Run Success Hurrah!

Cobden-Mousehole-Bitterne

After Sunday’s almost complete fail I decided that the most likely cause of my panic attack symptoms was the increased blood pressure medications I had started taking the night before. In my head, being prevented from running in order to take some pills seems completely wrong, so I decided to go back to the previous dose, which I appear to be able to tolerate. My health is clearly improving anyway, and running can only help that. I have been having to reduce my insulin requirements over the past two weeks – novorapid is now down by about 40% and lantus down by an astonishing 60%. I’m now on such a low dose of lantus that, pretty soon, I’ll be spraying more into the air with my pre-injection airshot than I will actually be injecting!

The strategy appears to have worked. I went for a somewhat tentative run on Tuesday and managed a shortish two and a half miles. I’m still very slow in comparison to ‘the old me’, but you can’t hurry these things, plus I’m older, I broke my leg and I have diabetes! The run was fairly uneventful and pleasant – weather was conducive, being coolish and overcast, with a slight drizzle. I think the Scots describe such weather as ‘dreicht’! Had a couple of days off, then went for a three miler yesterday, again no real dramas!

Today, I decided that I should put Sunday’s demons to rest and tackle those hills again. This time, no sensations of panic (not that I felt panicked before, just the symptoms of such) and I was really surprised at how good my breathing was up the first hill. Given that the hill is at a gradient of over 30% I was pleased to discover that my pace had also improved on this section, now heading towards 11 minutes a mile. My legs were a slightly different matter, as they were still a little tired from yesterday, but a few weeks ago they would have been so tired I would hardly have been able to walk – so certainly progress there! I didn’t run as far as I had intended because I started to get the little twinges in my right calf that have put me out of action in the past, so I cut the route short. Still very challenging though, and very pleased with it!

Ups and downs – hills and blood sugar!

Cobden-Glenfield

I’ve managed to get out for 5 runs in the past 8 days, which is a huge improvement over my previous efforts. Not running very far, as yet, but the runs are challenging nonetheless, involving some very steep ascents and descents that test the legs and lungs! I’ve come to the conclusion that I run much better on such varied terrain. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to me, as most of my early running days were on the big hills of Sheffield and the Peak District, but I think I had started to forget this and have been, until recently, only running through the park where the terrain is only ever so slightly undulating.

Cobden-Mousehole-Peartree

This fact was proven to me in the fourth of my recent runs. For the previous three, I had run a demanding and varied hilly course and had thought that to then run on the flat would be a piece of cake – far from the truth! I found it much harder, not so much on the heart and lungs, but on my legs which quickly tired and left me aching for two days afterwards. It seems I’m much better suited to the effort and challenge of a hill, followed by the relief and recovery of crowning it and running down the other side. I think I also get a bit bored now running through the park as I have done the same route countless times over the past 10 years, so the change is very welcome!

Riverside Park-Mansbridge

My fitness is improving accordingly as is, I hope, my health. I had a visit to my doctor this week and there has been an improvement in my blood pressure, although it is still a little on the high side so my medication has been increased slightly. I also asked about my recent retinopathy scan and the worrying news that I now have ‘moderate diabetic eye disease. The doctor had a letter that provided more detail – apparently, what I have is still the background retinopathy reported last year, but the specialist had observed deposits rather closer to the macula than might be hoped for. Really, it’s the luck of the draw as these deposits can form anywhere on the retina, it just so happens in my case that they are potentially threatening the one area that is chiefly responsible for central vision. I don’t know yet if I will require any treatment for this, so I have an anxious wait until my aapointment at the eye hospital comes through.

Cobden-Midanbury-Woodmill-Riverside Park

There has been another, rather profound effect on me from my increase activity levels – my blood sugar levels have started to drop at such a rate that it has been hard to keep up by lowering my insulin doses. Two nights in a row I was awoken with hypos of 2.1 mmol/l (38 mg/dl) and 2.7 mmol/l (49 mg/dl), despite having snacks before bed. Thanks goodness I woke up! I have been lowering my basal insulin (lantus) as well as lowering my meal boluses (novorapid), but still battling lows so the effect of the exercise is even more profound than I can predict! I seem to be just about getting it right now, having reduced my lantus from 8 units to 5 and being very sparing with my meal bolus. My total daily dose is now around 30 units, with my basal comprising less than 20% of the total – normally, the split should be around 40-50% of TDD! Perhaps I’m nearly cured!

Hoping for another, longer run tomorrow, I’m already feeling a lot healthier and have much more energy, although I’m still a little on edge when going to sleep at night because of those hypos as they were the first night ones I have had for several months.

