Medic Alerts

Medic Alerts are wonderful things to have for all kinds of problems. But being diabetic we defiantly need something along those lines.

 There are several different companies and several different formats you can get medic alerts from. It can take awhile to find the one that is best for you, it can also get expensive while finding this out but the great thing is now a days there is a great variety out there that when I was younger i never had.
  I first started with a necklace, it was a nice silver one with one of the saints on the front, you could unscrew the front and there was a folded up piece of paper with my details on, but it broke at school one day and the teacher being nice offered to fix it for me, I never got it back.
 Then I moved on to bracelets, I had this lovely silver on with the inscription on the back of a flat silver plate with the medic alert symbol on the front but that soon went so I moved onto a kind of sports Velcro bracelet that had a small silver plate with the symbol on that you could flip over and it had my information inscribed on the back, I still have that one, I went through several different colours of that type but I still have my black one.
 I finally got to the point where I felt I didn't need one, all the people that I hung around with, my family and teachers knew I was diabetic so why should I need one. Which is a stupid outlook because just because someone knows you have diabetes doesn't mean they know how to help if something goes wrong, like wise if something did happen you might not be with people that do know what is wrong and can help (there was this one time when it was bad and I was on my own and people just thought I was on a bad high). It pays to be cautious.

 Medic alerts may seem stupid or not very fashionable but they are there for a reason, to help you. I got around my problem of not liking them, because at the time I didn't like the look of any of them and the one or two I did happen to like where so ridiculously expensive it was stupid. So for my very first tattoo I got a medic alert. Now I'm not saying that's for everyone and not always a great solution to finding the right one, but it worked for me. It will always be with me, in plain sight and I can never forget it or loose it.
 They seem like such a small thing but they can help in a big way, if you don't have one, please have a serious look into getting one, you can find several nice ones for a good price and what's a bit of money when it could one day save your life. You can't hope for the best for every situation.
 I can't help but think if I had carried one with me for most of my teens that maybe in one or two situation I would of got the help I needed (they the before mentioned bad trip). I wouldn't have got so bad, because when you do get to those stages you can't help yourself.

Getting Metal.

Getting piercings can be fun and cool looking, but you have to be careful on so many things when getting them and we diabetics have to be doubly careful.

 Getting my first piercing was a real hassle, I was in primary and I really wanted to get my ears pierced, Ma held out for as long as she deemed fit and then for my 10th birthday I had my ears pierced at our local hair dressers.
 It took a long time for Ma to get the letter from the Doctors to say I was okay to get them done, we had to go through a lot of hoops to get that letter, but it was so totally worth it and I was so happy.
 But when I started to get really ill my ears would get infected, I developed a really bad reaction to anything but silver, it was a real pain and .. well .. painful too. You see, not having control over your sugars can send everything thing else spinning, including piercing. That why I contemplated taking them out and getting them done again at a later date, which I never did.
  So when I wanted to get my lip pierced, Ma made me a deal (which she thought I'd either fail at or not go through with) and said if I could keep my bloods in control for a whole year she would pay for it to be done for my 16th. I worked hard for it and I still have it pierced. Ma was not happy that day, but a deals a deal.
 
It was hard to go through it all and not being able to lay on your side because your ears are to painful isn't worth all the hassle when they can stay lovely when your bloods are all in control, My lip (knock on wood) has never been infected and that's because I've worked hard to keep everything on the level. It was hard work at the start and I had to clean it several times a day for a long time while I was trying to get everything in control. It was hard work and even though I wanted more, I waited until I was more stable.
 You have to remember that a piercing is still an open wound all prettied up and you have to take care of it, so when you can't control your bloods, how can you take care of it properly? Why go through all the pain, hassle and money to get it done and then have to take it out just because you couldn't be bothered to look after yourself. You can cause real damage that way.

 So when your thinking about getting some metal. not only do you have to think about what your getting and what type, there is also the place your getting it at, because if they don't have the right certificates, it doesn't matter how careful you are, infection could be the last of your problems. Always do your research and always make sure your healthy enough.

Teeth

Nobody really thinks about the impact on the teeth. Medicine can a profound effect on your teeth, as well as other things.

 I teeth weren't in the greatest of conditions to begin with, but when my sugars started to go out of control, I didn't notice that why were getting a little worse, then add on the whole fact of the throwing up when the DKA hit every 6 months, that really puts things on a downward spiral.
 They went a horrible glow in the dark yellow, I didn't like smiling wide, or showing my teeth. Things didn't help with all the kinds of medication I was on, or they would pump into me. Teeth may be strong in some respect but are the first to show signs of things happening.

 You have to look after your mouth, once the enamel has gone, it doesn't come back, most of mine has gone, if any is still there. My teeth with always have a yellow tint, even though I try very hard to look after them and they are whiter now. You can't help medication, sometimes it's just a side effect. All you can do is try your best in that case. But keeping control can help a lot, keeps the sugar content down, less damage can be done.
 But you got to think, it's not just your teeth. Once they start going so does other things and having nice breath will go right out the window. Some of that was from being ill, but a lot is from the mouth just not being looked after properly and swilling mouth wash ain't gunna cut it. It may help, but not properly.
 Some people don't care all that much, but you can tell a lot about a person from their teeth. It's a major part of you that everyone sees, no matter how hard you try you can't hide those babies. And once they are gone, their gone.
 It's not hard to look after them, and it's not hard looking after your sugars either. Somethings can't be helped, but the little things matter and they can add up real quick when you let things slip.

 Having those pearly whites aren't in the cards for me, but I sure try my best to look after them as much as I can. At least I worry about how I smile ... or laugh for that matter, any more.

 Diabetes may be a hidden disease but it sure can have a very obvious effect on things thats aren't hidden.

Talking about medication

 Most diabetics will have at least one time in their lives been or will be on Metformin.

 When I was younger and the crap started to happen I became insulin resistant, the doctors put me on metformin. Metformin has loads of things it can help with, they big thing is helping to regulate blood sugars and insulin absorption, but can help in the protection of various organs among other things. But like any drug it has side effects. One of them being nausea. When the doctors first put me on it, and not a very high dose either, it made me feel very ill, stomach hurt all the time, even turning me off food. So I was taken off that pretty quickly.
 But when I got older and started to take care of myself they tried again. I was wary at first because of the first time and again I did feel ill, but I fought through it and have even upped the dose this time to try and help. I'll tell you this, it helps a hell of a lot and when I forget to take the morning tablets it reflects in the days sugars.
 Although it can be a pain to get used to, it certainly has helped be a great lot. I was reading up on it earlier, just so I had my facts straight (it's been years now so I wasn't sure if I had everything right) and the very first description said that it was only for type 2 diabetics, which made me laugh.
 So if your doc want's to put you on metformin certainly give it a good go, it can have such a drastic effect on everything and help so much. But only if it's right for you, just because it helps me and lots of other people, doesn't mean it will work for everyone. It's a big deal in the diabetic world so I thought I'd put my two cents in.

Sorry it's such a short post this time.