So the cold’s back, and I didn’t get any sleep Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning due to being paged at 2:15am and working through until about 5:30am or something. Took today off sick, I needed the rest, and probably tomorrow too unless the cold miraculously clears up over night. Hence no blog posts today (or yesterday since it’s now tomorrow), but there’ll be an auto-posted blog post tomorrow while I’m (hopefully) still snug in bed about another movie memory.
Category Archives: Health
Colds
Grete’s cold has hung on for nearly 5 weeks now (maybe longer?) and I think mine is coming back or I’m getting a new one.
Thought I’d share.
Blood sugar FAIL
Well, not quite EPIC FAIL but certainly not good. I am on the wagon but I can’t find the path. Bought some healthy pitta bread things yesterday, seeds, bits, wholemeal and had them for breakfast and over three hours later by blood sugar is still well over what it should be. Either it was too high when I got up (and it was under 5 when I went to bed so it shouldn’t have been) or the pitta had more refined flour in them than I thought.
Or maybe I’m still ill and fighting off a cold which can mess with your sugar levels a little. Sounds like an excuse though.
So now I’m sucking down some proven officially low GI bread for lunch, even though it hurts to eat due to the bits getting stuck in the wound left by my tooth extraction, which is why I’ve not really been eating it much since I had the tooth out. Hopefully a few more days of wagon driving will see me back on the path and headed the right way.
Bad Blood Sugar Days
It’s okay to treat yourself every now and then, even if you’re type 2 diabetic. It’s ok if you’re feeling unwell or tired or just want to celebrate to eat a little too much or something with more refined sugar than you should, as long as you maintain control and that you stick to what you know works.
It’s not ok, to treat yourself every day because treating yourself every now and then is ok. It’s not ok to pretend you’re not diabetic because you’ve got a stinking cold that means you can barely walk but you have to work anyway because there are issues and no one else is in. It’s not ok to get out of the habbits that you know work and that you know have controlled your sugar in the past just because you’re complacent and think you can get away with it.
Today, I’m am back on the wagon. It’s a pretty shoddy wagon, to be fair, full of bacon cobs, but it’s a wagon none-the-less and I’ll stay in it, dammit, until my next HbA1c test, and then the one after, and the one after that, and the one when I’m 130 years old. I know what works, I can tolerate eating what works, and I know I can survive on the odd treat every now and then.
But not four weeks of abuse. Not four weeks of treating each day in isolation and just treating myself because I’m not feeling well.
I felt shit last night, shit in a way I’ve not felt for a very long time and I don’t like it.
ouch
Yeh, I know you’re sick of reading about me being sick but hey, there you go. So quick jaw update – it hurts. It feels bruised and stretched and chewing hurts my jaw muscles. The gum / tooth socket / whatever-the-hell-the-hole-is-called hurts but that’s more of a dull throb. The good news is Nurofen fixes both of those pains for at least 4 or 5 hours once it kicks in, so it’s manageable. Eating hurts even if I’ve taken pain killers so I think it’ll be soup and soft-stuff for a little while yet.
I’m nervous about how chewing is going to work on the right side of my mouth now I’ve had the tooth out. Basically I’m expecting to struggle because I’ll be pushing food down into the gum since the molar on my upper jaw is still there. I’ve not chewed anything on that side of my mouth for nearly a month now, and I always favoured the left side anyway, but I’d like to get at least some action going on on the right side sometime soon.
Slept ok last night, did wake up at 4:10am again, Bubbles was whining but I tricked her into going downstairs and then closed the bedroom door (yes, I am evil, thank you for asking). That was fine until about 7:30 when Fizz decided she HAD TO BE IN THE BEDROOM and spent 10 minutes scratching at the door. Anyway, when I first woke up I was worried I’d have too much pain to get back to sleep but it was actually okay and I was back asleep really quickly. Considering how painful it was the night before I’m taking that as a good sign.
