Tag Archives: a1c

Medical

I Got Prediabetes from My Doctor’s Vacation

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It’s a great tabloid headline, mainly because it plays fast and loose with the truth. The kernel of fact in it, though, shows the danger of being prediabetic – and having no clue.

The vacation part is true; my physician (who’ll remain nameless, mainly to spare embarrassment) went away for a few weeks last August at the time I called in for an annual checkup. I asked the office if I could get blood work done in the meantime, so I’d be ready as soon as the doctor returned.

As noted in my Welcome, I wasn’t the picture of health at that point. Overweight? Yep. And, well, I was sure I could be better overall, but I wasn’t losing any other body functions. My main concern was the PSA screening, since both of my older brothers went through bouts of prostate cancer.

My family’s health history showed a few other warning signs – high blood pressure and colon cancer – but nothing pointing to diabetes. My doctor ran lipid panels on my blood, but nothing on glucose.

Last August, the test lineup changed as another physician in the office OK’d a full workup, including A1C and fasting glucose. I didn’t know that at the time; the only difference came with the nice lab attendant taking another vial of blood. (I only saw that as I left; I can’t stand the sight of the draw.)

Two weeks later, I went in for my office visit with my regular physician. After discussing my weight – a regular part of my annual visit – we got to the matter of the blood tests. The doc didn’t mince words; my numbers showed that I was prediabetic.

Looking back, I can see that the physician put it a bit too kindly. With a 6.6 A1C, I crossed the line into diabetes territory. My doc counseled that we could get that number down, depending on how I serious I wanted to get on treatment.

I don’t like anyone to get rosy about health, and mine in particular. I’ve always said that when it gets time to get the bad news, I wanted it straight, as in “how long have I got, doc?”

This wasn’t the ticket to the Big Adios, but diabetes didn’t seem like anything that needed a half-hearted approach. “Ok,” I said, “what’s serious?”

The light approach, according to the physician, would be to watch diet and weight and see if I could reduce the numbers. Going serious would mean daily glucose monitoring, daily medication and some hard work on diet and exercise. My medical plan also offered a class with a dietician to educate me on my diet.

“Then let’s go serious,” I said. “When do we start?”

“Today. I’ll send the orders to the pharmacy. And good luck.”

With that, I walked out of the office, a new entry in the growing crowd of millions nationwide suffering from a diabetic condition.  Outside of some literature, a scrip and a phone number for a dietician, I had little clue on how to proceed.

Actually, I didn’t feel like I was suffering anything … but that’s the problem with prediabetes. The only thing I could credit for the diagnosis was my doc choosing late August to get out of town.

About

Welcome

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x02d24There’s not much to look at with this website, and I don’t know how you managed to get here, but thanks for turning up. Right now, this post is just about all you’ll see for a bit.

My name is Emerson Schwartzkopf. And the reason I’m here is because I’m prediabetic. If you’ve arrived here, changes are good that you’re prediabectic, too.

This isn’t a new 12-step program, or a pitch  for some whippy new diet or medicine or vitamin tablet. I’m here to share my journey — my prediabetic trek — in the past 14 months.

Since August 2015, my A1C dropped from 6.6 — past the line that moves you into full-blown diabetes — to 5.7, and almost out of the prediabetic range. My fasting glucose went from 109 mg/dl to 96 mg/dl.

In August 2015, my blood pressure rang in at 134/76, with a pulse rate of 64. A year later, my check-up showed a BP of 109/55 and a pulse rate of 54.

And, yeah, my weight. Fully clothed, I tipped 271 lbs on the clinic scale with a 5′ 8 1/2″frame and body mass index (BMI) of 40.6. A year later? Try 207 lbs with a BMI of 31. That’s still obese on all the health charts, but a  drop of 64 lbs in one year.

What I’ve probably picked up is your full attention, with the question of how did he do that? It’s a long story — it’s why I’m going to do this website — but I’ll tell you what I didn’t do:

I didn’t get bariatric surgery.
I didn’t go to a health spa.
I didn’t join a gym.
I didn’t hire a personal trainer.
I didn’t buy any exercise equipment.
I didn’t run 10 miles a day. I didn’t even jog 20 steps in one year.
I didn’t fast (except before blood tests at the clinic).
I didn’t go into induced comas and take all nutrition via IVs.
I didn’t go on Whole30, or Paleo, or gluten-free, or any publicized diet plan.
I didn’t join a weight-monitoring group.
I didn’t join a delivered-food plan.

There’s no miracle here. I did a bunch of very simple things that just about anyone, anywhere, anytime can try for themselves.  However, don’t mistake simple for easy. And don’t think all of it is a joy. (Oh, man, do I miss Red Velvet cake. Man, oh man, do I miss it.)

I’ll be writing blog posts in the coming weeks to flesh this out a bit, and then go into more detail. What I did may not work for you. Maybe you can adapt and improve. Maybe you’ll get going in a different direction and find success in dealing with prediabetes. Whatever works is OK.

The point of all this is that I don’t see a lot written on how an everday, ordinary person can deal with prediabetes, save for a lot of non-specific lists vetted to mundane deaths by lawyers.

I’ll be back. I hope you’ll return soon.