I’m very difficult when it comes to jewelry. I really don’t like having things on my wrists. When I was teaching 7 or more yoga classes a week, and training in powerlifting, bracelets always got in the way. Now, I don’t really have either excuse to justify why I don’t wear my medical alert anymore because I’m not involved in any intense powerlifting training, and I teach yoga once a week.

Sure, I wear necklaces, but mostly I wear the same little diamond (I mean, tiny) on a silver chain every single day. I pretty much don’t take it off.

So my choices for wearing proper medical identification are limited. But it’s important. Seriously important that somewhere amongst my possessions you can tell that I have diabetes. (Might be time for one of those tattoos…but I’ll save that for another blog!)

Instead, I’m very excited to say I’ve found a solution to my picky-jewerly-dilemma!

A key-chain! I found a gorgeously simple keychain at Medics Alert Bracelets. I’m taking it to a jeweler to have it inscribed with my contact information, my name, and “Type 1 diabetes.”

The extra-nifty thing about this keychain is that it includes a USB drive that is carefully hidden, and pops out easily. 2GB of space! I could include a file on here with my medical information (like the amounts of insulin I take, the kinds, etc.), and I could also just use it as a regular old USB drive.

Maybe, subconsciously, I don’t wear a medic alert because I don’t want to be labeled as “sick” or “diseased.” Perhaps. (Although, if I didn’t want that, I probably should spend so much time on the internet talking about diabetes! Heh.) Either way, it is important that somewhere amongst my belongings, it’s clear that I have diabetes.

What kinds of medic alerts do you wear? Necklace? Bracelet? Tattoo?

I have a SECOND MEDIC ALERT bracelet to giveaway! Comment on the article, and I’ll pick one of the commenters to receive the bracelet! (Be sure to check out their Facebook page: Medics Alert Bracelets on Facebook!)

Thanks to Mr. Mike Lawson for his singing and editing skills!

Download the MP3 here!

I didn’t realizing checking your blood sugar could or even needed to become easier. When I received the package, I was honestly confused as to what was “faster,” because I consider the “Multi-Clix” to be pretty great (I mean, yes, it still stabs my body and makes me bleed at least six times a day…but it does the job well).

The “FastClix” is faster because they removed the whole part where you have to “lock n’ load” the device. In the “Multi-Clix” you have to push the end in, then you can press the “launch” button that actually fires the lancet into your precious little finger.

With the “FastClix,” you literally just press the “launch” button, and it fires the lancet into your precious little finger. They removed one entire step. Which I’m sure, actually makes life much simpler for a variety of people. Along with ya know, checking your blood sugar while your other hand is scratching your dog’s belly.

What’s next? How can checking your blood sugar possible get any easier? I don’t know. Maybe next I’ll be able to say, “Lancet! Please make my finger bleed!” and the thing will unzip itself from my kit and come flying towards my fingertip.

I don’t make insulin. Every living mammal needs insulin to live…and I don’t make a drop!

But like I said, you can’t tell by looking at me that something isn’t right. I look healthy, happy, normal, strong, ready, and able. But if I were to boil down what it means to live with diabetes into one brief sentence it would be this: Today, I have to keep myself alive.

To some that might sound so severe, exaggerated, and incredibly dramatic, but it’s really the truth. Actually, since my diagnosis, I have seen that glimpse of my body really failing on me in two severe low-blood sugar episodes and one episode of DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis)…

And during that one DKA episode, I would say it felt like “my body was shutting down.” Bit by bit, as my blood sugar climbed during the night and the insulin in my insulin pump had become completely useless due to being outside in the extreme winter weather for too long, my body was trying to shut down on me.

But I survived that DKA episode. After throwing up 15 times from simple sips of water, I made it to the hospital. And after begging and unsuccessfully trying to convince two medical students to not give me an overdose of 10 units of insulin per hour (on top of the 10 units they’d already given me), and getting glucose in my IV an hour later to undo what they did, I finally took control over my body again.

But all of that is nothing compared to what some of my diabetes-surviving friends have survived!

My friends with diabetes have survive seizures, comas, car accidents…the list goes on and on. Transplants. DKA so severe that she said her lips felt like they were on fire and it wasn’t until a week after her hospitalization that her throat stopped burning from the acid that had flooded her body.

My friends are survivors.

Just the littlest things, whether it’s equipment malfunction, the wrong dose of insulin, or purely human error and imperfection…the littlest slip in diabetes care could end our life in a moment.

• …stuck in the middle of nowhere without any glucose and a plummeting low blood sugar.
• …an accidental overdose in my insulin injection without realizing it while I’m rushing through my day.
• …giving myself my rapid acting insulin instead of my long-acting insulin dose without realizing it. If you don’t know what that means, let me tell you, that 20 units of rapid acting all at once, when I thought I was taking long-acting, would end me quickly if I didn’t do everything in my power to turn that situation around.
• …an unforeseen low blood sugar while I’m driving that leads to a car accident.
• …an unforeseen low blood sugar in my sleep when no one else is around and I’m too low to even reach for the glucose tabs sitting on my nightstand.
• …dropping quickly during exercise, so quickly that I don’t feel it coming, until I pass out, completely unconscious, having seizures until I slip into a coma.

This list goes on and on with “ifs” and “coulds” and “maybes.”

