#Diabetes - How My Dog Warns Me Of Hypos

Picture From Harvard Medical School Literature

I have had Type 1 Diabetes for Over 35 years and currently take 6 injections of various insulins per day. despite what some people and physicians may feel is a high level of insulin use, I currently have none of the life limiting complications associated with long term diabetes.  I used to think it was luck! but as a disability support assessor and assessment centre manager for 10 years I came to realise that it was not luck, I don't need a medical degree to realise that my insurance to good health has been a solid understanding of my body, its needs and my Diabetes.  I have attended many different Diabetic Clinics in local Doctors Surgeries and hospitals, but I have never been hospitalised due to my diabetes.

Please Note:

I Have Never Suffered From Diabetes

Like Any Killer, I Give It Respect And We Co-exist

The views expressed here are my own and an aid memoire to myself in how I manage my own Type 1 Diabetes,  I do not prescribe anybody do what I do and recommend they make up their own minds and control their own Diabetes.

#Diabetes - How My Dog Warns Me Of Hypos

One of my Lurcher (cross between a Greyhound and a Saluki) rescue dogs 'Bree' is very sensitive to smell and taste and I have written about her strange bathroom habits in a previous #Diabetes #Mentor blog posting:

My Dog Bree And My Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

Over the last few months Bree appears to have become particularly sensitive to any low blood sugars when I am in or on the bed. 

Skippy (light) And Bree (grey)Asleep On The Bed Just Before Biscuit Time 

If I start to have a low blood sugar she stands over me and prods me to get out of or off the bed.  She is extremely persistent and will even start yelping at me if I don't move.

As soon as I move she gets up on the bed and licks where I have sweated, as Diabetics often do when the blood sugar goes low. I have been trying to understand when this began to occur and I think I have cracked the case. I may have turned Bree into a Diabetic Alert Dog by accident rather than design.

Out of guilt from eating something and not giving Bree and Skippy anything, I started to give them a small biscuit, each time I had a biscuit between meals or if I had woken in the night in a cold sweat.

Therefore what has occurred is that by Behavioural Training my dogs, and particularly Bree have associated my regular biscuits times, my hypo biscuit times and my low blood sugars with a food reward. So now when it reaches my biscuit time they come to me, If I'm asleep they wake me and if during the night I start to get a low blood sugar (which they can smell the pheromones of) they wake me to get a biscuit. In the process warning me of a low blood sugar which would otherwise have left me with an awful headache or worse.

Therefore, is you have a dog and you have diabetes, let them lick the crease in your arm when you are having a low blood sugar and give them a biscuit, also reward them when you have your regular biscuits and your dogs may just become a helpful, and happy to help as Bree is.

Please check out my other Diabetes Mentor blog posts, please be aware so contain references to adult content relating to sex and diabetes.

Malcolm

aka #fixed1tDIABETESmentor

My Diabetes - Can A Diabetic Have A Sex Life? Part 6 Viagra, Cialis & Levitra

There is no point in taking expensive erectile disfunction pills like:

Viagra, Cialis or Levitra
If you are planning to ingest large quantities of alcohol with the romantic meal etc. I don't know why alcohol has such a deleterious effect on these pills, but it does.

Also, as I've mentioned previously alcohol prevents the body from using its own energy stores so their is an increased risk of hypo which again will kill off the effect of the pills.

Learning Points:

• Alcohol and Viagra, Cialis or Levitra don't mix

• If you have to drink, do some test to find the right balance for you

• Make sure you have sufficient carbs 

• Viagra, Cialis or Levitra will make your heart beat faster and burn more carbs

TBC

My Diabetes - Can A Diabetic Have A Sex Life? Part 5

Almost everybody at some stage in their life, has a light to moderate hypo from too much exercise, skipping meals or too much to drink.

• pale skin around the eyes

• cold sweats

• tingling of the lips and tongue

• shaky hands

• unsteady on your feet

• difficulty in concentrating

Learning Point:

• Test your blood sugar before

• Eat sufficient fast acting carbohydrates to ensure you don't go hypo

• If in doubt have a bit extra and adjust for it afterwards

A difficulty for diabetics is that excursion hypo is pretty similar to a insulin hypo and there is nothing that will stop you and your partner quicker than either of you worrying that the sweat and clammy skin are down to an impending hypo. 

