Connecting The Dots

When I was a little girl, my mother used to sing a song I only vaguely remember. It went something like: "The thigh bone's connected to the leg bone and the leg bone's connected to the ankle bone..." and on and on from there. It had a catchy tune, so I liked it. But it also taught me an idea that has become very important to me as a person living with diabetes: things that don't necessarily appear to be connected often are, so everything I do (or don't do) affects my body and, ultimately, affects my condition, as well.

Today's post is going to feature some of the connections I've discovered since I was first diagnosed eight and a half years ago. Since each body is different, yours may not work just like mine in a particular way, but hopefully, you will find some useful information in what I've learned. Or at least, you may begin to look for the things that are connected for you.

One connection I discovered after I was diagnosed was that my emotions (especially over-the-top emotions like excitement, fear, or anger) spiked my blood glucose. Maybe you're one of those folks that rolls like the tide. But I was always one of those folks subject to go from zero to sixty in a hot minute in one way or the other for almost any reason. And I thought there was nothing I could do about it.

It turned out, though, that my desire to keep my glucose steady was strong enough to send me searching for coping mechanisms that would control my roller coaster emotions. Deep breaths with long slow exhales slow down my heart, my thoughts, and my responses. Which usually gives me the time to ask myself, "Do I really want to bounce off the ceiling over this?" or sometimes "Is this trip even necessary?"

Over time and with practice, I found myself more amused by life and far, far less likely to get caught up in other people's dramas. It has been marvelously freeing. And in fact, I'm now complimented from time to time on how calm I am when others have lost their grip (something that amazes me when I remember the way I used to be). I enjoy being cool under fire. My days are easier. I get more done because I'm not wasting my energy spinning my wheels over nothing. And, while my glucose level may spike, it's not typically over my emotions.

I mentioned another connection in last week's blog post: fiber and water make for healthy digestion (as demonstrated by healthy poops). If this topic is too much for you, skip the paragraph, but if you're currently using laxatives, Metamucil (or some similar product), a stool softener, or anything else to help "regulate" your digestion, I encourage you to think about this. Most of us think we get enough fluid. We drink coffee or tea with our meals. We might drink a diet soda (all of which contain aspartame, by the way, which is poison, in case you care). And we might or might not drink a glass of water once or twice a day. At least, this sounds about average.

But the fact is: at 5'6" and 138 pounds, I should be drinking between 8 and 17 8-oz glasses of fluid a day and what I just described above might be as little as 5 glasses. An easy gauge of how you're doing is to look at your pee. If it's fairly strongly yellow, you're probably not getting enough fluid. If you're consistently getting enough, your pee will be almost completely clear.

Another connection I recently discovered that surprised me is that my left knee hurts sometimes because I'm sitting at my desk too much. I thought it was from exercise because it seemed as though that was when it would flare. So I started using an elastic brace. But then I heard a fitness expert say something about movement bringing "fluid to the joints" and I realized that my knee hurts most when I haven't been using it as much because I'm only occasionally exercising.

So I went back to my regimen of exercising nearly every day and voila! no more pain -- even without the brace. (Getting plenty of water also helps this problem, by the way. Our bodies are 70% water -- unless, of course, we're not replacing what we lose, in which case our body doesn't get what it needs to function at peak efficiency.)

Our bodies are like fine-tuned machines. They're made to require attention to certain details. If you drive your car around without enough oil in the engine, it's going to let you know, but if you ignore it, it may quit on you. Your body's like that car. It's trying to tell you what it needs with indicators we're supposed to listen to. Yes, getting older feels different, but if I'm any indication, it doesn't have to feel as bad as we thought it would.