I started seeing a new doctor that I found on twitter. Kinda strange, right? But she just opened a practice that is pretty dedicated to diabetes-management, and she’s local. Her website is here: http://www.diabevita.com

This new doctor’s approach to diabetes-management is slightly controversial. My doctor follows the philosophy of Dr. Richard Bernstein who is known for suggesting ultra-low carb eating for diabetics…which means 6g carbs for breakfast and 12g for lunch and 12g for dinner (versus the American Diabetes Association’s 30g per meal).

Day one was excruciating.  I ate close to ZERO grams of carbohydrates.  I skipped my morning coffee (the whole milk I use is too high in carbs).  I had a huge headache.  I was cranky.  It was just miserable.

But day two was easier.  Today is day three, and it feels pretty good so far.

And now for the nerdy part.  I am going to start storing my blood glucose levels in a spreadsheet that is saved on Google Documents.  And I created a Form that looks like this:

And then I embedded it into an .html file on my webpage…so I can easily enter my glucose levels and have them save to a spreadsheet that I will print out and bring to the doctor’s office.

This is what the results look like:

If you own your own website and want help doing this, hit me up.  I’ll help you out.  If you don’t own your own website, but want me to set one up for you here, let me know.

Ever since Dunkin’ Donuts revealed their new image and started peddling iced-coffee, I thought that I’d really like to give it a try…but I don’t live close to one.

Luckily on Friday I spent the night at my parent’s house and I on my way to the club on Saturday morning I passed a Dunkin’ Donuts and pulled in and bought a delicious iced coffee.

One thing that I noticed about the logo is that the font kind of looks like the font I used on this site.  Am I right?

It was 100% unintentional.  Do you think that when I re-designed this site I subliminally connected to the Dunkin design?

As a side-note, when I twittered that I was loving the Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, my friend Joe replied:

joeb7474Dunkin’ Donuts is a good place for a diabetic to hang.

Good point, Joe.  But they’ll sweeten your coffee with Splenda.

I was standing in what appeared to be a non-moving pharmacy line.  The elderly gentleman picking up his medications was confused about the prices being charged, and demanded an explanation.  “I”ve been taking these same pills for 10 years,” he said. “Why does it suddenly cost more?”

I hate this.

To make matters worse, the lady in front of me is talking on her cell phone.  The guy in front of her is getting visibly grumpy.  The pharmacy employee is getting upset.  And right then, after waiting in this long and stagnant line for fifteen minutes, I had every excuse to be grumpy too.

I’ve blogged a lot here about the struggles I have had recently living as an uninsured diabetic.  For the past 6 months I was insured, but diabetes was considered a pre-existing condition and wasn’t covered.

And since May 1st I have had insurance to help me pay for all of my supplies.

All I want is a new vial of insulin, I thought to myself.  Then I started to think about last spring.  I remembered how a trip to the pharmacy was going to break the bank.  I remembered back to April when I literally had to choose to pay my car payment of buy insulin (I picked the wrong one, btw).  I remember trying to convince myself that I could put diabetes on hold for a month or two while I took care of some other financial responsibilities.

Eventually I made it to the front of the pharmacy line.  I smiled when the pharmacist told me that the vial of insulin that I was paying over $100 for a few months ago would only cost me the $10 co-payment.  Things aren’t so bad, I thought.  Now if only there was something we could do about those pharmacy lines.

I’ve got a dilemma, and I was hoping some of you can help me.

Since my DKA in May, I’ve been seeing a doctor that I randomly found by flipping though my insurance provider’s list of approved doctors. I made my first appointment and went in and told him my whole story.

I won’t bore you with my back-story, but the gist is that my insurance just recently started covering Diabetes care after a long waiting-period because of a “pre-existing condition.” Dumb.

So the Doctor comes in and is a really fast talker. He interrupted me while I’m talking a few times. And he scribbled a prescription and walked out. A few seconds later a nurse walks in and cleans my ears out (I guess scratching the inside of your ears with your car keys is bad for them…who knew?), and tells me that the doctor wants to see me again in a month.

Okay, so he loses points as a conversationalist…but I know that a lot of doctors are in-and-out, and I’ve heard a lot of people complain that they don’t get enough face-time with their doctors.

When it came to my treatment plan however, I really feel that for the first time this doctor really “got me.” The basal/bolus regiment is working. My numbers (for the first time in years) are close to stabilizing. And I’m hopeful that I can live comfortably with diabetes.

So here’s the dilemma: It’s time for me to make another appointment. Do I find another doctor to see?

THE PROS: If I cut ties now with this doctor, I’ve invested very little of my time and money into him. I can go find someone that clicks with me, and we can have a long relationship. It’s possible that in a few months I get fed up with the curtness of the current doctor and end up switching anyway.

THE CONS: Eventually you need to settle down and start building history with one physician. It’s close to impossible to find that “soul mate” doctor that connects from the moment your eyes meet. Stop doctor-hopping and start getting in control of your diabetes.

What are your thoughts?

I’ve blogged it before, but I’ll repeat myself.

Before getting a tattoo I have to complete the following process:

1. Come up with a design. Nothing iffy. It has to be on paper (or in a photoshop file). The thought, “I want a Chinese character” or “I’d like something that reminds me of my kids,” isn’t specific enough.
2. You have two weeks to improve it. This design is going to be on you forever. In the next two weeks make changes to it. Re-design it. Use a different font. Perfect it.
3. Hibernate it. Put it away, but don’t forget about it. You need to sit on the design for one year. If you still want to put this design on your body 365 days after you originally came up with it, do it.

