#my test results point to crest syndrome so if any of you have that or know someone who does

[nubs-mbee]

If my rheumatologist actually diagnoses me with something I think in celebration I will buy a shower chair.

[cryxmercy]

Does HIPPA Still Apply If I Tell You I’m Immortal? || Mercy & Queenie

When: Current, early afternoon Where: White Crest Memorial Hospital Clinic Who: Mercy and Dr. King @drqueenieking

TW: hospitals, death mention, drowning mention, assault mention, injury mention, medical blood, non-con (r/t supernatural powers), mental health, PTSD

A Fury walks into a doctor’s office…  

This was stupid. 

She shouldn’t be here. She didn’t need this. She didn’t need a doctor. It was… ridiculous. 

The slight tremor of her hands - though it happened intermittently - said otherwise. As did the new onset sleepwalking. It had happened again last night. This time she’d ended up in the street, waking up to the blare of a car horn as it swerved to miss her. She would’ve been fine if it hadn’t. Wouldn’t she? It was just a small four-door sedan, after all, and not a semi. She’d had worse. The thought of waking up inside a morgue freezer turned her stomach, and her ire at Dr. Kavanagh, who still had her blocked online (the coward), made her frown.

But it wasn’t the near-miss VVP that had pushed Mercy to call the clinic - asking specifically for the seemingly competent doctor that had treated her in the ER back during the mime-madness - but the idea of not being in control of her body. She hadn’t lied when she’d told Blanche it had never been in issue before. Not in all her 1200 years. And she hadn’t been lying when she’d said she would tell Arthur if it happened again. She would. Later. Once she ruled out any lingering issues of the all too human variety. Still, Mercy didn’t like it here. With it’s antiseptic smell that didn’t hide the lingering miasma of sickness 

that saturated everything. From the stark white walls hung with cheap artwork, to the out of date magazines that begged to be put out of their misery in the nearest trash bin. 

So by the time she was called back, Mercy was damn near ready to scrap the whole thing. But if she ran now, she was no better than a coward. And Mercy was many things, but a coward wasn’t one of them. So she gave the young nurse a forced smile and followed her down the hallway where she was weighed, her vital signs taken, and asked a series of standard questions. Allergies? None. Meds? Nope. Drink? Daily. Smoke? Sometimes. Drugs? Medicinal. 

The nurse gave her a small side-eye, but made a few notes in the chart and left Mercy alone - with instructions to change into the little paper gown on the table - to wait on the doctor. Mercy waited anxiously, finding only mild satisfaction in tossing the ‘gown’ where it belonged: in the trash. She had once again decided this was a bad fucking idea after a solid twenty minutes passed and no doctor. She’d just made up her mind to leave - Fuck this… - when the door finally opened.

The day had been surprisingly slow. Without any near fatal car accidents or wild animal attacks which continued to be one of the most prominent emergency room visits that they received, Queenie had been keeping herself busy by making her rounds around the rooms, popping in with other doctors and requesting that they let her take on some of their work. After all, chances were high that the end result would be better off in Queenie’s hands anyways. Most of the doctor’s in the hospital knew this even if they weren’t willing to admit it. 

However, it turned out that someone had specifically asked for her. Since Queenie did not typically take appointments, this surprised her. The closest thing that she had to a monthly appointment was checking Blanche for a concussion or setting a bone that had come out of socket. And those instances were never scheduled officially, Queenie had just become used to them being a monthly occurrence. If not sooner. So when the nurse had told her, Queenie agreed to it and added it to her calendar, wondering who was coming in and why they specifically wanted to see her.

Queenie often lost track of time at the hospital, and today was no exception. She had been distracted when the nurse told her about the woman’s arrival and had instead been entirely too focused on reminding a fellow doctor that his diagnosis of a patient had been entirely off base and borderline negligent. It wasn’t until the doctor had angrily stormed off that Queenie remembered that she had a patient waiting for her. She jogged across the hospital floor until she found the room on the clipboard that the nurse had given to her and knocked on the door, pushing it open seconds later. “Good afternoon” Queenie began, only glancing at the woman while reading the clipboard. Finally, she looked back up, “You’re a familiar face.” She had been in a few months ago maybe, Queenie couldn’t be sure. “What brings you in today?”

Mercy froze when the door opened and the doctor she remembered from the ER walked in. Well, at least she was seeing the person she’d asked for. Not that this was any easier for Mercy. She hadn’t been to a doctor in… so long that she couldn’t remember. Probably during the Cold War. But this was hardly post-WWII Russia. It was a tiny room at White Crest Memorial. And Mercy wasn’t a spy. She was… tired. She was just… tired. 

It seemed the doctor recognized her too. A double gunshot wound - one of those to the neck - that hadn’t been DOA would probably have been memorable. Or maybe the woman was just being nice. Who knew. Either way, she got right down to business. Mercy appreciated that. 

