new year's day

this weekend brought with it a revelation, one that had me walking into a completely different world. a world better than the one i'd been in (whether i was fully aware of it or not) since the early 90s. no love found, and no, no love lost.

the revelation was that my type 1 diabetes could be brought under a tight level of control.
the revelation that i may actually be able to reverse some of the damage my illness has inflicted upon me.

the solution is one which, by some irony, is blindingly obvious to anyone without diabetes.

tell someone you have diabetes and likely they'll think: "you poor thing, you won't be able to have any sugars now"

and that's what i thought when i was told, at the age of 11 that i had type 1 diabetes.

lead down the wrong path
however, what i was then taught was that i could, and should, eat like a normal person, just so long as i did my injections.

my type 1 as a child was relatively simple but as i grew into adulthood things got steadily more difficult, to the point where i was firing off shots of insulin that could hit any target in a very random fashion. in short, my levels were all over the shop.

where's the right path?
and then this weekend, i read in full Dr Bernstein's Diabetes Solution which said the complete opposite of what i'd been taught. he put it to the reader that all one needs to do to get their control to manageable levels is to stop so eating such a ridiculous amount of carbohydrates.

with insulin you're trying to hit a target level. the more carbs you eat the more insulin you need. it's like trying to hit a target with a rifle. for small ranges you're going to have a much better chance of hitting the target than if you're a long way back from it.

similarly with hitting your target sugar levels, you've got a far better chance of hitting the target levels if your carbs and insulin are small amounts.

busting out of vegas
so with this in mind i can get out of the losing lottery i was playing for all these years. damage has been done and i owe a large debt to my body, but i've now got a chance to halt and possibly even recoup some of those losses.

all i've got to is make sure i don't overdo the carbs. avoid eating the sugars, just like i thought i should be doing all those years ago as an 11 year old.

it feels like i've climbed a mountain for nothing but now i've at least got the chance to run back down it, to a place of safety.