Welcome To Healthysport!
Diabetic Journey 6
- Details
- Written by: Alex Z, PT
- Hits: 2564
Update of My Goals
Ok. Just so I won’t lose track of everything, I need to update you my readers about my health. First on diet - I pretty much followed the standard rule when it comes to diabetes eating, which is the most evidence-based diet, (eat heavy breakfast and mildly heavy lunch, eat light for dinner before 7). Occasionally I fall into non-compliance but I immediately correct that and so far, I have reached my goal of losing 10 pounds to meet my BMI. Unfortunately I lost some additional 5 pounds and these weren’t intentional as I think they occurred through a disruptive event in my life.It has been a month since a family member got sick and I will perhaps talk more about this in my coming blogs. What is coming up will be my labs and since I have recently resumed (since December) a strict ‘healthy sport’ lifestyle, I am expecting good numbers. Not the best numbers but more realistic numbers. But I certainly need an MD check up since my last (about 2 years ago?). Yes, the schooling and changes in my work status (full time to per diem) were also disruptive to my health.
Then the exercise. There was a time I exercised regularly (alternate low and high intensity days but mostly low). But unfortunately, the disruption which I blogged about earlier, took over my life and for a month, my exercise routine became erratic. Last month, I only ran when time permitted and these runs were mainly for weight maintenance and sugar control. Running races were once again delegated to the back burner but I am still fighting for a way to resume them.
Now I have this absolute need to return back to routine. I guess my body is screaming to return to healthy lifestyle. For me to accomplish that, I need my regular sleep (by avoiding useless internet surfing or watching DVD movies or worrying. AND close my eyes in a darkened room earlier in the night). The most immediate goal right now is to complete my sleep every night. Then get back to regular running. Since the days are longer in pm this time of year in Florida, I am changing my exercise schedule from mornings to evenings. When de-stressing, these two things go hand in hand for me: To run I must have a good sleep, To sleep good, I need to run (exercise). This works regardless of time of day.
Then supplementation is necessary. I am getting my multivitamins, of course. So here is the rule for me:
-
Exercise daily
-
Sleep good
-
Eat properly (heavy morning then taper at end of day- carbs less than 100 g) + Supplementation
-
Monitor, monitor glucose, BP, HR
-
See MD for labs follow ups regularly
These are pretty basic rules I follow. So far, my fasting Blood Glucose has dropped to 130s without meds. Obviously there are pitfalls. Nobody’s perfect but as I always say to my patients - so long as the boat floats and doesn’t sink, keep sailing.
I have greater motivation to control my health than many people because my work exposes me daily to the side effects of unhealthy living. Stroke is number 1. And 90 percent of my stroke patients have diabetes. Yesterday I talked with a patient who fainted while driving because of super high blood glucose. He was a young man told by his MD that he was pre-diabetic. So he didn’t think much about it and wham! He ended with 580 sugar reading and went into hyper glycemia crisis WHILE DRIVING. Sugar monitoring regardless of what your Medical or health caregiver tells you is important if you are diabetic. And don’t get complacent with the term pre diabetic. You are either diabetic or not and once you are diagnosed with it, you must change your lifestyle instantly. In fact, even if you are not diabetic, changing your lifestyle towards good health won’t hurt. I had a patient with no sugar problems but ballooned into more than 600 pounds and ended with congestive heart failure followed by respiratory failure and it took him months before he became strong enough to go to Rehab. The culprit? He had an office job that virtually rendered him immobile and he made sure he ate the biggest portion of meal he could take. Now he is full of remorse and surprisingly is very serious about his lifestyle. He is currently less than 500 pounds.
Yes, I do sound like an ‘health alarmist’ in this blog. Some readers might call me paranoid and hypochondriac and anti-obesity etcetera. But hear me out folks: This is my world everyday. Everyday I see nothing but health abnormalities in all the spectra of humanity. I guess you can click off my website if you don’t want to read the gloomy world I write about. I try to be positive as much as I can but there are times I will talk about the sadness of being sick. Because it is the truth. It is the painful reality we must all face one way or another.
Stroke of Alfonso
- Details
- Written by: Alex Zuniga, PT
- Hits: 2524
After so many years working with many stroke(CVA) patients, I have been made acutely aware of the outcomes of this very cruel disease. It strikes with very few warnings. Anyone can never be 100 percent safe from it if he is meant to have it. I have worked with stroke patients who were either the healthiest people in the world or the most unhealthy people. Stroke can occur due to unhealthy habits, of course, like smoking, eating wrong kinds of food, stressing out, the likes. Then there are those who stroke like it is some kind of destiny or fate. They palpitate and stroke out. They sit in an airplane for hours and throw a clot and stroke out. Young mother delivers a baby and strokes out. Unlucky fellow undergoes a surgery, mostly one involving carotid arteries, or repair of a small bowel obstruction, or an orthopaedic surgery, a heart surgery, a pacemaker placement and then - strokes out. And of course, there are those who carry the most perfect ingredients for a stroke - diabetes, high blood pressure and high bad cholesterol. So there is a lot of valid reasons for a stroke and anybody can have a very high risk for stroking.
I am not blogging here to tell you all about the medical and physiological basis of stroke and how to address it comprehensively, that would involve volumes but I want to share simple stories, these are stories of the stroke people I meet everyday who show the human angle of a condition that we sometimes think as only a disease. I see the impact of this horrible disease on real people everyday and this gives me all the more reason to avoid it as if my life depends on it.
Imagine waking up in the morning in a strange hospital bed being turned and washed and assisted by people you’ve never met before. You don’t feel half of your body and you can not move it either. You, a man who just yesterday was so independent, who was probably working, maybe playing golf, maybe managing the people around you, maybe teaching the brightest minds in the country, maybe proud of your past sports glory or health glory are now right there on a strange bed in a strange room in a strange hospital, surrounded by strange people you’ve never met before.
