HI Shiney Sue; You have tummy trouble. It might or it might not be related to your diabetes. I have a friend who is 63 years old, obese and never took her diabetes seriously. She would not go to Cornell with me (where she would have been put in a protocol and given all testing supplies and meds for free. She would say "Oh, it's too much trouble to go into NYC. I told her she could ride into the city on the Access a ride with me.

What I finally understood was that she was in complete denial about her diabete. She started to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, than at 5 a.m. and then at all times of the day. She FINALLY went to a gastroentrologist who told her she had a diabetic stomach. That's all he said. He then said "lose weight". THAT'S ALL HE SAID.

When she came home and said "I have a diabetic stomach" I immediately said "you have gastroparesis", which is neuropathy of the the stomach. I had looked it up and gently explained the nerves are not functionally correctly in her stomach. I then said "are you on Regulan?" and she said "Oh that's what he gave me, so I'll take the Regulan and I'll be fine".

I said "listen to me, you have got to keep your blood sugar under control, that's the most important thing you can do. If you can do that, eat sensibly and lose some weight (please know that I KNOW HOW TO APPROACH PEOPLE AND NOT TALK DOWN TO THEM, and I've known this person for over 15 years. So we are talking and I tried to explain how if you have neuropathy, it can affect other organs of the body. She said 'well, I feel fine, and I only had a handful of pretzels last night". Now her handful of pretzels is like a normal person eating a whole bag. That's how she snacks.

I said 'what was your blood sugar this morning and she said "Oh it was good, then she laughed and said 'well, it's bad for everybody else but it's good for me". So I replied "oh, you mean, because it used to be 265, that when you woke up this morning it was 190 and you think 190 is a good number for you?" and she said "well, yeah, isn't it, I mean my doctor didn't give me any information on my diabetes". I replied "your doctor is not an endocrinologist, and YOU NEED TO SEE AN ENDOCRINOLOGIST.

She doesn't believe me. She is a heart patient and hasn't seen a cardiologist in about 5 years ever since he was arrested for medicaid fraud (now how interesting is that).

So all she does is go to the bathroom and sometimes she can't go to the bathroom. She calls me up and says "all I ate were some pretzels, why do I have this?

I give up. She won't listen, she won't take her diabetes seriously and after all, we HAVE TO TAKE OUR DIABETES SERIOUSLY.

Many people on these boards have neuropathy for other reasons, but it seems to me that if you know why you have neuropathy and the doctor tells you that you have a diabetic stomach, than the deniability factor has to STOP and a person has to start taking care of themselves, right?


Anyway, I don't know if there is a test for diabetic stomach but I DO KNOW THAT REGULAN (spelling??) does help.

Hope you feel better soon

Melody