Healing Type 1 Diabetes

Monday - Am I Eating Enough?

I continued to have problems with low blood sugars over the weekend, so I ate some raw food. I have rebumped my 24 hour insulin to 10 units and am now back on my juice fast. I plan to pay more attention to low blood sugars and respond quicker with slow lowerings of my 24 hour insulin.

I also found that even though I did not invest in all the supplements that the pH Miracle Plan recommends, I definitely need a fiber supplement. I did a home colonic over the weekend and bought an herbal fiber supplement - 5 capsules in the morning and 5 at night. We will see if that helps.

I want to respond to a comment I got awhile back where someone thought that I was not eating very many calories. Also, I got a recent email from a fellow Type 1 diabetic who believes the low calories with the juice feast is why my blood sugars are low.

I should point out that at times I am eating more than it appears on my blog. This is because when I list a smoothie or salad or raw soup, often it is actually a hu-u-uge smoothie, salad, or soup. Sometimes I fill 3 glasses with my smoothie, or eat from a huge serving bowl for my salad, or eat 2 or 3 bowls of raw soup. I definitely don't go hungry. I eat when I am hungry and eat until I am full and, unfortunately, a little past that at times just to finish up the smoothie, etc. I am not underweight. I will try to post a picture of myself soon so you can see for yourself.

As to low blood sugars and low calories, I want to tell you what my endocrinologist has taught me. She has taught me that my 24 hour insulin should not cover food at all. It should only cover my hormones, etc. and my fast acting insulin is for all food. So, to test my 24 hour insulin dosage she has me fast until 2 or 3 in the afternoon (if I wake up with a good bs) and see if my bs stays steady. If it does, that is a good dosage. Therefore, the amount of calories I eat should not cause low blood sugars. Too much insulin, at least for me, causes low blood sugars.

I have had some minor toe and foot cramping lately. Perhaps this alkaline diet is healing something in that area. Also, my eyes have gotten blurry for closeup work but still great for driving, etc. Something is healing there too I believe.

• 8:00 am - 110
• 10:20 am - 146
• 4:45 pm - 115

Wednesday - Continuing with the Green Juice Feast

I am still only consuming green drinks, diluted green juices, and raw soups/smoothies with an avocado or coconut base. I've learned that if I limit my juices/soups/smoothies to 3 veggies at the most, they taste better. Then you can taste those veggies and it is more like a smushed up salad. I like the avocado/tomato/cucumber/water combination best for a smoothie/soup.

I've been having trouble maintaining my blood sugars today and I have crashed two nights in a row. I am keeping carrot juice available for that. Early this morning, I drank a tiny bit of carrot juice straight. During the day today I have been mixing it in with my green drinks.

Based on this, I am going to reduce my 24 hour insulin to 9 units tonight. This is very exciting, as the entire time I was eating raw vegan I was never able to go below 10 units. My blood sugars will probably go high for 3 days. But as my endocrinologist taught me, it will take a while for my body to adjust and to wait for the 4th day to see if that is the right amount for me.

Tuesday:

• 3:00 am - 52
• 7:00 am - 164
• 8:16 am - 204 - 1 unit
• 10:30 am - 88
• 1:15 pm - 74
• 3:30 pm - 60
• 7:20 pm - 75
• 10:00 pm - 205 - 1 unit

Wednesday:

• 5:30 am - 52
• 7:45 am - 101
• 8:45 am - 58
• 9:45 am - 42
• 11:20 am - 41
• 12:40 pm - 56
• 1:50 pm - 54
• 3:15 pm - 62

Monday - I'm Back...

I took a raw food break since my last posting until I finished reading "The pH Miracle for Diabetes". The subtitle for this book is "The Revolutionary Diet Plan for Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetics". One of the first things that attracted me to this book is that it included "Type 1" on the cover. So many diabetic diet plans are supposedly for 'all diabetics', which means they are really geared towards Type 2s because they make up 95% of all diabetics.

The needs of Type 2s versus Type 1s can be so different. Type 2s are insensitive to insulin whereas us Type 1s don't produce any insulin, although we may be very sensitive to it. So sensitive that we can go high and low everyday on our blood sugars, despite frequent testing and injecting.

