Bill & Ted! Unfortunately Docs are swamped, some are working in more challenging environments.
Thank you Bob for your service to our country! All Vets deserve better care.
I work for a large health care system (IT, not a clinician). I love my job, 99.9999% of the clinicians are good people who try to help, but they are sleep deprived, have maybe 9.5 minutes per patient, diseases (like diabetes and other sugar related illnesses) are sapping them as they try to go with the incorrect and ancient BS they were taught. On top, there’s the pharmacy reps/drug pushers who seek to solve all medical issues with synthetic chemical compounds. Most docs do not have time or the brain space required to really read labs. Cost control measures mean they don’t offer testing sometimes. Some docs are just ignorant and no matter what you say or ask their answer is “whole grain” or whatever SAD fact they recall at the moment. Done with rant…
What you have done is beyond amazing! Truly inspirational and perhaps best of all for you, flies right in the face of medical “wisdom”! Massive victory!
I’m pissed. I mean really F’n TICKED OFF
Unreal! Makes perfect sense, but un f’ing real! Guess they ALMOST had you where they wanted you, sick and pharma dependant forever. Jokes on them!
Thank you @rwmKetoReboot,
I know quite a bit about about medical staff, or should say, I did many moons ago. My ex-wife was/is a RN, or ‘real nurse’ as she would often say. Her words, not mine. She developed a snobbish attitude after being fortunate enough to work in two world renown medical centers. LLUMC Neurosurgical step down unit, and Burroughs Neurosurgical in Phoenix. She was damned smart, I’ll give her that. She had a lot of tenacity when it came to what she was taught in Nursing school. Her big flaw was not questioning anyone in a leadership position.
That was all 20th century. We divorced at the turn of the century and I retired from the USAF.
I had several tech support jobs after retirement. One of which was with Xerox, as a copier repair tech. Yep, the copier guy. A few hospitals were part of my clientele. One being WOMAC on Ft Bragg. The nurses were great there. One might say, human even. The docs though, wow. I’d often wonder how they made it out of medical school. Its one thing to genius enough to be surgeon. But to be a surgeon, and not be able to understand basic tech, like a copier, "here, place the original “face down here, and press the big green button that says START”.
Right, I don’t try to do the doc’s job and with very few exceptions they definitely can’t do my job. It’s been coming on 18 years since I did direct-client support but do have some not-so-fond memories. If anyone thinks Docs are technically ‘challenged’, try executives!!! I digress…and, I mean no malice, I ain’t no know it all. I do know I could not be a doctor. I would not be able to live with the guilt. I do have some empathy for them. Some.
I’m in forensics for the last 11 years, and if it weren’t for the bad news I bear to legal and compliance, some of it might even be laughable (and, I can’t talk about it…)
Almost forgot - Yes, there are many Amazing nurses who somehow do their job AND keep lost and wondering docs in check. Next time you see a ‘grumpy nurse’ it’s probably because she’s doing two jobs.
Checking blood glucose before and after various doses of caffeine is pretty straightforward. It appears caffeine has minimal impact on blood sugar for the metabolically healthy but has more impact on those who have trouble with blood sugar such as T2Ds. But blood glucose strips & meters aren’t super sensitive/accurate and it could be hard to measure a subtle effect.
As for other stressors I suppose it depends on how well you can apply a measured dose. I’ve repeatedly measured fairly sharp spikes in BG, often 20 mg/dl sometimes more, in response to brief intense physical exertion. I don’t know how typical that is. I have a lot of intramuscular fat and suspect my muscle has significant insulin resistance.
And if you are using standard over the counter BG Test strips, they are allowed a tolerance of +- 20%. Which means two separate readings could be off 40 points if your actual BG is 100. Which as you stated in the first paragraph. Pretty much making accurate tests, that we really want, a moot point. I’m often testing several times within one minute to try to get an average result. I have had the same test strips (same package) show results as much as 60 points different. I’m not even sure it’s safe to assume I had hit both ends of the scale with that. I suppose wasting a few hundred test strips, using the glucotest chemical, whatever they call it, that is used to insure they are working/reading properly. I’d want to test at least three different lot numbers like that to see if they are consistently biased, or randomly +/-20%. It’s one thing if one lot number was consistently +20%, and long as I knew I could trust that lot number was off that same amount.
This is so aggravating.
Fortunately it is fairly easy to find deals on new meter bundles that are not much more expensive than just buying strips. If you try enough of them and do repeated comparisons to lab results it’s possible to get results that inspire significantly more confidence than the max allowable tolerance.
I have three meters. One was given to me from the VA. I get the test strips from it via prescription. So I don’t pay for those. They are a dollar each, so glad about that.
The second meter is one we had around the house for a few years. It’s a Relion. I have a couple of hundred Test strips for it. Got them all really cheap a few years ago. But they are all about 2 years beyond exp date. I’ve tested with it just to see, and got results that were over 100 points apart. So it’s useless, as they no longer sell strips for that model.
The last one is a CVS store brand meter. I still question it’s accuracy, but most times it shows about 15-20 points higher than the expensive one from the VA. Test strips for it cost about 12 cents each. So I buy a ton of those for testing between testing with the VA meter.
The thing about the VA prescription test strips is I only get 50 at a time, and the prescription states it’s for testing ONLY every other day. My first week with that meter I used up all the test strips. I figured I can just go buy more. Then I saw the price for them at Sams Club. Box of 100 strips $110! Ouch.
“Somewhere in the world is the worlds worst doctor. The scary part is, someone has an appointment with him.”
- some 80’s comedian, don’t remember who
Cortisol causes the release of glucose (glycogen?) from storage for instant energy use. Think fight or flight response. That’s cortisol’s function. To help us get out of a stressful situation quickly.
Bad part is, we get stressed out over things that aren’t over with quick enough. Like marriage problems. Ok, that sounded better in my head. But it’s true. When we are stressed over marriage issues, it generally continues for days, weeks, months, (sigh) or years. This continual bombardment of stress keeps cortisol levels up. Keeping glucose/glycogen (I’m really tired at the moment, not thinking straight 
) which in turn triggers insulin. The cortisol itself might even trigger the release of both, making the process faster. After all the realease of sugar will do very little without the release on insulin to. So if cortisol doesn’t cause both, then it’s going to have a lot of lag time to get that fight or flight working. And I know by experience, that it’s as instantaneous as anything the body can do. Like a reflex, it’s there and ready. But that’s another Air Force story.