By my math, no less than 1 in every 4 Americans is impacted by some form of diabetic illness along the lines of Type II diabetes (once called "adult onset").
Healthy insulin response is something that a lot of Americans, knowingly or unknowingly, struggle with, in large part because of the insulin-spiking tendencies of the Standard American Diet. In 2011, 25 million Americans -- 8.3% of the population -- struggled with diabetes. On top of that, a staggering 79 million people were affected by pre-diabetes, which is essentially the condition I have. And there is anecdotal evidence that insulin-resistance in the brain cells contributes to Alzheimer's, or what a small faction of the medical community now refers to as Type III diabetes. Alzheimer's runs in my family, by the way. Even people who aren't affected by any form of blood sugar "illness" can still relate to an insulin issue -- think about how you feel after a huge pasta meal. Probably kind of like you've been hit by the sleep train, right?
The most popular way of treating pre-diabetes (and Type II diabetes - make no mistake that pre-diabetes left unmanaged, even if treated, will probably blossom in to full Type II at some point in your life) is with a drug called metformin. Metformin will kick your ass (and your digestive tract, and your productivity) up and down the block several times. It's a drug that works by increasing your body's sensitivity to its own insulin so that you can (hopefully) avoid having to inject insulin. It also literally wreaks havoc on your entire body (and there is discussion that it may cause heart attacks?). For some people, the benefits outweigh the risk. But I personally don't want to be on any medicine I can avoid, so I've taken myself on as a human experiment.
I wanted to take this opportunity about a month later to revisit a goal I set out when I started the nutrition program: "On this nutrition challenge, resensitizing my cells to insulin and sugar. . . will hopefully get me off the medication entirely. Once I've cut down by another 1/3, I plan to start substituting cassia bark tabs (cinnamon) for the final 1/3. Ultimately I plan to get off the cinnamon, but I figure it is a much healthier place to be than the drugs."
So I'm doing something that I'm going to go ahead and recommend that nobody else do, which is jack with my medication without being under the supervision of a physician. My physician is a lovely person but never really provided me a lot of guidance on dealing with my insulin resistance and PCOS, so I was forced to find my own solutions. (please note here: insulin resistance is only one symptom of PCOS. there isn't really a "typical" PCOS case and you will find women both with and without insulin resistance affected by it) And emboldened by my success to this point, I wanted to take another step forward. If I fail and I have to regress to my medication... well, I fail and have to regress. Not the end of the world.
With the complete removal of fruit from our program (I was pretty low-fruit to begin with, since 1 Jan anyway) I felt confident to move my medication dosage down another 1/3, bringing me to 1/3 of my original dose. And just two days ago I decided to experiment with how I felt supplementing each meal with a cinnamon tablet. Metformin will continue to ride around in my system even though I've stopped take it, it has a cumulative effect, so as that wears off hopefully my body can keep pace.
So that's my check-in. I am hesitant to say I am "off" my blood sugar medication because I have no idea how it is going to go. So as of the moment I have been able to stop taking it, and I'm feeling pretty good, and I'm freaking terrified.
Will report back again.
Wow. This is badass. Go you!
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