Lady Lantus and the Lord of Levemir

Insulin is great! It stops my blood sugar levels from climbing ever higher and allows me to live a full and normal life – without it I would be dead by now. Great advances have been made since the days of Banting and Best, and mashed up animal pancreases from slaughter-houses - we now have synthetic ‘human’ insulins produced by the great pioneering companies such as Sanofi-Aventis, Novo-Nordisk and Eli Lilly. I personally use Lantus from Sanofi-Aventis as my ‘slow-acting’ background insulin, injecting this once a day, but many people use Levemir from Novo-Nordisk. I also use Novorapid as my ‘fast-acting’ insulin to cover the food I eat. Together these noble concoctions keep the diabetic beast within me under control…!

I’ve heard it told in days of old,
In a distant, far-off land,
The Lord of Levemir sought to win
A fair young lady’s hand.

But first a dreadful obstacle
The Lord must overcome –
A being that could strike men blind,
And limbs could render numb!

Betwixt the land of Levemir
And Lantus to the East
There roamed the awful terror
Named the Diabetic Beast…

The Lord sought counsel far and wide
How victory may be won?
The Beast must feel the glargine sting
At each setting of the Sun!

To the Sparkling Springs of Sanofi,
Where elixirs caught the light,
He drew syringes long and full,
And set off for the fight.

Across the raging Novorapids,
Three days and nights he rode,
And the Gnomes of Novo-Nordisk
Beside our hero strode!

And there, the Beast lay lurking -
They felt his fiery breath!
So sweet and sickly, thick and foul,
A harbinger of death!

But Levemir was not dismayed,
He plunged the syringes deep!
The Beast at once lost consciousness,
And for the day would sleep.

And thus was Lady Lantus free
To wed Lord Levemir,
The Beast subdued by Sanofi,
Once daily, in the rear!

Nearly cured!

Back in April, with the warm spring weather revitalising me after a particularly cold and harsh winter, my insulin requirements had suddenly started decreasing at an alarming rate. Each night I would reduce my dose of Lantus, but each morning I was waking to blodd sugar levels bordering on hypoglycaemia. My daily novorapid doses with my meals were also decreasing, although not at quite the same rate. Eventually, I seemed to settle on a dose of 8 units of Lantus which allowed me to both go to bed and wake within range, without additional snacking.

I’d been expecting, now that the colder weather and darker days have arrived, that I might experience a seasonal increase in my insulin requirements to match the decrease I’d had earlier. Not so. My requirements have started declining again, now to six units of Lantus. I can only surmise that I have recovered some residual beta cell function and am producing a low level of ‘home grown’ insulin to supplement my injected doses. Certainly, when I read of others’ experiences, I seem to have far fewer problems with keeping my levels within range, and certainly never experience the frighteningly high levels that some people get.

I don’t really think I am on the way to being cured, but it’s a nice thought to have! It is more likely a cure will come from the good work of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

Since diagnosis there’s been the allure
Of a highly unlikely spontaneous cure!
For my insulin doses have shown such a fall
That maybe one day I won’t need them at all!

I started on twenty of Lantus as ‘slow’
But in April discovered that this sent me too low,
So I started decreasing it, two units a night,
But still a month later it just wasn’t right!

Now I’ve reduced it by seventy percent
It does make me wonder where the rest of it went!
From twenty units to six, and should I need fewer,
Then surely that constitutes a virtual cure!

Perhaps it’s my pancreas that’s been resurrected,
With beautiful beta cells no longer neglected,
Pouring forth insulin, potent and pure,
I’ll take that for now! It’s nearly a cure!

Do you love the smell of lantus in the evening?

I use two kinds of insulin to control my diabetes – a fast-acting (bolus) one called Novorapid, and a slow-acting (basal) called Lantus. Both have their own particular ‘scent’, but the Lantus is probably the stronger. It’s not an unpleasant aroma. You pick it up when you do an airshot to make sure there are no bubbles of air in the needle. You do this, not because injecting air would do you harm, as it’s only under the skin and not into a vein – but because injecting air means you’re not injecting insulin and therefore not getting a full dose.

Estimating the dose can be an incredibly complex task, as there are so many factors to consider, but in time you begin to get a feeling for what’s right without too much complicated mathematics!



Do you love the smell of lantus in the evening?
Especially when the glucose reading's high?
But too much of it could mean going hypo,
And a late night feast of lucozade and pie.

Do you love the taste of porridge in the morning?
If it's covered with a bolus that's just right.
But working out just how big a bolus
Would even give the Vorderman a fright!

You have to take account of waking sugars,
And if you're going to run a mile or so,
And if that dreaded man-flu you've been feeling
Will need corrective treatment on the go.

Do you love your meter when the reading's normal,
But wish you didn't have to squeeze out blood?
Those fingers, sore from constant piercings
Would rather miss the testing if they could...

Do you sometimes think your body must be stupid
To turn against your pancreas that way?
But thankful that it's something you can manage
If you keep your wits about you day by day.

So, if you've just found out you're diabetic,
As I found out a few short months ago,
Then try to keep your spirits on the high side,
And do your best to keep your 'numbers' low!