She sat back on the table, and got right to the point. “I had an accident recently. I drowned. I almost died. I lost my vision for a month afterwards. Vitreous hemorrhage. Since my vision came back… a few weeks now… I’ve started having tremors. In my hands mostly. And I’ve been sleepwalking. I’ve never experienced either of those things before. Insomnia, yes. Nightmares, yes. But never anything quite so severe. So I guess I just wanted to make sure there was nothing… wrong.” She didn’t know what to ask for as far as tests or anything else. So she left it there for now. 

Emergency rooms never exactly gave the best first impression of a person. It was never easy to tell if someone was a friendly person or not when their life was at stake. This woman, Mercy, for instance had been in the emergency room before. She looked lethargic, annoyed even. But she couldn’t tell if these were simply faucets of her personality considering the last time she had seen the woman it had involved a gunshot wound. Most people weren’t exactly sociable after getting shot. 

“You almost drowned? How long ago was this?” Queenie moved toward the table, grabbing at the woman’s wrist and beginning to check her pulse. All seemed normal. “You lost your vision because of it?” That was interesting, and not at all a common side effect of drowning, even the ones with extended periods of exposure to water. “Tremors and sleepwalking… interesting. Have you experienced any shortness of breath? Extreme tiredness?” She glanced down at the patient’s hand she had been using to check the pulse and noticed her finger nails. No discoloration there, that was a good sign. “Where did you almost drown? A lake? The ocean? Your bathtub?” 

Mercy had never been accused of having the warmest personality. And when she was hurt or worried - she’d been both at the time - it only got worse. Usually, she was full of energy. Other than not being a morning person. But who was? And her annoyance came from having enough weird shit going on with her body and in her head that she felt like coming here was one of her last options. So she was thankful when the doctor didn’t dally. 

“A month? Six weeks maybe? Time sorta starts to run together after awhile.” Mercy let herself be examined, watching as the woman checked her pulse. “Yes.” It was either the drowning, or having spent too much time in the place she could only call limbo. A place of darkness and cold, between dying and coming back. “Tell me about it,” Mercy huffed. “Shortness of breath, no. Fatigue…” She frowned. How to explain the eternal weariness that came with being as old as she was? Without revealing how old she was. “Maybe a bit more tired than usual. But I don’t sleep well anyway. Never have.”

Then came the next question: where did she drown. “Dark Score Lake. I was…” Mercy hesitated, but eventually said fuck it. In for a penny and all that shit. “I was assaulted. And that person wrapped their hands around my throat, and held me under until-” The doctor could hopefully draw her own conclusion: until the bubbles stopped. “I was pronounced dead on scene by EMS. So… they took me to the morgue. Where even the medical examiner concluded that I was dead.” Mercy gave the doctor a wan smile. “I woke up in the observation room about four hours later when my friend came to ID my body.”  

So. There it was. 

A month and a half was a long time to continue exhibiting symptoms related to almost drowning. “Fatigue and shortness of breath are both common symptoms of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Drowning victims that survive often experience this.” She nodded at Mercy’s words, making a note when she mentioned that has never slept well. “Have you ever considered that you may have sleep apnea or some form of insomnia?” Queenie was not entirely concerned about lack of sleep. Not as long as the person was still functioning. However, she knew how long periods of time without sleep could prove to be dangerous. She had too many examples of people falling asleep at the wheel in New York and ending up killing people or getting pretty damned close. “There are doctors that offer sleep studies here. I’m not one of those doctors. However you may consider looking into it.” 

Queenie’s arms dropped to her side as Mercy began explaining the full situation. Her clipboard hit against the railing of the hospital bed as it waved at her side. “You what?” Queenie pressed a finger to her forehead, considering this near impossibility that Mercy had just offered her. “Someone’s heart stopping for that long would risk severe brain damage.” She grabbed at Mercy’s hand again, checking her fingers. No sign that blood circulation had been cut off for an extended period of time. “There is no way you could have actually been dead that long. If I was even going to entertain the idea, I’d recommend a CT scan to make sure you haven’t experienced any brain damage. Honestly, even the thought just seems-” Queenie paused for a moment, noting another point Mercy had made. “You said someone assaulted you? Did they ever catch the person?”

“Insomnia and I are old friends.” Mercy tried to sound blaise, but it fell short. She just sounded... tired. “But no shortness of breath. Not after the first couple of days. And that was mostly because I was coughing so much.” She left out the part about the black oil, if only because she hadn’t seen it for herself. Mercy glanced up to the doctor’s face as she suggested a sleep study. That would probably be a terrible idea. No, it would be a terrible idea. “I’ll think about it,” Mercy nodded, even if she had no intentions whatsoever of letting a complete stranger - likely a human stranger - watch her sleep. 

