#Ganglion #Cysts - How I Aspirate My Painful Cysts To Regain Hand Function

#Ganglion #Cysts - How I Aspirate My Painful Cysts To Regain Hand Function

I got another painful Ganglion Cyst on my index finger knuckle, these are so painful when knocked that I've know people give up type and doing things due to the pain and lack of mobility in their hands.  Sod That I like doing things with my hands.   I had been to the GP before with one of these, it took me a while to get an appointment, he said that it may be removed by squeezing it, with the caveat "how are you with pain" it did ****** hurt. He then said to come back and he would aspirate it.

I finger prick my fingers many times a day to test my blood glucose, aspirating blood from the veins,  so I decided to use my finger pricker on it, and it worked. As the knuckle was bruised I wasn't sure if finger pricker went too deep, so the next time I got one I decided to use the Lancet on its own, with great effect.

I have to say  "Don't try this at home" to cover myself.  I do this whenever I get one of these.  Being a Type 1 Diabetic having had the condition for around 36 years, I seem prone to these minor problems.

Despite taking insulin for 36 years I currently have none of the usual complications and have led a very active life and sometimes bonkers active life.  I have never been hospitalised for my diabetes and in 35 years never had a hypo that I couldn't treat myself, using common sense.

#fixed1tDIABETESmentor

My Diabetes - Can A Diabetic Have A Sex Life? Part 3

Ignoring all of the emotional content for the time being, its important that a diabetic views sex as exercise, and like any exercise provisions of the extra carbohydrates is crucial.  So ignoring the biology, one has to seriously decide is this a:

• short sprint with no warm-up (hopefully by mutual consent :-)

• ten minutes warm-up then a short walk

• ten minutes warm-up then a long walk

• twenty minute warm-up and a short walk

• twenty minute warm-up and a long walk

• thirty minute warm-up and short walk

• thirty minute warm-up and long walk

• .....

And then there are the marathons for the younger members who don't have work to go to or kids to take everywhere and do all nighters at the festivals. LOL
Using the sports example each of the scenarios will require different preparation and unless planned well in advance and catered for the outcomes could be good or not so good.

• Try and test your blood fifteen - twenty mins before

• If low I drink a quantity of lucozade beforehand, if high I drink a mouthful.  I'm afraid slow release dry wheat biscuits will not suffice

• I always try to ensure I have a bottle close at hand to top up

• I always had some longer lasting 'biscuit' or cake to eat afterwards to ensure there is no post exercise hypo

• If I start to run out of steam I top up 

My best advise if this is all new to you (don't worry nobody ever told me about sex and diabetes) is to keep a little diary:

Time and Date?

blood sugar before?

carbs taken?

warm up time?

walk or run time?

Did you feel hypo?

What were the symptoms?

Headache?

blood sugar after?

It isn't necessary to do this for a long time, but a pattern will emerge quite quickly.

In fact I'll create a tiny database to go on the iPad/iPhone for people to try out, and I'll make it password protected.

TBC

My Diabetes - Can A Diabetic Have A Sex Life? Part 2

Well it didn't take me more than a few hilariously bad attempts to realise that the Doctors and medical experts obsession with achieving and maintaining a constant low blood sugar was not going to do much for my sex life with the cocktail sausage and the damp squib being but a couple available options without appropriate planning and preparation.

The first thing a diabetic needs is a sensitive and sympathetic partner with a sense of humour and who won't take it personally if there is a bedroom failure. I always smile when people say sex is something to be taken seriously 'really' only with your clothes on.  Otherwise you may as well be mud wrestling with warm white chocolate for the mess it makes and the grunting and the sweating and thats before you've even switch the television off.  LOL

The first thing to consider is that if I have a severe hypo whilst playing at missionaries, then I will become a literal deadweight. The more energetically one goes about such things the more sudden is the decline. I imagine many partners do not take lightly to being squashed, although for others it may be what they are seeking. Now you may have pretended for a few moments in the past that you have become a dead weight, but the real thing is much much heavier and more scary and difficult to move, to breath as any judo enthusiast will tell you and unlike the films people tend not to collapse in convenient positions so they can be easily rolled off.

But I've jumped in at the deep end, as we men have occasionally been accused of doing.  It was deliberate.

