Being in control...

(6 vials of Novolog.  Only one of my medications and only enough for 1 month)

Being a diabetic is always hard.  Throw into the mix some extenuating circumstances and being a diabetic is really hard.  I switched to a new doctor in December of last year and went to one appointment before finding out little twitchy was on his way.  When I went to my next appointment in February of this year, I told them about my "condition" and all of the nice ladies in the office put me on high alert.

Since February, I've been e-mailing my numbers, my daily carb intake, and the amount of insulin I use on a weekly basis in an excel spreadsheet.  It's a total pain in the butt in case you were curious.  Up until July, I had monthly appointments and now I go every two weeks so that they can check my A1C number (which two weeks ago was 5.9 - in the "non diabetic" category, yeah me!) and evaluate my numbers and insulin regimen.

I guess more for the sake of posterity than anything else, I wanted to document the major amounts of medication it takes to keep me going, as healthy as possible.

I use three types of medication:

Lantus insulin - this is a 24 hour insulin that I should only have to take once a day and it stays in my system for, you guessed it, 24 hours.  These shots usually go into my hip or my belly and are followed by a trail of bruises.

Novolog insulin - this is a short acting insulin that I take whenever I eat anything.  I use a sliding scale of insulin to carb and this ratio is generally pretty stable.  This shot goes into my arm anywhere from 3-6 times a day.  Bruises galore.

Metformin - this is the most evil medication I've ever taken.  It's a pill.  Each pill is 500 milligrams.  The number one side effect of metformin is nausea and vomiting and massive stomach aches/cramps, which affects 65% of the people who take the medication.  Thank heavens it hasn't made me puke but this medication has, on many occasion made me so ill I cannot stand up straight.  I've been experimenting with dosage a lot over the last 2 years.  I can tolerate 1000 milligrams a day well.  I do alright with 1500 if I take 500 in the morning and 1000 at night.  But, add that 4th pill, which I've had to do many occasions and within hours, I am tragically ill.

In January and February, when I was still exercising 4 days a week and feeling pretty good about life, my insulin use was at a bare minimum.  I was using about 20 units of Lantus a day, only at night.  My sliding scale for Novolog was around 1:30 (1 unit of insulin for every 30 carbs) and I was taking 2 metformin a day.  On days that I exercised in the afternoon, I usually didn't even need to do my lunch time Novolog because the exercise took care of it for me.

Fast forward many, many months and my body is a walking pharmacy. I take 177 units of Lantus a day (87 in the morning and 90 at night).  My sliding scale for Novolog is 1:2 (1 unit for every 2 carbs), except in the morning when I'm almost at a 1:1 ratio.  And I'm taking 3 Metformin a day (1500 milligrams), 1 in the morning and 2 at night.

I wish I could do math, and figure out the percentage of increase in my medication but I am not that smart.  I do know that even though it seems that my insulin use has gone through the roof to the moon, I'm still not using as much as I was before Wyatt was born.  The week before he was born three years ago, I was at 240 units of Lantus a day so I'm pretty proud of myself for only being at 177.

Once this kid gets here, everything will change immediately.  That change will be the scary one because i don't know where I'll be.  No idea how much insulin I'll need, what my carb ratio will be, or how my body will react.

That's going to be interesting.