William Jud

What? I have diabetes? The thought simply did not cross my mind.

But I did, and do, have diabetes, and knowing this brought a lot of apparently disparate symptoms together into a coherent picture.

Two years ago I was writing a geological research paper for a small oil exploration company. The writing was unusually difficult. I would write a page, go to the next page, and could not remember what I just wrote. The overall research report was of poor quality. I knew my work was substandard. I sent a copy to another geologist who is familiar with the material and asked for his opinion. Essentially, and in politer terms, he said my work was 'crap.'

He was right, and I knew it, but I just could not do any better. Five, ten, twenty years ago, writing that research paper would have been easy and the result would have been acceptable and of high quality. But not this time. I ascribed the deficiency to old age and advancing senility.

Our local rural electric cooperative, Black River Electric Coop, has a members' meeting each year in a large tent, once weather gets warm. Various agencies and local business people set up shop in a smaller tent nearby. One of the tent occupants was the Madison County (Missouri) Health Department.

While I was browsing vendor offerings, a Health Department worker asked whether I would like to have a blood sugar test. The test is a quick and simple affair involving a finger-stick to draw a drop of blood, then transferring the blood drop to a hand-held meter to measure blood sugar concentration. I had never had this test, or if I did it was so long ago that I could not remember when. I said "OK" and sat down.

The Health Department worker read the blood sugar meter and shook her head. "I'll have to do it again," she said. "This meter does not read that high."

Oops! The sample is off-scale? Not good news.

She got another meter calibrated for higher blood sugar concentrations and did the test again. The meter read 240, as I recall. Normal is 70 to 110. I have diabetes!

Knowledge is power. Recognizing, and then defining, a problem are the first steps toward fixing the problem.

I bought some books on diabetes. A book that I found particularly useful is Reversing Diabetes by Dr. Julian Whitaker. Information concerning diabetes symptoms and effects merged into a pattern that I had noticed for many years but failed to recognize as a health problem. Some of the diabetes symptoms were present all the way back to my middle grade school years, although most of the health problems that accompany the symptoms did not appear until the past ten to fifteen years. For example, as a child I would not be hungry until I ate dinner, and shortly afterward I would become so hungry that I could (and sometimes did) eat dinner again. Sixty years ago, when I was going through grade school, there was not as much awareness of diabetes and not as much medical information on the subject. Who knew?

Diabetes is self-reinforcing. When you eat, your blood sugar concentration rises. Some foods, such as white bread, cause an especially fast and high rise in blood sugar. Your pancreas produces insulin that enables your body's cells to accept blood sugar and carry on their various functions. But a couple of hours later the process can overshoot. Blood sugar drops to a low value and you begin to get shaky, you may have blurred vision or other eye problems, and most of all, YOU GET REALLY HUNGRY.

You can remove these symptoms for a while by eating again. But about two hours later the process again comes full-circle. Your blood sugar concentration goes up again, then falls again, and you become hungry again and the shakiness and other problems return. This cycle repeats throughout the day. You eat way too much, which eventually makes you fat, and being fat compounds and increases the food-blood-sugar-insulin cycle. The process is self-reinforcing.

Damage to your body from diabetes creeps up slowly, over many years. Most symptoms have no obvious link to diabetes. You don't have a flash of insight one day and suddenly realize, "Wow, these are diabetes symptoms!" No, you just slowly feel worse and begin to function poorly at life in general.

Prior to my problem writing the research paper, I was developing low-grade but worsening periodontal disease, a separation of teeth and gums that exposes tooth roots and eventually causes decay and loss of teeth. I was developing arthritis. I had chronic athlete's foot fungus. Twenty years ago I could easily walk twenty miles carrying a pack of rock samples. Three years ago my walking range was from the middle of the WalMart parking lot to the back of the store, a distance of around 400 feet, before leg pain became so intense that I had to find a bench and sit for several minutes. It was almost impossible, due to pain, to raise my extended arms higher than shoulder level. At peak, I weighed 315 pounds, both a cause and a result of worsening diabetes. Depression was becoming frequent and sometimes rather bad.

I finally checked in with Dr. Beyer in Fredericktown, who prescribed Metformin, a generic brand of the blood sugar stabilizing drug Glucophage. I also followed the suggestions in Dr. Julian Whitaker's book, Reversing Diabetes, which included dietary changes, exercise, and vitamin and mineral supplementation.

It has been two years since I became aware of my diabetes and started to fix the problem. Bottom line: Success! Type 2 diabetes, the kind and stage that I have, is absolutely controllable and in some cases may be curable. I made some lifestyle changes that really are not difficult. I do not miss the former lifestyle and wonder how I was EVER able to eat as much as I did for most of the past half-century. I have a new appreciation of nutrition. Now I look at a person who drinks sugary soft drinks several times each day and wonder to myself how anyone could subject himself to such chronic metabolic poisoning.

The periodontal disease is going away, according to my last dental visit. The athlete's foot fungus cleared up for the first time in decades. I can reach up and get things off of the top kitchen shelf, well above shoulder level. My walking range is increasing - I keep a record of daily walks and last summer walked well over a hundred miles - the equivalent of hiking from Fredericktown to St. Louis and partway back. Walking is no longer limited by pain, just by weather and time available. My weight is now 205 pounds and falling.

Yes, the research paper was finished and turned out magnificently. The result may have profound positive economic impact.

Is it all worth it? Absolutely! The lifestyle changes required to control my Type 2 diabetes are quite minor overall. The results are really great. I can still eat anything I want, although only a small amount of some foods, and in menu combinations that limit the rise of blood sugar after eating.

The screening test for diabetes is quick, nearly painless, and free at my local Madison County Health Department. If you are in declining health and think there is a chance you may have hidden diabetes, get tested. Symptoms and medical problems caused by diabetes can have no obvious connection with diabetes.

I now have my mind and body back in top operating condition.

Type 2 diabetes can be controlled and the symptoms can be overcome.

YES!

Halleluiah!