A1c

A friend of mine's dad bought a machine to check your A1c and since i did not have mine done at UNC I stopped by his office during fall break so that i could do it myself. You want your A1c to be around a 7, which means you averae bloodsugar is 126ish. Mine was 9.4... which is not good. Thats the average blood sugar of about 223.

The formula for determining you eAG (estimateg average glucose) a.k.a your averae blood sugar is this...

28.7 x A1C - 46.7 = eAG

Student Health

Okay, so last Tuesday i made an appointment with the Diabetes specialist here at Carolina. She was very nice but unfortunately it made me miss a class and was a rather significant waste of my time.
Here is a little bit of background information...
1, every three or so months diabetics need to get something called the A1C taken. This is basically a number that is equivolent to my average blood sugar over the past three months and it is also is the one thing that i wanted to accomplish from my doctors appointment.
2, I am deathly afraid of getting blood drawn and this was the only way she was going to be able to take my A1C (when i can do it at wake med with a finger prick). so i opted out of that one.
aka very frusterating.
She gave me some pretty okay pointers about how to better manage my diabetes at college, but to be completely honest i have a hard time listening to people who don't actually have Diabetes themselves... it feel like its just kinda of like a "you don't know unless youve been there"
But anyways... that was my last Tuesday. Sorry Dr. Taylor for missing class but I'm gonna have blame this one on diabetes.... : ).

Sean Busby: snowboarding type 1 diabetic

Below is the link to an article i found interesting... its about a snowboard who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. It talks about how after he got his own health under sontrol he turned to focus on that of kids with type 1 diabetes. He has started a series of camps for them and the article talks about what they offer!

http://www.jdrf.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_id=B81D1550-1279-CFD5-A757F09C70478428

Statistics

• Type 1 diabetes accounts for 5 percent to 10 percent of diagnosed cases of diabetes.
  
  
• The risk of developing type 1 diabetes is higher than virtually all other severe chronic diseases of childhood.
  
  
• Peak incidence occurs during puberty, around 10 to 12 years of age in girls, and 12 to 14 years of age in boys.
  
  
• The symptoms for type 1 diabetes can mimic the flu in children.

I found these few statistics on the Virginia Health System website and thought they were interesting!

Taking "low" to new depths

The other night i actually reached a benchmark in my own history with diabetes. I woke up around 6am an knew that my blood sugar was low. I checked it so i could record it and it was 35... 35!! The lowest i have ever been was 43. So, I managed to set a new record. The frustrating thing is that I don't know why this happened... Sometimes with diabetes there are things that you just can't explain.

Here is a list of the symptoms of low blood sugar.

• Trembling;
• Cold sweat;
• Disorientation;
• Numb feeling in your lips;
• Nausea or vomiting;
• Elevated heart rate;
• Irritability;
• Headaches;
• Tingling in various parts of your body;
• Constant food cravings;
• Distorted eyesight;
• Light-headedness;
• Chronic fatigue;
• Seizures
• Lack of concentration;
• Periods of unconsciousness.

Animas Ping Insulin Pump

Allways there

So basically like my title alludes, my pump is always there. There being somewhere on my person, whether in my pocket, on my waistband or anywhere else that i can find a place to hook it. These are just some random pics that i found of myself so that you can kind of visualize it's role in my life. Often times when people ask me a question about my pump it is, "do you ALWAYS have to wear that??" the answer is no. I can take it off when i shower! Haha but besides that, yes. It's on me when i sleep and even when i swim (it is waterproof up to 15 meters)