TBC

My Diabetes - Can A Diabetic Have A Sex Life? Part 4 Viagra, Cialis & Levitra

So what 'Daddies Little Helpers':

• Viagra

• Cialis ( tadalafil )

• Levitra

• etc

Unless you have taken an appropriate amount of carbohydrate and continue to do so during the exercise session none of these pills will help. They will only increase the blood pressure to nether regions, if you are not hypo, and are engaging actively. 

So before reaching for the pill draw its important to get the planning and the provisions correct.

Learning Points:

• These pills need carbohydrates to work
• These pills take time to work 
• During the 30 mins to 1 hour lead time your blood sugar needs to be higher
• If you frequently have hypos these pills are unlikely to help
• If you frequently have hypos these pills my make it worse
• Plan -- Don't Fail

TBC

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 - My Favorite Tipple Lucozade

By far the lifesaver for me over the past 32 years has been the humble glucose energy drink "Lucozade".

It is remarkably fast acting at bringing up my blood sugar and not giving me rampant indigestion and I tend to use it when doing work around the house, garden, sex and crazy sports.

I know all the theories about slow release carbohydrates being better for me, and that I should reduce my insulin to do tasks but it always left me exhausted and feeling hypo.

Not only does the mixture of the insulin and the lucozade enable me to get on and do the most difficult jobs it also changes my muscle shape and tone in an afternoon.  Whereas my partner and others spend weeks at the gym and are often left tired and drained by exercise (they have burnt their reserves of glycogen etc) I am left feeling bulked up and ready for more action.

You may think after consuming 30g+ of lucozade and doing some heavy work that my blood sugar would rise after I stop, it seems sensible.  But it doesn't, the blood sugar stays at a reasonable level as my body goes about repairing, refreshing and building muscle my body and the effect last for days or longer.  But if I laze about it all goes back to being untoned.

Mind you I go through quite a bit of it so tend to buy in bulk packs:

Here is a link for Amazon UK 12 x 330ml pack:

And Amazon USA 24 x 330ml pack:

Thats if you can't pick it up in your local store.

In fact a large percentage of the hypos I had when I first became diabetic were post exercise (of any sort) where I had reduced my insulin only to find I need extra carbs as I was going hypo. Then my blood sugar shot through the roof as I had high carbs and reduced insulin. So I had to take a little insulin and I'd bounce back and forth like a game of hyper & hypo ping-pong.

I've also noticed that maintaining my insulin level but using lucozade, my recovery time post-exercise using the is significantly shorter than my non diabetic friends and as they tend to wilt as I just seem to get more in shape, fitter, stronger and more irritating as I want to continue.

But each to their own, this is just how I deal with it.

TBC

My Diabetes - Coincidence or What? UK Newspaper Article - Why sex is good for you

I was just looking for the statistic that sex is equivalent to athletic exercise when I stumbled across this article in todays UK 'Daily Mail Online'.

The article gives ten reasons why sex is good for normal healthy people.

daily mail newspaper article Why sex good you 28th November 2013


What they didn't realise when researching this is that given a large percentage of the complications caused by or associated with diabetes are circulation related, then sex for diabetics must be even more health giving.  Lets face it, anything which increases your exercise, heart rate, carbohydrate metabolism is in my own personal experience extremely useful especially when a lot of exercise is mind numbing.

Also, depression and loneliness are frequent issues for long term diabetics, so anything which causes the release of the positive hormones and makes you feel good must help and bind you to your loved ones.

I'm not surprised that sex is good, but alas not available on Dr's prescription.

I hope you enjoy the article.

Below are Amazon UK links to one of the 1999 published book mentioned at the end of the article, and to a more recent thesis for those who like to research their topics.

                

And for USA readers, here are the Amazon links

               

I hope this does not offend peoples sensibilities no smut is intended.

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