I agree with Dread. I’m hypothyroid and have an excellent endo. But I get copies of all my labs (before the appt), and several times, I’ve pointed out something troublesome that he missed. They are often rushed when reviewing labs and easily miss something.
That’s why I get copies of all my labs–and keep them for reference.
The stress hormones all cause blood sugar to rise, cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine and also growth hormone too. They do this to maximize the quick burning energy available to the body to allow you to over come the stressful situation. This works fantastic if all you need to do is quickly fight or run away from an attacker. But for chronic stress it’s not so good. And pain can definitely be a significant source of stress.
I actually read a great book titled ‘Why Zebras don’t get ulcers’ by R Sapolsky which described the stress response really well. Also, the great effect exercise has on the brain in another book called ‘Spark’ by John Ratey.
But I’m sorry to see they screwed your results up @Robert_Johnson - I can appreciate doctors can be busy, but that is still a gross oversight.
First of all, thank you for your service Mr. Johnson.
Over 500 is considered a “critical” value and the lab is required to alert the ordering physician, but “high” values are only flagged in the system and really easy to see - the VA’s system is completely electronic. Your physician was being fairly negligent, you should have been alerted immediately - the damage high blood sugars can cause is terrible and he should be more than knowledgeable. Always get copies of your labwork. That way you know what is going on and you can track changes.
All right everyone. Thank you very very much for your support and confirmations. That really does ease my mind quite a bit.
Something that helped tremendously was that record breaking BG mention. It prompted me to investigate it further. Turns out that über high BG happens. Looks like numbers in the thousands or more happen more often than I would have expected. That makes me realize it’s not as dire as I thought. The one thing that bothered me was when I found that a BG level of =>600 is considered terminal. There were no notes to go with that as to length of time at those levels, but I suspect it’s not gonna be measured in days, but maybe hours, my opinion.
Now for the big reveal, and I’d truly appreciate some help with this. Here is the complete labwork done a few days ago. I don’t think it’s the original printout, I’m pretty sure someone transcribed it intobthe VA digital system (although, I worked for a famous copier company, that has great OCR software for transcribing into digital with very little errors [the errors it did have in the early days of it were confusing as hell when they happened])
So here they are in order of file size
Keeping in mind a starting A1c of 11.8%
And for the grand finale!
Drum roll please…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
BOOM!
[drops mike, exits stage left]
[dont worry, it wasn’t a Heil. If you get that, you’re a geek]
/WOOT!
My fasted BG is now the lowest I have ever measured.
69 dudes!
This is just an IF. My last meal ended at 1400 yesterday, er… 22 hours ago. Its time to see what I can do on another unplanned extended fast.
FYI: I did start my Metformin again. So far, the side effects have been minimal, just inconvenient, really. I figure I can live with the slight discomfort if it indeed helps with reversing IR (insulin resistance) as well as helping take care of the erroneous BG (blood glucose) spikes I have been getting from certain foods that are listed as zero carbs, yet hold high GI (Glycemic Index) additives, often listed as “natural” flavors.
Way to go @Robert_Johnson, you are making amazing progress. I too went back on my metformin and I am continuing to see progress in my morning sugars 10 months in. A1c started at 11 and 3 months ago was 6 so still hoping to get a bit lower! Keep on, I believe metformin is one of only a few ‘Good’ drugs. My stomach tolerates it well so I will continue to take it until my a1c is near 5 for an extended length of time.
That person must have bled hard candy and peed cotton candy.
Well, as I lay in the ER, one by one the nurses stopped by to see me. They all said the same thing, “I just wanted to come by and see just the sweetest guy in here”. It wasnt until the third nurse that I caught on. 
Would it possible to use this theory to test say caffeine or other stressors and how they affect your BG?
There is a real time BG device you can install or attach to your arm that does a continuous reading. I’ve seen several manufacturers. Just google CGM, its a goldmine.
With one of those you could get constant readings all day long, and really see what effects BG, in real time.
and the one I’m waiting for, non intrusive BG measurements. Reads through the skin. Its hard to tell in this image, but the sensor is looking through the web of skin between index and thumb. The device looks like a staple remover made for sci-fi.
This is a pretty good article on CGM and lots of comments by actual users below both positive and negative. Bottom line - very expensive and probably only worth it for T1s or poorly managed T2 who don’t reverse with keto…
I’ve got the Freestyle Libre (the white disc in the first pic in your post). I find it incredibly useful. I use it intermittently, several times a year, for two weeks at a time. It gives continuous blood glucose readings 24/7 for those two weeks, allowing me to properly understand exactly what effects my sleep, sleep deprivation, food, drink, exercise, fasting, stress levels and so on have on my blood glucose.
I’m not type 1 or an uncontrolled type 2 diabetic, but I have seriously wacky hormones and reactive hypoglycaemia which have, at times, pushed my blood glucose up into diabetic levels even while Low Carbing.
The joy of using the Libre is that I get all the info I need to tailor make my own personal way of eating. It taught me that I am gluten intolerant. Even tiny amounts of gluten would trigger hypos. It also showed me how to time food and exactly what happens to my blood glucose during fasts - and why I hit a wall with the longer ones.
It is too expensive for me to justify using it all the time, because my blood glucose is now under good control, but as a learning tool and for occasional maintenance, I cannot praise it enough, and would recommend that anyone with a deranged glucose metabolism tries it for a few weeks as a learning tool.
I’m currently using it to see what effect ZC is having on my glucose levels - and it it proving to be very interesting. Definitely not what I expected! 
Please consider writing this up when you are done. I’m sure a lot of people would be very interested since it seems the CGM would give you insights others can’t get with even lots of finger pricks.
I agree with @Capnbob, can you please share your data? I’m especially interested in your assumptions versus what you found. Especially in the ZC study.