Grete’s cold seems a little better this morning which is good news. We’re going roleplaying tonight which is a 40 minute drive each way and it sucks for her having to drive when she can hardly breathe.
Bubbles is ok after her vet visit and has some medication, it’s not cystitis, but more likely stress related. Yes, even one of our cats is stressed. In this household? Who would have thought it. So, vet bills and dentist bills mean it’s going to be a frugal Christmas.
I guess I need to look harder at finding NHS dental treatment.
edit: 15:14 21st November: So Grete’s cold had her fooled and it’s come out full force in the last couple of hours. We’ve had to cancel roleplaying which sucks royally but I’m really sure driving 40 minutes each way and a 1am finish is not what Grete needs tonight.
Pain Killers & Blood Sugar
I usually take pain killers for a particular kind of nasty headache I get. The pain killers take the edge off it, but don’t really get rid of the pain fully. Since I don’t really suffer from any other pains (other than the thumb pain I had a while back) I don’t take a lot of pain killers.
However, the recent dentist work has left my jaw tired and achy from being stretched, my gum sore due to the tooth removal and the molar next to the new hole is sore from being wiggled during the tooth extraction. I woke up this morning at 4:15am and the pain was pretty bad, so I got up and had some pain killers (second lot, I had some before I went to bed as well).
At work today I had some more, and then later on took some different pain killers (nurofen instead of the generic co-codamol I had earlier).
The weird thing, for me, is that since the pain is so acute, I can actually feel the pain killers working, because it dulls and then goes away entirely for a while and then comes back rather quickly. Observing this in some ways helps take my mind off the actual pain because I feel more distanced from it. I find it amazing that there’s a chemical I can imbibe which basically causes my brain to ignore the signals the little broken nerves in my mouth are sending it, and that they work so quickly. I know I shouldn’t be amazed by this but I am none the less.
Blood sugar has been up the spout the last few days. The lingering cold has a minor effect on my control, but stress also affects it badly. On top of that, all I ate yesterday was soup and I felt pretty low when I got up this morning, then I had some white bread (yeh, I know), and soup for lunch and around 4:00pm my sugar felt like it plumeted (no testing kit at work), so obviously I countered and over compensated so now it’s a bit high again. Being ill really screws with the control.
6:03pm edit : back to 5.6 mmol/l now, which is good.
The Tooth
My jaw is pretty sore now, both the muscles from holding it open for 20 minutes and having my lower jaw stressed hard when the tooth was pulled, and also the gum/jaw area where the tooth was removed now actively hurts (pulsing pain).
So, here’s a few pictures of the tooth I had extracted. Feel free to show these to your kids, or your nieces and nephews as a reminder of why they should,
- brush their teeth more than they do
- take the advice of their dentist when he says ‘you should consider having your wisdom teeth out’
This tooth was impacted by one of my wisdom teeth growing into it at an angle, and basically got a cavity and decayed at the point of impact, until the hole you see was caused when that part of the tooth fell away a few weeks ago. I was lucky, it didn’t hurt.
If you’re reading this on an RSS feed reader, sorry, you’re going to see the pictures. If you’re reading it on the site’s front page, you can click the link to see the pictures. If you’re reading the full article already, then you can’t avoid the pictures any longer.
tooth update
So I had a crap night’s sleep, couldn’t get my mind off the dental work. But I was pretty much resigned to it all when I got out of bed. Got there a bit early, went in at 10:50 and was out by 11:30. Three quick injections (uncomfortable, but not painful) and a few moments later I had no sensation anywhere near the three teeth. The dentist wiggled the broken tooth and then pulled it out. That was pretty uncomfortable but not painful. It popped my jaw a couple of times, and gave me a bigger headache than I already had, but didn’t actually hurt. Then he spent about 5 minutes putting two fillings in. I have to say, it was super-quick, nothing like the 40 minute epic tooth filling I remember as a kid.
