I'm still here

It has, once again, been quite a while since my last post, but I’m still here!

There have been an awful lot to do the past months, and thus I’ve had to prioritize, and doing that, blogging as well as reading and commenting on other peoples’ blogs didn’t make it into my top 10 to-do list. I’m a bit sad about that actually, because I do enjoy and appreciate the DOC a lot, and I hope that even though I will probably be busy with various things in the future as well, I will still be able to stop by here once in a while :-)

My last entry was a question about hypothyroidism and diabetes, and I guess I better give an up-date on that side, as well as a very belated THANK YOU to everyone who responded to my questions.

The blood samples, of course dare I say, showed TPO-antibodies, along with a TSH-value of 7.43 (as far as I remember). This ensured me yet another appointment with a doc at the hospital. The appointment was rather useless in my opinion, though, but summa summarum the doc wrote me a script for Eltroxin (the Danish version of Syntroid), 50 mg/day and set me up for a follow-up appointment 6 weeks later. The follow-up appointment was almost just as useless, and I was the one having to ask questions in order to find out what the status actually was, and how treatment should continue. I was told to increase the dose to 75 mg/day by taking 2 50 mg pills on even dates and only one on uneven dates (I will not even mention the fact that the pills can actually be split nor that this instruction, if followed literally would actually only work due to the long half-time of this medication, as there are actually several times years when there are two uneven dates following each other ;-)). I was also told that in the future the control of my metabolism would pass to my regular endo. There are a few issues about this, but I will not go into those here. Some of you will know what I’m talking about anyway.

I had an appointment with my endo last week, just short of a month after the follow-up appointment for the metabolism issue, and thus not really ideal for evaluation of the upped Eltroxin-dose. My endo, however, hadn’t even realised that treatment was initiated, though, as he told me, when commenting on my lab-results, that it still wasn’t necessary to start treatment! I had a little chat with him about that fact, and had it not been for a hypo during the appointment, I had probably asked to switch to another doctor. While I like my current endo, he doesn’t seem to be the ideal choice for issues like pump treatment and hypothyroidism (again, some of you know more about the background of this). Anyway, I think that my endo actually realised a few things during our last appointment. We were discussing the number of tests needed to be performed on a daily basis (I am not sure if we will ever agree on this, but that’s another matter), as well as my efforts in avoiding really low sugars, when he asked me what I though my sugar was at the moment. I told him that I had a feeling that it was on a down-slide, if not already low, and he said that he thought that he could see as well as hear it on me, so he ventured off to get me some juice. I was rather calm, though a bit annoyed, about it and just got out my meter to test. I had assumed that I would be around 3.0 (54) or something like that (I was 9.2 (166) before my bike ride (5.5 km = 8.8 miles) to the hospital about an hour earlier). The result that my meter showed just as my endo re-entered the office with a glass of OJ and an apple was much lower though: 1.8 (32). While I hate readings below 2.0 (36), I don’t panic too much about them anymore, as least not when I don’t feel too bad, but my endo was baffled and immediately ran out of the office to get more juice + some rye bread with cheese to follow up. While I was consuming all these carbs he was all, “I’m right here with you, just take your time”, and “can you feel it rising?” It was actually nice that he took the time, even though I wasn’t feeling that bad, also because it was a real show off of the fact that I have been trying to make him clear that sometimes I seem to function rather well, even when incredibly low, and I will actually feel the worst “symptoms” when the BG is rising again afterwards. He could hardly believe that it had been possible for me to be part of our dialogue seemingly problem-free, even though he did note that I had slowed down a bit, i.e. was talking a bit slower than I usually do (I didn’t even notice that myself, but I don’t doubt that it could be true). In general, I think this little episode scared him the most, but then I have been there before, and he probably hasn’t :-)

Now that this is already a lengthy entry I might as well end it off by a little up-date on my PhD-project. Back in June, when I got back from my stay in the German lab, the plans were for me to re-join the group once they were settled in Glasgow by mid-August. There were some unsolved issues about my status in August and September, as the Scottish study year doesn’t start until October, and thus the fee waiver that we were to apply for wouldn’t either. These issues still haven’t been solved although we are now in mid-October. Actually, my registration at the Scottish university is still not settled despite the fact that I was promised to receive the offer letter Friday last week so that I could sign it and send it back in time of the next registration date, which is…….October 16^th! I hope that all these issues will resolve soon enough. I think that it is about time to get some salary again – I haven’t gotten any for August or September yet, so things are getting a bit tight now.