iBG Star take two!

Alright!!! Now I'm on a roll with the iBG Star and everyday it definitely gets brighter! While there's still a few things I'm adjusting to, the new meter is cozying into my life very well indeed (thanks to the quick pointers from fellow users!)

With my frantic work week (we had a major show open mid-week), I'd only been able to take a second glimpse at the manual (and with my stressful mind this week had no hope of digesting it's pages properly!) so when diabetogenic kindly pointed me in the right direction it was a huge sigh of relief! Now I'm just waiting on my order of blood strips (I was the first at my chemist to request them!) and I'm pretty confident I'll be more in love by the day.


My best start to the day all week!

 I've also ordered the special case so it can stay on my phone and am wondering how many people choose to leave it attached? I'm a little scared of wear and tear...

I tend to throw my (old) blood meter around and sometimes can be a little rough or absent minded when inserting the strip (i.e. it may occasionally bend ever so slightly on entry)... and it proceeded to produce a reading without even noticing anyway. But the iBG Star seems to be a little more delicate and require that tad more focus...I've wreaked 10 blood strips in the last three days to do with strip insertion and blood application, and at around 20c each, I definitely want to refine my style!

Perhaps it's akin to driving a Toyota and then stepping into a shiny new Jaguar... I know which one I'd rather choose, even if it did take more care!

Most importantly though, I cannot go past how wonderful the customer care has been. Impeccable.

iBG Star: First Impressions could shine brighter

Just like many others across Australia, I received the golden email Friday afternoon, announcing the iBG Star was available for purchase by the public. I hadn't felt this sort of excitement since I was a kid on Christmas eve! I love my iPhone, and use it to do almost everything, so why not test my blood sugar too? Ringing through, their customer service was lovely, everyone was so nice! - I say everyone as I spoke to about four different people! One to answer the phone, one to get my details, one to take payment and another to tell me where to get blood strips.

Then yesterday afternoon there is was! (cue imaginary rays of sun shining down from the heavens complete with music as I picked up the box) I hadn't expected it to arrive so quickly. I tore into it, pulling each item in the box out and laying it on the table. I thought I'd do the 'right' thing and read the instructions carefully... but we all know that gets very boring, very quickly and is a total excitement zapper... besides, the meter itself charged very quickly.

That's about the point where my excitement started to mix with distrust which continued to make me pick a few holes in it though (now this could just be down to the need to read the instruction book properly still). After testing with the control solution, I took my first reading - 20.0! (What?!?). I knew I was high but not that high!! I grabbed my old meter, tested, and was 14.9...pretty substantial difference! So of course this led to me using both meters every time I tested for the next 12 hours. Sore fingers anyone?? The discrepency hasn't happened since that first test...Murphy's law, but I'm happy.

Other things I've noticed / am sorting out!:

• If I exercise I can't stipulate if the blood sugar I took was before or after.
• I can't type in my own notes - i.e. the type of food I've eaten: I can add the number of carbs sure, but I believe food intake related to diabetes management is more than just the number of carbs.
• For blood sugar tests made on the meter when it's not attached to my iPhone, it only records the reading, I can not add the carbs, units etc on the iPhone even after syncing as the reading is 'locked'. So while it works without the iPhone, there's not that much point.
• Ugh!!! just plugged it in to check on the issue above and the app is completely missing! Asking me to install again! I just synced with my computer.... Being Gen Y I'm supposed to be good with technology...

Definitely need to give that instruction manual another proper read. I'll keep you posted on my progress!

Facebook!

Its official, Mastering Me now has a facebook page! I've joined modern society and signed up today (it's only taken me six months!!!)

Find me here: Mastering Me

Its a start!

The Week in Reflection

There were a few themes that seemed to really be at the front of my mind this week!

A quick run every day is more important that getting to work early, and saying yes to every other task that pops up! I did really well this week, I ran every morning and every afternoon, that is until Wednesday night. I got home late on Wednesday (8.30pm), so used that as my excuse not to run Thursday morning (needed the sleep), that and the fact I thought I'd run Thursday evening. But for random reasons I'm still trying to work out, when I got home Thursday my meter simply yelled at me 'HI'! Well then I proceeded to go low that night at 2am and by 6am Friday I was nothing short of completely wiped out, walking zombie style. It took me close enough to four hours to get ready that morning and I made it to work by 10am (but probably shouldn't have bothered!). I think my body threw a tantrum on Thursday as it didn't know what what going on. I'd pulled my insulin dosages back for all the running and when I didn't go, it was as though I just didn't have back up residue to cushion the change.

