Thank you all for the warm welcome! Thanks also for the compliments about my numbers. However, as I write more about me below, you will see that
everything is not really wonderful and perfect...
0f course I've experienced many changes in treatment during those years. I think maybe I've been doing approximately the same thing during the last ten years. I mean in 2000 I was already using Lispro (Humalog from Lilly, ultra-rapid insulin) and in that year I started with Glargin (Lantus, ultra-slow insulin). The combination gave me greater flexibility and I think I lowered my HbA1c by circa 0.5%.
I started using the Ultrasmart in 2007. Before I had the Accu-check Advantage. I like those meters with lots of statistics: different kinds of averages, percentages of results in certain ranges etc. I have small (paper!) notebooks where I write my results and statistics. I started that, I think, around 1989 and I am now in the 50th notebook. I keep them all. I write what I think is relevant, like exercise or food intake. (I do not use certain features in the Ultrasmart, only the statistics; I prefer paper.) Browsing the statistics in the notebooks, I feel either more confident I am doing the right thing or worried I am not doing well enough and then I have to change. By the way, a good thing about the Ultrasmart is that the strips are cheaper than I was used to with the other meters.
It is a matter of fact that I was used to having a HbA1c lower than 6.5%.
However in the last two or three years I have the feeling that it is getting more
difficult to control the diabetes and the results are slowly going up to 6.7, 6.8.
It appears that my C-peptide (the test that tells you whether you still produces some insulin) is going to zero, so that could be the reason. In fact, I am going to see my endocrinologist next week and ask him about this. Anyway the last few months I forced I bit and got 6.2% but at the expense of having quite a lot of hypoglicemias. I mean really too many, at the point of really making it difficult to work. So that's not the solution.
I am a little bit worried because my eye doctor found some abnormalities in the back of my eye, despite what, I suppose, has been a good control of my diabetes. It is still not bad, he says, but I would like to take action now about improving more my control. I hope talking to you guys makes a difference.