Someone will roll you on one side to wipe you clean after placing that miserable bed pan underneath you. Then another would poke your private part to attach that dreadful catheter. And the worst is when they get you up. You realize you are so dizzy you’d fear of falling, and that fear, that fear will dominate your life from that point on. Fear of falling, fear of looking again at yourself on a mirror, fear of losing your identity, your freedom, your independence, your speech, your job, your usefulness, your reliability and you start crying, moaning, losing sleep and wondering - what happens now?
Alfonso did not trouble himself when he felt dizziness associated with some right side weakness. He is 48 years old, has three kids and one is about to go to college so steady income from work is necessary. His dizziness is probably due to lack of sleep last night and as for the weakness on his right side - ah, he probably got some muscle strain from lifting heavy machinery in the sugar mill he works. Maybe he hit some nerves - how many co-workers complain of muscle weakness after work? And how they all felt better after a few days. The body rights itself anyway after a few days. If this gets worse, maybe then he’d see a Doctor, but right now, he doesn’t want to appear weak, you see, men aren’t supposed to be weak. Men are the strong, unbreakable, invincible pillars of society. He is a father. He has mouths to feed.
He showered, dressed and came to work.
It hit him big time at work.
His dizziness got very severe, his right side became number and weaker. He stumbled. Could not walk. He could not speak clear words. He was brought to the local hospital where Stroke was automatically diagnosed. He was then ambulanced to a bigger hospital that offered Comprehensive Stroke treatment. In this bigger hospital his Stroke was confirmed. Associated with that were his high blood pressure, a sugar reading of over 400 and high cholesterol. These were all made worse by his history of smoking.
So now Alfonso is right here in front of me, staring at me but really not looking at me. He frequently smiles and when he verbalizes his meaningless utterances, I have to conjure in my mind what they mean - what could he be saying to me?
Stroke is one of the most devastating diseases a man could suffer from. Why humans suffer it the most, I don’t know. I may be mistaken here, but I don’t hear of dogs and cats and horses stroking out. What is in our human anatomies that lead us to develop a clot, have that clot travel and be blocked in the smallest vessels of our brains until that part of the brain, deprived of nutrients and oxygen, fails ? What is in our anatomies that would explode our blood vessels due to high blood pressure until (similar to clot) deprives a part of the brain of life? These are questions that may baffle us forever and maybe someday we’d find an answer and hopefully medical immunity - (don’t we all wish to have a vaccination against strokes and heart attacks?) But for now, the best safety measure we can do is prevention and reduction of risks.
Majority of us know some of those risks can be controlled while others cannot be. The things we can do to control risks include proper diet and nutrition, exercises, avoiding smoking and stressing. Other things we can can control either via lifestyle or medication include hypertension, diabetes, heart palpitations, development of clots, and high cholesterol. And the best way to manage them is to know them. So a Doctors appointment, even for simple check up can save us a lot of sorrows later.
Alfonso would eventually recover from his Stroke’s acute phase to begin his very very long recovery. I try to be cheerful but the mantle of sadness had already descended upon him.
It is very easy to descend to depression when you get sick. The prospect of becoming subnormal is akin to being subhuman. Every time you get up you will need someone to assist you especially during the early phase. Sometimes you’d have to rely on a bedpan, or a commode where someone you’d never met before will handle the most intimate and private tasks you usually manage privately by yourself. And God forbid you get the non-committed health workers (and there are some of those), you’d be in a struggle between anger, resentment and intense desire to regain back independence but cannot.
Close your eyes and imagine this: You are in a dark hospital room, awake and unable to move half of your body. You call for help and no one comes until minutes later. You watch a TV show you never wanted to watch, your eyes travelling to the hands of the clock on the wall ticking non-stop. Imagine how many you could have done if only you were independent. How many walks, how many drives, how many working hours, how much time spent with friends and families you could have spent were you not confined in this hospital?
Stroke is no laughing matter.
Although stroke is like any other disease which we can never prevent if we are meant to have it, there are a few things I follow myself to minimize its occurrence on me. I am emphasizing the word ‘minimize’ here.
First thing first: Check with your MD. Pay close attention to blood glucose (most especially A1C), blood pressure, cholesterol. Other conditions you might want to know are heart conditions especially atrial fibrillation. And family history. If most of your family had stroke, you are also at risk. If you need to medicate, please do.
Quit smoking if you are a smoker. Eat healthy and try to achieve your BMI which is your ideal body weight according to your height. My BMI is 169. I am currently at 165.
To help you with that ideal BMI goal, diet and exercise go hand in hand. Diet should be ideal - avoid extremes. Increase variety. Reduce portion size.
Weigh yourself regularly.
Buy a blood pressure reader. If you are suspicious of heartbeat abnormalities, get a hold of O2Sat reader which can read both your oxygen sat level and heart rates on a constant basis. And if diabetic, please read your sugar frequently.
With exercise, always start slow. Avoid crowd-drivers if you must. Crowd-drivers are those who are always trying to set the pace of any work-out. These are the people we are drawn to follow. I personally avoid them because I do my own pacing and cadence. I build up my exercise routine based on how I feel, not who I can keep pace with or worse, who I can beat.
Most of all, do not undervalue rest and de-stress. Avoid fatigue points. And if you get fatigued whether at work or with family and friends or to many things to do at home, please stop and take slow breaths. Or better, discover a hobby that will take your mind away from it all. Walk in a park or close to the beach. Watch a good movie. Read a good book. Sleep.
Then if after all these you still suffered a stroke, you can tell yourself you did all you could do and will feel less guilty about it.
Page 31 of 64