Day #45: HaemoChromo
I went to the hospital first thing this morning for my fasting blood tests, a urine sample and an ECG. Fun stuff.
For the first time since I’ve been tested for blood, it didn’t really wanted to come out. She found a vein OK, but there wasn’t the usual flood into the testube, and it stopped a couple of times. Maybe the low blood pressure?
My sugars this morning were 3.7
One thing that the doctor mentioned yesterday that I neglected to share, which I want to rectify now is Haemochromatosis - follow the link for a full explanation, but basically it’s a disease where the lucky recipient or carrier or host has an excess of iron in their blood. this excess deposits itself in vital organs, one of which is the pancreas, which then inhibits the pancreas’ ability to produce insulin…
Well, how does one go about treating HaemoChromo (as I’ll call it). You get Theodoric The Medieval Barber on the case: seriously. Here’s a vid to lighten the mood, and then I’ll continue….
Yeah, so basically, the treatment is what’s called phlebotomy or “Blood letting”, they take your blood until the levels of iron have sufficiently depleted, ending up around 4 times a year to keep it under control.
Now, I have been diagnosed with this yet, he’s just asked for the initial test to be done for iron levels, but an interesting thing occurred to me lying in bed last night.
Back in around 2000 I started getting acupuncture for a couple Tae Kwon Do injuries, to my hamstring and the arch of my foot. Bare with me, this’ll make sense… Prior to this I used to give blood regularly, but the next time i went to give blood, I had to answer “yes” to the “Have you have acupuncture” question, and they didn’t want my blood (needles and aids risks I guess), any so I stopped giving blood sometime in later 2000 Â early 2001. When did my diabetes symptoms kick in? Late 2001.Â
Maybe it’s just coincidence, maybe not. I’ll find out in a couple of days whether I have an excess of iron in my blood though. It’ll be good to know either way.
The doc thought of this possibility as I’m not overweight, nor was I really when I was diagnosed. I was certainly bigger, but far from “fat”. So if you have, or know of anyone with, diabetes tell them to check out this entry, and get their / your doctor to check for HaemoChromo. You never know.
Another thing I wanted to mention (this is a long post n’est ce pas) was how I’m feeling about the possibility of this whole adventure not working.
It bums me out. It does occur to me that this might not work, I might go back onto food, albeit predominantly vegan (I love cheese) and my sugars go haywire and I’m back to square #1. But it also occurs to me that even if my sugars to go back to a “diabetic” level, at least I will have tried, and in trying is success. I will have made my body far more healthy than it would otherwise have been, so I’ve only gained. Either way, this will not be in vain. I can’t lose.
On that note,
I bid you goodnight.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 10:24 pm and is filed under journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
