time.

I came home and ate lunch — the leftover plate from last night’s dinner — but didn’t each much of the potatoes, mostly the bacon and the veggies. After waiting 2 hours, I tested and got a 177.

One thing she said was that my numbers should aim for 80-180; I’d been expecting a narrower window of acceptable range. But she looked through my meter and noticed my numbers are coming down, so that’s a good thing. She also said it’s a possibility I may be able to stop the insulin as long as I keep my numbers down. Or at least reduce my dosage. But that’s way down the road.

I may need to start testing more frequently for a while to see what happens when I eat various things through the day. Thank goodness testing supplies are free under Medicare. 🙂 So was today’s visit, so no co-pay today. Yayy.

Meanwhile, the abdomen continues to give me grief. Everything hurts today so I can barely stay standing — both the bladder/prostate area as well as sharp pains all around the intestine area. I genuinely do not understand it because I’ve started taking the Tamsulosin to open up the bladder/prostate area, and I’ve been eating regular foods with supplemental fiber. But it all still hurts so much. 🙁 Between the urologist next week and the colonoscopy in January, I sincerely hope to get some answers. I cannot keep on trying to function with pain. Oddly, only sometimes does the aspirin and/or ibuprofen seem to help, and the pain levels don’t seem to be directly connected to when or how much I eat or drink, OR when or how much I pee or poop. So I sincerely hope the doctors will find an organic actual reason for this much pain.

Yeah, I know… this is probably more personal than strangers need or want to read. But I don’t have someone sharing my life with whom I can talk this stuff out with, so there it is. 🙂

OH! and she reiterated that there are no “bad foods” — just portion control and balance.