I've been on my 'meds' for about a month now. The glucophage (Metformin) has certainly had some effects. One of the main side effects of metformin is "gastric distress". Stomach problems. Oh yeah baby... I've been having those. Initially when the doc had me on 500mg a day I had some issues. There was one evening when out of the blue I HAD to go to the bathroom. It was not a desire, nor a request... it was an absolute need. When I went it was like turning on a fire hose... out of my bum. If I had a little more pressure coming out I felt that I may well have lifted off the toilet. 40 minutes later the entire episode was repeated.
There have been various scenes similar to that, especially after he upped me to 2000mg a day (1000mg twice a day). But if I had to characterize the experience as a whole, I'd have to say that my BMs have become both softer and more urgent. It's not always diarrhea and it's not always an immediate need. But it is always softer than normal and instead of my trustworthy 'once a day' rhythm it's more of a several times a day. But that's a small price to pay if the meds work.
I cant' let metformin do all the work. I need to seriously reign in my carb intake as well as exercise more. I'll work on the exercise more later. For now I'm working on taking out un-needed carbs. Carbs (carbohydrates) are sugars but they're found in many MANY things. My biggest intake of carbs comes from soda, but second place easily comes from bread. My normal lunch before heading to work has been two sandwiches. Lunch at work has been two sandwiches, two cheese sticks and a handful of baby carrots. Drinks heading to work, at work, and at lunch while at work were all 20oz bottles of Gatorade. A normal slice of bread has around 15 grams of carbs. A bottle of Gatorade; 49 grams.
With working 5 days a week and eating for energy instead of pleasure, that seemed like the easiest and most sustainable way to cut out carbs. Sure, I could say that I'd limit myself to around 40 grams of carbs per meal, but many meals would be difficult to reign in. So instead I went to as close to 0 carbs for lunch and lunch as I could. Instead of sandwiches, I went to salads. Lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, cheese, bacon, peas, black olives, and hard boiled eggs. All smothered with blue cheese dressing. No, this isn't as healthy as a salad as it could be as there is plenty of fat here, but it IS filling and it has near 0 carbs. I also switched out the standard Gatorade to G2 Gatorade (their 'diet' version) which only has about 20 grams of carbs.
In addition to radically changing my two lunches, I also tried to eliminate any 'extra' carbs such as a piece of bread with dinner or a couple bowls of cereal for a late Sunday meal. And the glucophage is helping. It has radically altered my thirst. Before taking it, I was thirsty. All of the damned time. I could down a 12 oz can of soda in 10 minutes and still be just as thirsty. I could replace that soda with water, tea, juice, Gatorade, or just about any other beverage and I'd still be just as thirsty. On a work day I'd drink two cups of coffee in the morning, switch over to soda and drink two cans before heading to work, drink a bottle of soda on the way home from work, and then drink one or two additional sodas before heading to bed. That's in addition to the Gatorade at work (plus one or two bottles of water), and various glasses of water when the thrist got to much. On days off? I'd probably down about 8 or 10 cans of soda.
With the metformin doing it's job and my thirst more controlable I'm down to my two cups of coffee, a single soda before work, the three bottles of Gatorade (G2) at work (and I don't finish any of those bottles), the soda on the way home, and maybe another can at home before bed. Days off, I top out around 5 cans of soda for the day.
I now take my blood sugar once a day. To make it as even as possible, I take up right upon waking up. When I started it was over 200 every day (I started taking it about a week after going with the full dose of glucophage), it's now regularly dipping below 200. That's a pretty good decrease considering that according to my A1C I was averaging over 250 every day.
I've only been doing the salad thing for three days... let's see what that does after a couple weeks.
The headaches. When I saw the doc for the followup the headaches were at their worst. Maybe not worst ever, but it was a hard two weeks with many very bad headaches. He doubled the propranolol up to 80mg twice a day and... oh my fucking GOD! I haven't had a 'bad' headache since. I've had several that I'd qualify as a 1 or a 2 on a 0-10 pain scale, but they've gone away on their own within 30 minutes. I've had three (including one right now) that have gone up to a 4 on the pain scale. That's the point that I treat with my acetaminophen and ibuprofen cocktail, and the cocktail always takes care of it.
This could still just be a normal waxing/waning cycle that my headaches take. But it doesn't feel that way. It's like I'm still getting the number of headaches I was just previous to the treatment, but they're far more mild and go away on their own most of the time. If this holds steady I'll be a VERY happy man.