More and more people think they 'know' what diabetes really means (and some times the professionals even get it wrong!). As more and more people are subjected to advertising (mainly about type 2 though!!), school and university studies, and the general coverage of diabetes in the news, more and more seem to think they know the disease: what it is, and what life with it is like. Two things of note happened this week. 1. One of my brother's friends was in a lecture for health sciences, learning about diabetes, and the lecturer (who is a qualified and practising GP) said 'I'd rather have aids than diabetes'. I must be getting used to random ignorant remarks such as this as I realised my brother was fuming way more than me, in my defence. But its not about which is worse. In my opinion, it's a completely unnecessary, unfounded and if not detrimental comment to make in an educational setting which should be trying to positively shape the future of health and the world's approach to it. Quite simply, I also think it is unfair to compare the two. Its horrible to have any disease, and they are both battles fought by individuals in their own unique ways, each with a unique set of circumstances. That lecturer was nothing short of an arrogant idiot, and I can only guess he, nor anyone close to him, hasn't got a serious life long medical condition.

2. I found this online when I was researching Sugar Cane juice, and it reminded me of all the times you see and hear people get things completely round the wrong way, inside out or down right wrong but they proceed with conviction anyway...well until you let them know you're one! The credibility of this website plummeted when I saw this:

 
Diabetes is my battle. Sometimes one of the sad things is that no one will ever really know what its like to live with diabetes, unless they have it, and we just have to deal with that. Sometimes no amount of explaining seems to really convey how hard some days are.

Mums know best. After becoming more and more involved with the diabetic online community, some days I am in two minds about how much good it is doing me. I have a habit of checking facebook from bed every morning as I wake up. But most mornings there are only stories of people morning the loss of T1 diabetics passed or searching for answers to an array of health problems. I'll be honest, this scares me! (and perhaps isn't the best way to start the day!) But it also makes me stop and think about why my journey with diabetes has been the way it is. I've always been aware of complications but I've never really feared death and I certainly never thought about it when I was younger. While there are many thoughts in my mind, the main one is that Mum was my secret weapon. She had some simple and extremely strong principles on life. Two of her biggest focuses were healthy eating and leading an active lifestyle - physically and mentally. I couldn't have asked for a better foundation in life.

Lessening the Fight

Like so many others out there, I can't tell you how many times my alarm has gone off in the morning and all I want to do is hit snooze. Lately I've been hit, hit, hitting that button and 'snooze' has gone on for up to another whole hour, which when I stop and think about it, is time which definitely could have been spent much better. If instead of hitting snooze 5-6 times, if I just slept in 15-30minutes longer, I would've got more sleep, still gotten up in time and probably felt much better about myself! But instead, I continue to make myself feel guilty and leave my alarm set way too early for my needs. Just because I used to get up around 5am, doesn't mean that's what my body can cope with at the moment. Diabetes to me, can be as much about the mind as the body. While it is my body that has decided it doesn't want to work properly, it is my mind which chooses how I deal with it, and well I've decided diabetes should have no place for guilt (harder said than done of course!!!)

Diabetes is about being realistic, hands on and straight up about your needs balanced against the rest of your life. While it is important to keep ourselves in check and mentally push ourselves to achieve good results, If you're feeling tired, take a moment to think about why and if it's because your blood sugars weren't so great, you had a tough long day at work, a few extra hard workouts, or a hormonal/emotional change that day (or week!), then they are real elements in your life which will impact your energy levels - and blood sugars!

Be realistic and don't blow these off or make yourself feel bad for making excuses. Sometimes it's as simple as acknowledging the logical truth: We are diabetic. That extra effort, or change has often got to be offset somewhere else, it might mean extra food or sleep, leaving the office early, or taking a mid week break from the gym. So don't be too hard on yourself and let guilt niggle away - life is about balance, and even more so the life of a diabetic, as we don't always just bounce back very easily and lifestyle changes can take time to wear in. Stopping to recognise this will more often than not make you feel better and take lest time out of your daily schedule anyway!

Ps. You're already a champion for pricking, injecting and calculating all day!