But that's not what I asked. Have you at least stabilized?

That's all true IMO. One of the reasons I believe I made it into old age before this occurred was I was gonzo on exercise. I often did 5-15 mile walks with my dogs and then hit the courts for basketball etc. I've never thought of testing after exercise. I shall try out your protocol. Thanks.

Also I agree that eating light feels very good most of the time. I'm so motivated due to pain and my fear of it I don't think sticking to any food regime will be too hard.

Plus I always wonder if it would be worse if I wasn't watching the glucose or anything else for that matter.

I have phone coaches that want me to do "paired testing" and gave me the <180 goal. Even if this is too high it is still better than my Dr. that told me to forget about the coaches. I understand his reasoning because I had become lost trying to test so often and so precisely that I had thrown out the baby with the bathwater and was no longer doing anything right. That statement about <140 being the threshold for nerve healing is a pretty fat and juicy carrot to shoot for. Using the analogy of being lost, I need to sit down and look around for the way to proceed. Maybe some of your discipline will rub off onto me. Thanks, Ken in Texas.

Wow I missed this. That means there's a little ray of light for me. My 2 hr. blood glucose after breakfast this morning was a beautiful 97. No more spikes for this bad boy. Why don't they teach this stuff in school. "You want a good life boy, well money is only a small part of living well".

I think the bottom line is you just need to learn what you can eat without driving your BG above that 140 mark. With me, it's become pretty clear that I can't eat a lot of carbs at all in one sitting without risking that, so I've had to gain a good understanding of the carb content of all the foods I eat.

I rely a lot on Googling to learn the carb content on everything. If that's not your thing, you can order the free Atkins Starter Kit, and they'll send you a little booklet that you can quickly reference for the carb content of various foods. They'll send you other things as well more related to their diet, but that little booklet is the most valuable thing.

http://www.atkins.com/register

Of course once you know and understand the carbs, the next step is developing the discipline. That's where things get interesting, but if I can do it, anyone can.

JON. I found this in the blog and thought you might find this of interest.



"If you have been living with much higher blood sugars for a while and have neuropathy that has progressed to numbness, there is one bump in the road you should be aware of. If your nerves are so damaged that they have become numb, when you start to heal them, they may hurt.

Regenerating nerves always hurt, itch or tingle. This is true whether they are regenerating from glucose poisoning or mechanical damage. If your feet start to hurt after you have lowered your blood sugar, remind yourself that this is good not bad. "

Dear Icelander,

Your PN may or may NOT be related to blood sugar swings in the past. While diabetics frequently get "diabetic" neuropathy, all neuropathy is not due to blood sugar levels.

All diabetics do not necessarily get peripheral neuropathies, nor do all peripheral neuropathies originate from blood sugar abnormalities.

Your PN may have nothing to do with your past diet or glucose levels. Maybe yes, maybe no.

And once a person HAS been diagnosed with diabetes, any PN is almost always attributed to diabetes, which may or may not be valid, but it is almost always the assumption made, by most in the medical field.

You may never know if your previous diet has/had anything to do with your PN. The only thing I can say for certain is that improvements made in one's diet are a good thing regardless of whether that improves PN symptoms or not.

One last note. There is no magic number at which a person will or will not develop PN from abnormal blood sugar levels. Every one is different. A person can have POOR control and have NO PN symptoms while another may have tight control and suffer with terrible PN symptoms. It is not cut and dry. No magic levels or numbers to be "safe" from PN.

Bottom line: One can only do their best to control the things they can and that in turn may lessen the risks and degree of PN. It is no guarantee. The better you treat your body, the better it may treat you. Even the person that does everything correct in the manner in which they care for their body is not guaranteed to avoid any problems. We can only lay a good foundation for a good outcome. The rest is up to GOD or chance depending upon one's beliefs.

Just keep up the good work and see what happens. Let us hope that your efforts will be rewarded with better health. Even if improvement is not attained, at least you have done your best and may have prevented it from getting worse.

Sometimes we don't get all the answers we seek. You may never know what the origin of your PN. You may have idiopathic PN.

I've done my homework that far. I know all that you've said is basically true. This is the second piece of possible good news I've gotten here and I see no reason not to be a little hopeful as long as I remain cognisant of the realities.

If it's something else I'll likely never find it as I'm about done with my search as far as cause within the medical profession. I will still use them for some tests to confirm what I'm doing or not but other than that I hope to basically use them as adjunct and selectively. I'm mostly done searching/begging the medical profession for help. This is it and if it's a mistake I'll accept any consequences. I'm going to sink or swim using my own skills and intuition which IMO put me ahead of a medical profession that does not care if I suffer or not as long as the profits come in. That's not a hippocratic oath. It's a hypocritical oath.

So this is my path and I think we might be on to something. And as you said eating well never will make anything worse.

No icelander,

I am progressing along and I wish I could believe it were healing, though to me it is advancing.

I hope to be wrong.

Ok thanks, that's what mine has been doing and I'm looking at everything possible. I'm thinking of trying self-hypnosis and writing affirmations. Affirmations worked well for me at another juncture in the road of life. I figure if diabetes is the issue then it will be a long road to recovery and there will be as much or more pain at times due to the healing process (I remember someone else who got better saying it was a painful process and they often didn't believe they were getting better). If that's the case then being very nutrition and supplement savvy should set me in good stead. If I can speed recovery by feeding myself the right nutrients, becoming very calm and relaxed, and creating a positive attitude without lying to myself then I figure that things could speed up. I saw it happen in the supps industry with customers and friends. So I'll be doing within my own self everything I can and let the rest be damned.

I'll admit this here. The deep breathing and relaxation techniques have helped more than anything so far and I got on to it one night when I was so scared and in pain I wanted to run anywhere or be dead. I stopped myself and saw how my breathing had completely tensed me. So I did some deep breathing and things got a little better. Then over time it really helped, now when I'm scared or confused, lost as to what to do next and frantic because there are so many possibles I stop the internal dialog going on and tell myself the ONLY THING I have to do is breath deeply and relax. That one thing has made a ton of difference for me and I'm just getting started. And it takes all the performance pressure off me as far as grasping at straws just because someone else said I should or I'm terrified. I'm much more relaxed and when in pain deep breathing always helps at least a little and often a lot.

And if nothing ultimately works for the neuropathy, that breathing one has been doing will keep them calm enough to do whatever they feel they need to do to improve the situation.