Fortunately, I’ve become really good at keeping myself alive every day. In fact, I should list that on my resume as one of my exceptional skills!

There is careful line I walk every single day, without being obsessively perfect, that allows me to prevent diabetes from ending my life today. I walk that careful line every day in order to survive diabetes.

Every single insulin shot keeps me alive. I endure diabetes every single day. I beat diabetes every single day. Every low blood sugar that completely throws off my day because my brain spent an hour trying to recover from being completely deprived of the glucose it needs every second in order to function!

Every high blood sugar that makes me feel like mud is running through my veins, puts my brain in a thick fog, and makes me feel about as energy as a rock covered in moss.

Every single day I do what I can to keep that rollercoaster ride less exciting. I do what I can to manage something so complicated that my body is supposed to be managing on its own using a hundred little details, many of which I have no control over!

So it is a big deal. I’m alive today. I did it. I kept myself alive. I survived another day with diabetes.

If you’re a fellow survivor, I think you deserve a little congratulations, too.

           ”ASK COACH G” is a monthly column I write for Diabetes Social Media Advocacy’s website.

Dear Coach G,

I’ve heard that the best times to eat carbohydrates is at breakfast, and before/after you workout…if you’re trying to lose weight. Why?

-Sarah H.

*****

Hey Sarah!

Okay, so you’ve definitely heard right! This is actually true for anyone, whether or not they have diabetes, but it’s especially helpful for a person with diabetes to understand.

In our bodies, we have “glycogen stores.” In a nutshell, this is where your body stores glucose so your brain and body has backup glucose in-between the meals you eat. Those stores are located first in your liver, and secondly, in your muscles. Most of the glycogen is found in your liver. When you eat carbohydrates, your body converts those carbohydrates to glucose, and then: 1. Uses the glucose immediately for energy. 2. If it doesn’t need it immediately for energy, it will store that glucose in your liver and muscles as glycogen. 3. If those stores are full, it will store that glucose as body fat.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE at DIABETES SOCIAL MEDIA ADVOCACY!

So, as usual, our goal is to reduce our A1C which will reduce our AGEs, and we do this by controlling our blood sugars better. It’s important to look deeper into your A1C so you can translate that number to the numbers you see on your monitor. When we think about what that number means as a blood sugar reading, it’s much more real for our day-to-day life with diabetes.

This is your eAG= Estimated Average Glucose.

So what does it mean to you when your doctor says your A1C is 8%? An A1C of 8% means your eAG is 183, which means your blood sugars run usually between 147 to 217.

My last A1C was 7.0%. This means my blood sugars run between 123 to 185 on average through the day, with a median of 154. The lowest A1C I’ve ever had was 6.2% and the highest I’ve had was about 6 ago when I started college, at 8.4%.

Here’s a chart for your A1C readings translated to your eAG:

12% = 298 (240 – 347)
11% = 269 (217 – 314)
10% = 240 (193 – 282)
9% = 212 (170 –249)
8% = 183 (147 – 217)
7% = 154 (123 – 185)
6% = 126 ( 100 – 152)

So, if your A1C is 11%, your average glucose reading is 269, which means ninty-five percent of the day your blood sugar is somewhere between 217 to 314. Here’s an article for your reference.

Numbers like those makes it much more difficult to ignore that 11%! We all know we can’t be feeling very well or be treating our bodies very well if our blood sugars are between 200 and 300 every day. That stress on our body and the continual accumulation of the AGEs I meantioned earlier, will take their toll over time.

There have been times in my life when I was surprised that my A1C was as high as it was, and there were other times when I knew it was a direct result of how well or how poorly I was managing my blood sugars.

Either way, it’s information. Don’t let your number make you feel guilty if it’s too high. Use it as information and set a goal for yourself to decrease it as much as you can at your next appointment.

If your A1C has been higher than you’d like lately, take a closer look at your blood sugars throughout the day, try to check more often, and think about increasing your basal rates on your pump or your long-acting insulin dose. Even an increase of an extra two to three units over the coarse of one day can have a huge impact and really help you stay in range.

Like I said earlier, at different points in my life my A1C has been awesome, below 6.5%, and when life got a little crazy, like my first year in college, it was up in the 8% range! Everything is temporary. If you’re willing to make an effort, learn more about your disease and consider yourself a lifelong work-in-progres, you wil see the results!

It’s probably difficult to imagine your own brain become drastically stronger and more capable of handling a situation than it is right now simply because of how you THINK. How could telling yourself something different than what you usually tell yourself really have a measurable impact on the ACTIONS you take in your life? If you’ve always only been able to run 1 mile before needing to stop and rest, how could your MENTAL STATE actually lead you to running 1.5 or even 2 miles?

Chrissie Wellington is a 4-time Ironman Champion. She won her last Ironman after experiencing an injury just two weeks before the competition. And Chrissie is a strong believer in the fact that YOU CAN LEARN TO BE STRONGER. (Read Chrissie’s full article here at CNN.com.)

Chrissie says, after her latest win after enduring her latest injury, “I won the race, not on physical prowess, but on grit, willpower, determination and mental strength.”

Well, sure, that’s easy for a woman who has won four Ironman champion titles to say…she’sobviously gifted with a tenacity and physical awesomeness that the average person isn’t.

Or is she just like you and me? Is she simply human but has found a way to use her mind, a way to train her mind, to overcome impressive obstacles and push herself further?