Well today I finished step one.  Here’s my solid design.  Nothing iffy:

Imagine I just had a really bad low, and ended up face-down in the middle of a parking lot.  When the EMTs roll up, do you think this tattoo would be catchy enough?

Let’s see if I still want this one year from today.

On the 12th day of each month a bunch of bloggers take 12 photos of their day. Here are mine for May, 2009.

If you’d like to see the collection of everyone’s photos, go to Chad’s page.

Mr. D is in Flagstaff for the week, and he sent me a text to remind me to take photos for the day.

My little lunch box that I put my insulin in.  How do you guys keep your insulin cool?

I woke up high…again.  I think I need to up my basal intake.

Checking my Twitter. Unhealthy obsession.

“Please walk me,” she begs.

Why am I always wearing this shirt on the 12th?

New diabetic supplies make it feel like Christmas.

Bathroom reading material…you should be glad I took a picture of the magazine, and not anything else.

I voted for 2 of these guys.  Guess which.

More needles.

Going for another walk.

Ouch.  Testing blood before bed.

I went through some diabetic drama the past few weeks, and it really made me think that maybe I should have some sort of diabetic jewelry.

You know, those tacky little medical bracelets that would alert any medical professionals of my insulin-dependence just in case I was unable to do so myself.

I am particularly concerned because last week when Dan was driving me to the hospital, I said some things and was kind of acting a little drunk.  Some things Dan told me I did I don’t even remember doing.  So it would be helpful, I think, to have a little alert…just in case.

And then I start thinking that maybe an “insulin dependent” tattoo would be in order.  I’ve see some good ones and some not so good ones on the Internet.  (My favorite really is the last one in this post.  Simple and clear).

What do you guys think?  Tacky?  And where would I put it?  My wrist?

And really, if I was having some sort of diabetic-related incident that made me belligerent, and uncorporative, do you think a police officer would notice a tattoo or a piece of medical jewelry?  Really?

And I know that EMTs and medical professionals are trained to look for medical alert jewelry…but I really doubt they spend too much time looking for medical alert tattoos.  Right?

And I’ve blogged before (here) about my personal tattoo policy.  Before I ever get a tattoo (and I’m currently tat free) I must complete a three step process:

1. Come up with a design. Nothing iffy. It has to be on paper (or in a photoshop file). The thought, “I want a Chinese character” or “I’d like something that reminds me of my kids,” isn’t specific enough.
2. You have two weeks to improve it. This design is going to be on you forever. In the next two weeks make changes to it. Re-design it. Use a different font. Perfect it.
3. Hibernate it. Put it away, but don’t forget about it. You need to sit on the design for one year. If you still want to put this design on your body 365 days after you originally came up with it, do it.

So I guess I’ll get started on that process.  It’s been pretty effective in keeping me ink-free so far.

Maybe you were thinking, “Man, Mike has been quite for a while.”  Or maybe you didn’t notice.  Or maybe this is the first time you’ve read this blog.  Or maybe you don’t care.

Anyway, last Thursday night I started feeling really sick.  I thought I was getting the flu.  I called-in “sick” to my 2 jobs on Friday, and hung out in bed, ocassionally running to the toilet to throw up.  Saturday wasn’t any better.  And then on Sunday morning I started hypervenelating and vomitting…so Daniel took me to the hospital.  And it turns out that I had Diabetic Ketoacidosis – or near complete deficency of insulin.

It’s a long, embarassing story about how I got to that point…one that I’d like to pin on greedy insurance companies.  But the short story is this: I went a month without insulin.  And almost died.

Things are better now.  I”m home, recovering.  And diabetic-related materials are now covered by my insurance.  And I plan on being as healthy as possible.

Guess who the featured blogger of the week is over at The Diabetes OC website?  If you guessed Wilford Brimley, you’d be close…but not correct.

The featured blogger this week is me!

I put together a few posts.  My quick introduction with a anecdotal story about me in the 3rd grade is up right now.  I’ll also be writing about when I was diagnosed with diabetes, and living with an expensive chronic illness and being uninsured.

The “OC” in The Diabetes OC doesn’t stand for “Orange County” like I have been programmed to believe.  It actually stands for “Online Community” and the site was created by people that are living with diabetes and want to share their life with the world.

The website is currently ran by Gina Capone.

This week on Sweet Talk, we talked about exercise, and I brought up the fact that I too often drop out of traditional exercise programs because they require you to be somewhere and to do something specific.  That just doesn’t fit into my lifestyle.

So I’ve made the comitment to do some sort of physical activity everyday.  And I’m being intentionally vague.  Some days it might be a little walk around the block with Olive.  Other days it might be an hour on the Wii Fit.  And some days I may go and take a class at the YMCA.  Whatever it is, I’m going to do something every day.

And during the podcast discussion we also discussed the benifits of positive public pressure.  And I was thinking that I can blog my daily physical activity (boring) or I could start Tweeting it.  We began using the tag #didmine at Twitter.  Every day after we’ve done our daily activity we will include the tag #didmine to signify that we did ours for that day.

The cool part is that you can search using Twitter and see who has #didmine for the day.

We aren’t focusing on losing weight – getting up off the couch and moving is about so much more than weight loss.  And this isn’t just about diabetes.  Anyone can Tweet #didmine and show up in the timeline.

So, have you done yours today?