The doc did prescribe Imitrex, but I haven't had to take one yet. I have a pretty good idea what would make me try one: If my standard treatment doesn't work within an hour of taking it (i.e. I have a headache of 4 or more and it doesn't diminish after taking the acetaminophen and ibuprofen), if my standard treatment works but the headache comes back the same in four hours, or if a headache grows to a 7 or above on the pain scale. In those circumstances I'll give Imitrex a try.
Quitting smoking. It aint happening. I've been taking the wellbutrin as prescribed but any time I consider even scaling back my smoking, all of my thoughts turn to smoking. It doesn't help that I have no strong interest in quitting at this time... but so far as I've seen, wellbutrin isn't a miracle cure. I didn't expect it to be, and I'm not putting in any effort, so I shouldn't have expected anything out of it. I'll report it to the doc and be honest with him... and I'll try again in the summer. But I'll keep taking it until he says to stop.
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That's my health. Mom's health.. well damn it doesn't look like the year is starting off good for her. She has more or less gotten over the flu but just as her health was improving she had an appointment for her dentures. She's had an upper plate of dentures for years and years. They've never fit correctly and she takes them out whenever she can. A few months back she lost one of her bottom front teeth. She's only had 9 teeth on the bottom for awhile now and figured it was time to get rid of them and got with a full set of dentures.
The planning for that started back in October, but yesterday she had all of her remaining teeth pulled. Now that I've experienced having a tooth pulled I can better sympathize with what she's going through. Having 9 pulled in a two hour span must be very hard. And when I had mine pulled, it was infected. So pulling it, while still painful, was a relief.
So... she's in pain. They didn't prescribe anything for her beyond motrin and tylenol. And mom isn't one to ask for pain meds.... so I get to watch her just be in pain. I still have all of my norcos left from having my tooth pulled, but mom is alergic to codein and hydrocodone is in the same family so I won't risk her having an alergic reaction to a prescribed narcotic that wasn't prescribed to her.
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B and his entire family came down with the flu. R got sick (and he rarely gets sick enough to mention it). I'm the only family member that hasn't come down with any cold yet since just before Christmas. I'm waiting for that shoe to drop and for me to have to call in sick to work for a couple days.
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I'm planning a couple trips. A friend and I are going to the Detroit Auto Show soon (North American International Auto Show - NAIAS) as we have for the past few years. I decided to up the ante though and we are now planning to also hit the Chicago Auto Show in February. We'll drive part way to Chicago, take the train the rest of the way in, and spend the weekend in the windy city. I'll probably write more on this when it's closer, or even after... but you know how much I love visiting Chicago.
When E and I visited last year it was about spending money there in a way that neither of us could when we lived there. We ate in good restaurants, traveled all around and drank like kings. This trip will be on the cheap... but will still be a blast.
Speaking of E... he sent me a text and is ready to start planning a trip for this year. His first suggestion was Costa Rica. I actually have my passport now, so that's an easy (and surprisingly inexpensive) trip. I'm thinking if we're going to do a tropical local that Costa Rica would be as good as any. It's further away than most other caribian locales and it'd be fun to say that I've been that far south. Farther south than anybody else in my family. We're going to get with A and see what he thinks.
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Every time I pass a TV I see the situation in Paris. First I'm saddened by what happened. Attacking cartoonists for being funny with your prophet is just damned stupid.
While I might talk more about this later, I just wanted to say though that.... maybe this is a good thing?
Consider, this is being treated like a major terrorist attack. Paris is scared, the international media is covering this live for days now. And all over 12 people being shot and killed? Even a couple years ago with what happened in Boston (and with the chase ongoing in Paris this feels very close to Boston)... I mean it's bad and yes, its terrorism... but is the best they have left?
They took down the twin towers. The almost took out the pentagon. They bombed trains in Spain and London. When I was growing up it seemed like there was a constant stream of planes being hijacked. This feels less than even that.... it feels small. We're reacting because it's "TERRORISM"... but it's not the terrorism that happened in 2001 and soon thereafter.
If this is the level of terrorism that's left (a shooting in Paris and a homemade bomb in Boston), then I'd say that we've beaten the terrorists. I mean look at what Israel goes through on a day to day basis, and we're doing just fine.
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I'm sure there's other things that I wanted to write about, but I can't think of them now. So... talk to ya later!
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