I have had a weird few weeks. I’m so done being ‘sick’. Thankfully I am feeling better each day, and we were able to get a physician here to accept us into their practice so we now have a family doctor.
I do have a sinus infection that I’m working hard to fight off. I haven’t had one in a while, but now that we’ve come back to a drier, windier climate, my sinuses are rebelling. The sinus infection has caused the usual symptoms – severe headaches with lots of pressure in my nose and cheeks and eyes and forehead and ears, runny nose, post-nasal drip (my personal favorite – NOT!), overall just not feeling well.
But that’s not the weirdest thing going on right now. I had sinus infections twice a year for many years, so that is almost routine by now.
In the midst of finally deciding that I really did have a full blown sinus infection, I had 2 severely awful days which lead to many days of recovering. Wow – I felt worse than I have felt in a very long time. My insulin resistance flared up in a big way and got my attention.
In 2006 I was diagnosed with Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome and Insulin Resistance. Often they end up being diagnosed together because one condition usually points to the other.
While I did take some medication (which made me pretty sick) for a while to help manage the insulin resistance, we were mainly concerned with the gynecological health concerns I was having, and I wasn’t given a lot of tips about how to manage the insulin resistance. I had a hysterectomy in October 2007, and had kind of put the whole thing out of my mind. I was no longer dealing with constant pain from a severely cystic ovary as well as the other issues, and my quality of life improved greatly. But, the insulin resistance never went away, and it is definitely something that I need to deal with now.
What is Insulin Resistance? I don’t want to get too technical, for the simple fact that I’m not an expert on this, and I don’t want to confuse anyone. But I’ll take a crack at it…
Insulin Resistance is kind of the opposite of diabetes, and is sometimes referred to as pre-diabetes, Syndrome X, or Metabloic Syndrome. In diabetes, one’s body does not produce enough insulin to deal with a person’s sugar intake, but with Insulin Resistance one’s body produces too much insulin in response to a person’s sugar intake. Diabetes causes dangerously high blood sugar levels because there is not enough insulin to process the sugars, whereas Insulin Resistance can cause dangerously low blood sugar levels because there is too much insulin which completely processes the available sugars, initiating a hypoglycemic (hypo – not enough; glycemic – relating to blood glucose/sugar) reaction in the system.
In addition, insulin’s job is not only to help transfer blood sugar to the cells for fuel, but it also stores the blood sugar that isn’t being used for fuel immediately. So, during the large insulin level spikes that occur with Insulin Resistance, the available blood sugar is stored away as fat very quickly. It can also cause undeniable cravings for sweet foods as the body tries to compensate for the extremely high levels of insulin present in the blood stream. If sweet, or high carbohydrate, foods are eaten, the cycle starts over, creating a spike in blood sugar levels which is then followed by another spike of insulin and corresponding low blood sugar levels, along with rapid fat storage.
Some of the risks associated with untreated Insulin Resistance are heart disease, developing Type II diabetes, increasing weight gain, and high blood pressure.
A few weeks ago I had picked up a book, called The Insulin Resistance Diet, realizing that most nutrition plans I had been looking at did nothing to address this condition. Some, I know, were actually working against me. I wanted to find something that would help me to deal with my Insulin Resistance so I could be healthier and lose weight. (The link I provided for the book goes directly to the site for the book, but it unfortunately includes an auto-play greeting from one of the doctors… I apologize for that in advance!)
Before I got into the book, I had 2 instances that were extremely frightening, and gave me real motivation to get into the book and figure out what I needed to do to regain my health.
I was very sick last Wednesday… it actually started Tuesday night. It was very weird. We aren’t 100% sure what it was – we initially thought it was maybe something I ate. I got the chills and I was dizzy and wasn’t sure if I was going to pass out or throw up. It was icky. It kind of started when my sweetie and I were at a coffee shop here having a tea and some dessert. We thought maybe it was the dessert.
Anyway, I had to TRY to sleep sitting up (any other position sent the world spinning for me) and my back was already sore, so that made my back and neck more sore Wednesday. It was a long, rough, scary night. I felt so ill, and couldn’t move without dizziness overtaking me. My sweetie let me sleep in on Wednesday morning – I slept until 11:30 that morning. I still didn’t feel quite right. My sweetie said his tummy was a bit icky, too, but the kiddos had all been fine. All day Wednesday I felt a little ‘off’, and it happened again after dinner – dizziness, heaviness in my feet, kind of slow (sluggish) hands…. it was really kind of scary, though not as intense as Tuesday night had been.
I was better Thursday and Friday – not 100%, but certainly feeling better… my sinus infection was becoming more pronounced, enough so that I was beginning to wonder if that’s what it was and not just some head cold.
Then, I woke up with the same awful kind of ‘sick’ on Saturday morning. I did throw up this time – though there wasn’t much in there… violently dizzy, sick to my stomach, cold and clammy or feeling like I was on fire and pouring sweat. It woke me up out of a deep sleep, too. It was a terrible feeling.
We had gone to some new friends’ house for dinner Friday night and had a high carbohydrate meal, and then a small serving of vanilla ice cream with frozen raspberries. I came home and had a cup of black tea with some coffeemate and splenda. (I have found out from my reading that even though Splenda – or Sweet-n-low or other artificial sweetener – is calorie-free, it still causes an insulin reaction in those with insulin resistance.) So I didn’t know if I just had too much sugar too late or what, but I was very sick all day Saturday. My tummy was rumbly, I was dizzy and uncoordinated, and I had a hard time putting my thoughts together. I just was not ‘right’, and it was a bit scary to me.
In hind sight, I can now say for almost certain that both of those instances were severe hypoglycemic reactions. Having had small amounts of protein compared to the amounts of carbohydrates I was eating, my insulin levels surged, causing my blood sugar levels to crash, and resulting in these severe physical reactions. I have always been borderline hypoglycemic, so I have dealt with that a little before, but for these incidents to happen together, so severely, and relatively quickly, it really had me concerned.
The ‘trick’ is knowing how to get my blood sugar back up to a stable level without causing the huge insulin spike that would make the blood sugar crash again. That’s why I got seriously into the book on Saturday and Sunday!
I was able to get in to our new family doctor today, and she is having some blood work done to see if there’s anything more that can be done. It may be necessary that I start some medication agian to help stablize things – the blood work will tell us if I need to do that. Otherwise, she encouraged my reading of this book, saying it was a very good resource for my condition, and said that getting the nutrition side of things figured out would go a long way to keeping my insulin and blood sugar levels stable. She also insisted that I walk at least 20 minutes a day, 10 minutes in the morning and 10 again in the evening, preferrably after meals, to help stabilize those levels in my system.
Following the nutrition plan laid out in The Insulin Resistance Diet, I am feeling better. I’m on antibiotics for my sinus infection, and I know that is helping, but my hypoglycemic symptoms are going away now too.
I will write some more later about the nutrition plan, and how it’s working for me so far.
Our bodies are so complex, and it is easy for things to get out of whack. What’s weird, and even frightening, is how long it can take to get back on track. Two less-than-optimum meal choices left me sick for 2 full days, with lingering symptoms beyond that!
Insulin Resistance is on the rise in the world. It is a weird kind of condition, but it is definitely treatable. I don’t want to end up with diabetes later in life. I don’t need the increased risk for heart disease and high blood pressure. So I’m determined to take this bull by the horns and get healthy again, and stay healthy for a long time.
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