I have two more cavities in the top teeth on that side which will need work and there’s the other side lower molar being impacted by my wisdom tooth which is showing signs of doing what the one I just had removed did.
Don’t feel so angry about the process this time, I told him i was nervous and he made efforts to make me feel more comfortable.
However, there’s still nothing nice about having two people shove hands, suction and drills in your mouth.
The oddest thing was feeling someone yanking a tooth out of your head but not having any directly associated pain.
I kept the tooth, I’ll post photo’s later (I’ll make sure you have to click to see them), you can show them to your kids and remind them to brush their teeth more often.
Overall I feel pretty sorry for myself, the gum is bleeding quite a lot, Grete had to go and get more gauze even though her cold is back full force, and I’m keeping the wound under a bit of compression. I can’t swallow easily, my face is still numb (and the numbness is moving up my face), but I guess it’s my own fault for not taking care of my teeth.
Sodding cold
Still coughing, still getting annoyed by it. Have another headache today from the coughing. Feel as though the cold is coming back which would be an officially bad thing[tm].
Grete had her dentist checkup today – and has passed with flying colours. It’s the first time she’s had a checkup in five years and she was pretty worried. On top of being worried about visiting the dentist anyway obviously. So she was pretty relieved to find out she doesn’t need any work. My wallet was equally pleased she didn’t need any work. So just the £180 for me next week, and then probably another £100 or so when I can find the time and energy to go back.
We’ve got guests this weekend so we’re tidying (extra-tidying honest) the house – which means basically Grete is tidying the house and I’m blogging about it, but it’s like a shared experience. Friday we have Tracey and her mum who are here until Sunday. On Saturday they’re going with Grete to a craft fair in Birmingham and meeting Grete’s mum and aunt there, who’ll be coming back on Saturday late afternoon. Lynda’s going with them, so she’ll be here Saturday morning.
The BBC news site has a story which strikes a chord with me and my NHS experiences. The comments are well worth reading (even though they didn’t publish mine yet). Here’s a (long) quote from the article,
Last year a friend of mine had an appointment with her doctor. Her local bus route was disrupted by road works. So, she left half an hour before she really needed to so as to make sure she got to the surgery on time.
As it turned out, there were no delays so she went to the reception desk prior to intending to sit down with a magazine to await her turn to see the doctor.
When the receptionist spoke to her, this was her loud greeting: “You’re early. You don’t expect to be seen early do you?”
In front of a waiting room full of strangers, my friend told me that she felt embarrassed and belittled.
In a health service that treats thousands of serious illnesses every day and has been a foundation stone of our society for 60 years, this was no life or death matter.
Yet, it is highly unlikely that a member of staff in a store such as John Lewis would address someone in this way. The people served there are customers. The people served by the NHS are patients.
It’s worth reading the whole thing and the comments. I can’t say enough how I agree with the general points made, and in the comments section many people agree with me that it’s not usually the medical staff that are the issue, it’s the administrative staff in the way.
Of course, sometimes it can be the medical staff, like the GP who told me to eat less cake and stop taking sugar in my tea (neither of which I did at the time) because I was now diabetic. You shouldn’t have to fight both your illness and the establishment to get good treatment.
I could rant for hours about the terrible treatment Grete has had over the years with her depression and associated issues in the hands of the NHS. I think the idea of a national health service is fantastic, and I wouldn’t want it to go away, but the processes and people around it need to understand more clearly that their role is to get people help, and that those people are already vulnerable, scared and in need of assistance.
Blood, through thick and thin
I’m getting pretty good at estimating my blood sugar levels based on how thick my blood is. If I prick my finger and blood pools immediately in a large drop then my blood sugar is lower than it is if I have to squeeze to get the blood out.
If I prick my finger and blood sprays across the ceiling in an arterial spray then my sugar is way too low. If I have to slice my finger open from tip to end and rub it over a tampon until I get a spot of blood from it, then my blood sugar is way too high.