Hi Barb: I watch the Discovery Channel, Discovery Health and the Learning Channel all the time.

Last night one of these channels had a show titled "The Shrinking Woman". Never in all my life did I see such a thing. This lady, only 40 years old (she could be my daughter), weighed over 640 lbs and she lost 400 or so lbs. So she had to have the excess skin taken off. They showed the WHOLE OPERATION!! I nearly choked!! They showed everything!!!!!

I can't even type what I saw in that show!!! Oh my goodness (that's the best I can say about what I saw). They put a disclaimer before you watch but honestly, I had no idea what they would show!!!THEY SHOWED EVERYTHING they do in this type of surgery.

Makes you never want to eat a cookie again, believe me!!!! lol

Melody

Yeah, I know. I used to be a home health aide -- took care of home-bound, elderly cancer patients -- I can pretty much stand seeing anything.

But, some of what they show on TV freaks me out, though; I quick-change to Home and Garden Television -- that's pretty safe, usually

Barb

Hi Mel, if it has settled down now, it does sound very much like a reaction from that vibrating machine, after all the small fibres job is to they tell you when it feels hot, cold, and feel vibrations, at least you know now that those nerves are still alive, but not being 100% perfect they could only send confused signals thats why the burning started up.
Seeing that you are looking after your blood sugars now, you have probably saved yourself from all those horrible symptoms that can come with PN and if you continue to look after your blood sugars, in time, they may heal as well, which i know from my own experience can happen.
all the best,
Brian

Brian:

Yeah, my feet are fine now. Not that this means anything. Neuropathy presents in various ways, this has been explained to me by the specialists at Cornell. I just did my exercise routine with Alan watching.

If he thinks he's the only Rocky in the house, he's nuts.

All we can do is do our best, right?

Hope you are having a pain free day.

Melody

Melody
I was talking with a friend yesterday who told me she has found tremendous relief for her diabetic neuropathy by taking INOSITOL (vitamin B8)

I noticed a small bit on iHerb's Health Encyclopedia about that too

My son takes Inositol for his OCD/anxiety but I had not been aware of the potential benefit for PN as well

the data several times about inositol here and at OBT.

Inositol is lost in the urine (like magnesium) for diabetics.

An inositol analog is in the pipeline in studies for diabetics..supposedly to "cure" them! d-chiro inositol
example from among many:

"(MIOX-EC 1.13.99.1) catalyzes the first committed step of the only pathway of MI catabolism. In the present study, extra-renal tissues and cell types, including those affected by diabetic complications, were examined for MIOX expression. Western blotting results indicated that kidney is the only major organ where MIOX protein is expressed at detectable levels. Immunohistochemical examination of the kidney revealed that the proximal tubular epithelial cells are the only site of MIOX expression in the kidney"
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I do so love it when you guys talk dirty!!!!!lol

But seriously, every time I read one of these things, it goes completely over my head. I should have went to med school just to keep up with you guys. You KNOW EVERYTHING about molecular levels, Immunhistchemical examinations, proximal tubular epithelial cells, etc. etc. etc.

I'm lucky I can speak 5 languages, let alone learn stuff about epithelial cells. Oh, I can learn just fine. I just can't remember anything I learn. That's the bad part about turning 60. While I still have the capacity to learn, I can be smart for about 5 minutes, then forget it. Can't retain much. I looked it up. Supposedly it's the hippocampus in our brains that stores the short term memory stuff. Now if you put me on Jeopardy or Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and answer questions about anything before 1980, well, I'm your gal. My friends have even had bets going and while I was at work once, I got a call about a question from Star Trek. I didn't even have to think about the answer. I either know it immediately or I don't. I'm a sci-fi junkie and I was raised on all the Sci-fi shows.

But as I said, my memory AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE.

By the way, this morning (AND I HOPE NO ONE YELLS AT ME FOR WHAT I DID!!!), at 7 a.m. Alan goes: "Oh NO,!!!! I immediately woke up and said "oh no, what????" and he said "I have another blister on the bottom of my foot". I said "what did you do between yesterday and today that you got a blister?" and he said "well I went to the gym, but I didn't go on any treadmills" I said "well, what did you go on and he said "Oh the rowing machine and the leg press". I said "are you serious, you can't put any pressure on your feet, no more leg pressing or rowing machines. Do the upper body stuff" Then he said 'Do I have to go to the doctor? (we were just there last week). Now, he's not diabetic, and he heals real fast.

So I took one look at the blister, saw there was no infection, no red lines up the leg, (like last time), no big thing, just a blister that had formed from yesterday. I said to him "do you want me to do it, we have all the stuff we need" You see I've watched Dr. Baird do this so many times, I could do it in my sleep. And this was not a case of debriding, just a case of sterilizing the area, lancing the blister, putting on a dressing and keeping it clean. Dr. Baird believe that the skin is a natural covering so you don't cut off the top of the blister, (if there is no infection, I mean). He usually lances it, gets all the stuff out, does the desitin thing (he completely believes in the power of desitin). And he dresses it.

So I sterilized the area, (the blister looked nothing like the big thing full of blood he had last time by the way). I got out the towels, the bacitracin, the guauze, etc. etc. I sterilized the needle, I gently lanced it, Some kind of light pink stuff came out, mostly clear stuff though, no pus or anything. I made sure it was all drained. Didn't hurt him at all. I disinfected everything around the wound and the wound itself. I looked inside and saw there was nothing black or anything. Everything looked good (I mean I've watched Dr. Baird do this, he always says to me "melody, come around and watch what I'm doing). So I cleaned up everything, put some desitin on it, bandaged it up and he was good to go. He's keeping off his feet and I just checked it again (4 hours later) and it looks nice and clean. I will do the cleaning and re-dressing again later. Don't want to disturb the healing.

Alan kept laughing and saying "You should have been a nurse (my mother became a licensed practical nurse at age 52 by the way). Must be in my genes.

Anyway, I go to Dr. Baird to pick up my new diabetic shoes in about 4 to 5 days. If all goes well with Alan, well, All goes Well, if not, he'll immediately go there and Dr Baird will do his thing. But honestly, I do believe this was a simple friction blister because he went on the rowing machine and leg press thing.

So either yell at me or say Good Job!!!!

Mel