Weight Update for Feb 28

It's the last day of the month! I can't believe it - where has February gone???

Anyway, here's my weight update:

weight: 208.2 lbs
fat percentage: 44.6%
hydration: 38.0%
muscle: 27.3%
bone: 10.8%
cal: 2336

Ugh.  It's so frustrating to be going back up slightly with my weight - I seriously thought/hoped it was moving slowly downwards. :/

Last night I stumbled on the weight loss program of Dr. Goglia.  I took his free assessment and was told my metabolic type is that I'm fat/protein efficient.  So that started me on a whole round of Googling metabolic types and trying to figure out what that all means.  Assuming that is true, I most likely have an endomorph body type and am better suited to eating fats and protein.  I think I'm going to send an email to my dietitian to learn a bit more about this (and just to see what she thinks about the whole thing).

Weight Update for Feb 16

Before heading out snowshoeing yesterday (and before getting ready/eating), I decided to weigh myself:

weight: 205.8 lbs
fat percentage: 43.8%
hydration: 38.6%
muscle: 27.7%
bone: 10.8%
cal: 2322

Even though I had a week of dealing with lows (and not exercising much), I've been feeling pretty good and these numbers reflect it: I've lost a bit of weight and fat percentage, and gained a touch of muscle.  So that's pretty exciting!  

What was even more exciting was that I wasn't sore after skiing on Friday and snowshoeing yesterday.  Considering that was my first time skiing for the year and I've only been out snowshoeing once this year (Jan 1st, so a month and a half ago), I thought that was pretty awesome! :)

Best Skiing Success Ever!!!

So I didn't mention it earlier, but the other night I read Getting Pumped! An Insulin Pump Guide for Active Individuals with Type 1 Diabetes by Michael Riddell. I've had the book for some time and just never got around to reading it.  Well now I really wish I had read it sooner - following Riddell's advice, I had my best night of cross country skiing ever!  I used basically the strategy I've used before, but tweaked it a bit thanks to some suggestions from the book.  Normally I started off with a really high glucose in the hopes that it would get me through an hour of skiing.  Today I managed to start off at about 8.8 mmol/L, and my glucose stayed around the 8-9 mmol/L range until right near the end of the ski.  It was awesome - I felt so good!!!!  I seriously didn't think this was possible! :D

Crazy Lows :(

Oops, I forgot to post this....

Last Wednesday and Thursday were a bit of a nightmare thanks to my blood glucose going low A LOT.

On Wednesday, I walked to work.  When I was just about at the parking lot, I felt the G4 buzz, giving me a low glucose warning.  I'm not sure what was going on, but it took almost an hour for me to get my blood sugar level back up to a comfortable level (and to feel better).  Later that day I went low two more times (when I got home during my dinner break, and later during the night), but both I was able to treat very quickly without any problem.

Then on Thursday, the lows continued.  I went low again when I got to work (but I was able to correct it much faster this time), and again when I got home during my dinner break (I think this one was also thanks to all the shovelling I had to do - again, treated it without a problem).  Then while back at work, I ate dinner around 6:30pm - my glucose was fine, and I knew the carbs.  But for some reason I went low within about a half hour, and couldn't bring my glucose back up no matter what I did!  I ended up eating an obscene amount of food (which included most of two 710 mL bottles of regular pop), and my glucose wasn't over 5 mmol/L until almost 10pm!  (Thankfully coworkers drove me home from work!)

So starting on Friday, I decided I was going to try to figure out what was going on.  Over the following six days, I did A LOT of glucose tests.  I fixed some areas where I was going low, and unexpectedly found a few others.  As of today (Feb 15th), I thought I had most of the problem areas ironed out, but then I unexpectedly went low at a few other times today.  So it's still a work in progress, but I'm not doing as many tests right now because I need a break and wanted to actually go out skiing and snowshoeing this weekend.  I'm going out skiing tonight because I want to see what exactly happens (and I currently have the Dexcom G4 sensor to help me out).  So we'll see how things go....

Weight Update and Trialing the Dexcom G4

Alright, so I was sick last week (I felt a cold coming on, but thought I'd be okay - then at work on Thursday night I got super cold and that brought out the full blown cold for the weekend).  I lost my entire weekend (I was hoping to go snowshoeing and skiing!) :(  To make everything even more fun (that's sarcasm), my period also happened over the weekend.

So my period is over and the cold is pretty much gone. So it's time for a weight update:

weight: 207.8 lbs
fat percentage: 44.7%
hydration: 38.0%
muscle: 27.3%
bone: 10.7%
cal: 2333

Very comparable to January 25th.

In other news, I am currently trialing the Dexcom G4.  My diabetes care team had a sensor for me to try - we're wanting to see if my skin will react to the adhesive or not.  I've had it on for a few days, and already I like its placement a lot more than the Libre - you wear Dexcom sensors on your abdomen, which means random people won't see it and rudely ask what it is.  (I really hated that about the Libre - a lot of people asked me, so I wore longer sleeves while going out or working).  We'll see how it goes over the next while. :)

My Last Freestyle Libre Sensor

After cancelling more orders of Freestyle Libre sensors, I had just one left from the last order I received a few months ago.  As I mentioned in my last post about the Libre, I made an appointment with my doctor to see if he had anything else to suggest I try.  He said we had gone through most of the topical steroids (and that Clobetasol was one of the more powerful ones, so if that didn't work, there wasn't really much else).  I told him about talking to my diabetes team (and that they contacted the Freestyle Libre rep); my doctor agreed that Benadryl wasn't the answer.  

As a last ditch effort, and since I had the one remaining sensor, my doctor gave me a prescription for a tacrolimus ointment.  Tacrolimus ointments are used to treat eczema.  On Saturday, I put some of the ointment on my arm, figuring I would put it on 10 minutes before putting the sensor on.  I marked my arm with a sharpie to make sure I knew where the ointment was.  After ten minutes I alcohol swabbed a patch in the middle, and got ready to put the sensor in as my cleaned skin dried.

This was around when things started to go wrong.  I somehow missed the alcohol-swabbed patch of skin, putting the new sensor kind of through the remaining patch of ointment.  Here's a picture to show you what happened:

You can see that the majority of the tacrolimus ointment is above where the sensor was placed.

Yeah, not ideal.  I think what happened was that I mistook one of the many moles I have on my arm as one of the sharpie marks.  So yeah, not exactly ideal placement.

So that night while attempting to sleep, I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I woke up with a sharp pain where the sensor was.  Then during Sunday afternoon, the sensor just failed.  I pulled it off and it was covered in blood (which is not at all normal for these sensors).

The sensor itself was also horribly bent.  So whatever happened during the night must have pulled it out of my skin or something.

This sensor was in my arm for less than 24 hours.  And once again you could see the tell-tale ring of where my skin was reacting:

What I find interesting about this one is that the ring is there even in the spot where there definitely was some ointment protecting my skin (in the picture we're talking the part closest to the viewer, on the left).  So I can pretty confidently say the tacrolimus ointment wouldn't have helped even if this sensor had lasted.

In a way I'm kind of glad this sensor failed when it did.  My arm continues to be itchy, and was kind of leaking arm goo in a few places (although that might be thanks to scratching it too).  Had the sensor lasted any longer than it did, my arm would have once again been a mess under it.  So at least this way, the sensor is off and my arms can now fully heal because I won't be shoving more Libre Sensors on them anymore.