This book provides hope that some Type 1s may even reverse their disease with this approach. I've always believed there was a way, and I hope this is it. I didn't have diabetes for the first 47 years of my life, so there must be a way...

One article that backs me up in this belief is Beta-Cells Regenerate Even In Type 1 Diabetes. In this article they say "In type 1 diabetes, which by definition indicates a lack of insulin production, the insulin-producing "beta" cells in the pancreas are thought to be wiped out. However, that may not be exactly the case. The results of a new study provide some of the first evidence in humans that the pancreas continues to form beta cells even in the setting of long-standing type 1 diabetes, suggesting a possible new treatment strategy."

The scientist concludes, among other things, that "Therefore, type 1 diabetes may be reversible by targeted inhibition of beta cell destruction."

The pH Miracle believes "that diabetes is not a disease of the pancreas or the beta cells therein. Rather it is the result of a pH imbalance in the fluids of the body--systemic acidosis--that interferes with the optimum functioning of the cells they surround. Beta cells surrounded by acids do not or cannot produce sufficient insulin."

They recommend starting with a 2 to 3 week green juice feast, which I started on Saturday. The green juice feast consists of green drinks (pure water with green powder and pH drops added), green juice (10:1 ratio of pure water to green juice plus some pH drops), green smoothies sans fruit with some fat added for the calories (young coconut water & meat or avocado, for example), and pure water. Distilled water is acceptable, so that is what I am using. I filter it first and then distill it. I do not have any pH drops yet, so I am using ChlorOxygen drops for now.

I had about 2 green drinks, 2 green juices, 1 large green smoothie, and some water on both Saturday and Sunday. The size of my green drinks and juices are about 20 oz each - since I am using recycled water bottles. They recommend more but I got very full and a little nauseous. I especially got nauseous on Saturday and ended up throwing up late in the day. It was just one bout of 3 throw ups of acidic bile looking stuff, with some green stuff mixed in (I hope you don't mind the description :-)  ). I think it's actually exciting that I detoxed in this way. Today I felt a little nauseous, but I came to work and it did pass as I drank my green stuff.

I also lost the weight, over the weekend, that I had gained while eating cooked food. I want to say, that while eating cooked food I reacquainted myself with how unsatisfying and 'fake' it tastes. So, I am happy to go back to raw food, but with a new direction.

While eating raw vegan I averaged 10 units of fast acting insulin (Humalog) a day. While eating cooked food it could go up to 30 units or more. Since insulin is the 'fat storage hormone', or so I have read, that makes it very easy to gain weight. I also always take 10 units of 24 hour insulin (Lantus) per day, no matter what diet I am on.

Even though the raw vegan diet helped me to reduce my fast acting insulin requirements and keep the weight off, I was still unsatisfied because of my rollercoaster blood sugars and the resultant physical/emotional highs and lows. I am hoping for more stable blood sugars with the pH Miracle plan. They do allow some cooked alkaline food on the plan, but they recommend all raw for Type 1s.

So, I am shooting for a 3 week green juice feast followed by an alkaline raw diet - which does not include most fruit.

Here are my blood sugars:

Saturday:

• 8:10 am - 363 (cooked food hangover ;-)  ) - 4 units
• 12:00 pm - 171
• 4:38 pm - 259 - I hadn't yet figured out how much insulin to take with a non-fruit green smoothie. - 2 units
• 7:32 pm - 137
• 8:26 pm - 120
• 11:56 pm - 241 - I think this is from getting sick - 1 1/2 units

Sunday:

• 8:43 am - 69
• 10:02 am - 97
• 1:18 pm - 99
• 2:33 pm - 137 - 1 unit to cover a green smoothie (that's all the fast acting insulin I took all day - Whoopee!!)
• 4:08 pm - 109
• 8:54 pm - 119
• 11:35 pm - 91

Monday:

• 5:45 am - I didn't test, but I felt like my sugar crashed a little as I was sweating. But it recovered on its own.
• 6:59 am - 159
• 8:57 am - 147
• 11:15 am - 110
• 1:34 pm - 78
• 6:26 pm - 232 - I didn't take insulin for my raw soup. - 1 1/2 units
• 9:50 pm - 113
• 11:26 pm - 73