TBC

My Diabetes - Can A Diabetic Have A Sex Life? Part 1

As a male diabetic I can tell you Type 1 Diabetes and sex has all the makings of a comedy of errors for a number of physiological reasons and you may as well try walking a tightrope with a blind fold on if you don't make preparations.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, blood pressure and blood sugar are linked and given that a certain crucial part of my male anatomy is literally pumped up by blood pressure, it does take much imagination to realise that if my blood sugar drops then my blood pressure also drops and so does any chance of operating the crucial anatomy.

So if I stoke up on carbohydrates beforehand, I just need a bread role to play hunt the hotdog.  But if I fail to have sufficient carbohydrates it will end in a case of find the cold cocktail sausage. ;-) LOL

Now for non diabetics this isn't an issue, unless they get drunk, because getting drunk on an empty stomach will make you hypo and therefore liable to be playing in cocktail sausage territory.

So before having sex I need a cunning plan.

A sad side effect of this is it takes most of the spontaneity out of the event, because this is the only true case of the business saying:

" If you fail to plan you plan to fail " and your attempts will very much end with a damp squib.

 Arg, but I hear people say, have some extra carbohydrates.  But like with the squash game I regaled you with in a previous blog, if you take loads of carbohydrates and your partner says "sorry I have a headache" then you'll definitely get one too from a very high blood sugar and be up all night peeing honey and figuring out how you can put such a high reading in your diabetic record for the nurse or doctor to comment on.

So what to do?

TBC

My Diabetes - A Great Night Out Clubbing Ends in Accidental Coma

In the eighties when we were both young students, D was visiting her relatives and I decided to go out on a Friday night drinking and clubbing with a friend.  I promised D that I wouldn't  drink too much and would be careful.

We had a really good night but I got just a little greedy and when offered one of the road I took it.  I got home feeling a little worse for ware, tested my urine which didn't seem too bad, so I took my insulin and had my supper and went to bed.  Then the room began to spin slowly then a little quicker. It wasn't long before I realised that I was going to be sick.

I got up and was sick, and went to lie on the bed and rapidly began to realise I was going hypo, so I went down stairs and drank some lucozade and went back to bed, only to have to visit the bathroom again.  I realised that I was alone and potentially in trouble and repeated the cycle a number of times.  The last thing I remember it was around 3 am and I was sitting on the kitchen floor, so I didn't fall over, and eating a biscuit.

When I woke I was absolutely frozen and shivering violently.  I looked up at the clock and it was around 11 am.  I was a little annoyed with myself for not foreseeing what would happen if I got sick and making plans.  I realised I'd missed my 8am insulin so the whole day would need to start from now, but I was hungry and my head was killing me.

So I decided I'd go over the road and get some fresh bread from the shop and a paper.  I asked the guy for the fresh bread and he said they only had yesterdays, which was a little unusual, and I then started rummaging through the papers.  But as I did so I got increasingly confused as the papers were not the Saturday papers I had expected, they were Sunday papers.

Then it hit me like a brick, on a winters day I had been curled up on the kitchen floor unconscious for over 32 hours in what must have been a coma, luckily the low temperature and the few carbs I had consumed must have reduced my metabolic rate and thankfully I suffered no longer term damage or worse death.
D coming back and finding me dead on the floor would not have been good.

Normally my body would have broken down the glycogen etc in liver and muscles and then the fat, but alcohol inhibits this process from happening until it has been dealt with.

Learning Points

• I realised that my youthful drinking days would have to be moderated
• I realised that a simple night out partying can rapidly develop into a medical emergency if I wasn't careful
• I realised that I was in control of the drinking, the offer of one for the road however kindly offered had to be balanced with the potential outcome
• I learned over the next few months that I didn't need to get blind drunk to have fun
• I realised that after a few drinks, any more I drank did little but to pee my money away
• I realised that the less I drank, the easier it was to get the enjoyment part of it with very small qualities, a cheap night out ;-)
• In deciding to moderate my drinking early in my diabetes,  I had accidentally prevented myself from getting some of the major diabetic complications in later life made worse by excessive drinking with diabetes
• I realised that each day was a new adventure

TBC