When she explained the rest, the doctor’s reaction was… well, it wasn’t as bad as Mercy had anticipated. Honestly, she’d expected to be told - again - that it wasn’t possible. That there had been some mistake. Or some other excuse to make Mercy sound insane. “I’m aware,” she said with a note of long-suffering patience. She let the doctor examine her hands again. They looked like normal hands. Small and fine-boned, with neatly manicured nails. There was a tattoo on the underside of her right forearm, and what looked like an old burn scar shaped vaguely like a ‘P’ on the underside of her left wrist. Though she kept it covered with a watch or wrist-band of some sort. 

Mercy huffed when the doctor hit the proverbial nail right on the head. “Yeah.” But that was all she said about the medical examiner. She had her opinions, but she wasn’t here to talk about that. Instead, Mercy nodded in agreement that if she had actually been dead - truly dead - then she would likely not be sitting here now. But then again, Mercy wasn’t human.     

“Insane?” she said, finishing the doctor’s sentence for her. “Yeah. It does. But… there are conditions that mimic death to the point where even a doctor might be fooled. Catalepsy. The Lazarus Phenomenon. Fugu toxin. Even severe hypothermia.” Or being immortal. But it wasn’t as if Mercy could just come out and say that, could she? No matter how much the incident had affected her. 

Mercy hummed quietly, acknowledging the question about the assault. “Yeah. I was out by the lake. I walk at night when I can’t sleep,” she gave as an explanation, since ‘I was helping an exorcist and a supernatural bounty hunter kill and banish a squid-demon back to it’s own dimension’ would most certainly get her a psych workup. “This guy - I think he was drunk or on something - figured he could mug me. Didn’t expect me to fight back. He got the upper hand.” Mercy shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “Yeah, he’s... taken care of.” Not a lie, technically. But she wasn’t about to out Nic when it wasn’t his fault. 

“Why?”

“That sounds awful for you and your friend. I can’t imagine what that must have been like to wake up to.” Though Queenie was not entirely interested in the woman’s individual experience, she had to admit that it was fascinating to consider. How could someone have come back after that long without any permanent damage being done? 

The woman named off explanations for her sudden brush with dead and Queenie crossed her arms, “So you know a bit about medicine then? That’s quite impressive” Queenie didn’t use the term lightly, but liked to give credit where credit was due. Most of those were uncommon phenomena that rarely occurred and were even less frequently diagnosed as such. It was easy to pass things off as miracles or unexplainable. Lesser doctors were easily willing to except those explanations at times, whether it was because they were too incompetent to seek out the truth for themselves or because they enjoyed the idea of a miracle being associated with their name.

“I can’t imagine. Well, I am glad that he is taken care of. I do not drive, so I typically walk home from the hospital at all different hours of the day. I don’t like the idea of someone dangerous like that being on the loose.” Queenie explained. For what it was worth, all that time spent in New York and she had never so much as seen a mugger. From the stories she had heard in the ER, she supposed she could consider herself lucky. On the flipside, she had been in White Crest for only a couple of weeks before she had been attacked and her leg injured. Not that Queenie was willing to admit that Regan may have some backing to her baseless claim that animals were more violent here in White Crest. That must have just been an unlucky coincidence. 

“Well considering all the information that I’ve heard, I’m thinking your issue may not be physical at all.” Queenie crossed her arms, studying the clipboard again. “I am no psychologist, but you seem to be in good physical health. From what I’ve heard about your experience both with the mugger and then in the morgue it seems like you may be more aligned with some sort of PTSD. Though keep in mind that I am in no way qualified to diagnose that officially.” It was more of a hypothesis if anything, one that Queenie did not like to give formally unless necessary. However, from what Queenie had seen so far there didn’t seem to be any evidence that Mercy was suffering any visible defects following the attempted drowning. “I would be interested in running a CT scan, just to be sure. I’d be willing to do it myself, and can set up a time with you if interested.” Queenie tore a sticky note free and scribbled her information down on the pad and handed it off to her. 

Mercy had only tried to talk to Regan to explain that what the medical examiner had witnessed hadn’t been a medical oversight, but more an oversight of Mercy not being human. And only because Mercy knew Regan was fae. As the medical examiner, Regan needed to know - for her own safety as well as the safety of others - what she was dealing with when it came to the non-human residents of White Crest. But she hadn’t wanted to hear it. And Mercy wasn’t the type to beg someone to listen which is why she hadn’t gone over to the morgue and confronted Regan herself. It was only a matter of time before her denial would catch up with her. And that probably made Mercy more angry than anything. Because she’d seen the results of people turning a blind eye to one another. It never ended well.  

“It was… not the best,” Mercy said truthfully. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But… we’re alright.” At least, she thought they were. Arthur tended to keep things close to the vest sometimes, not wanting to upset her. She couldn’t manage to be upset with him for that. 

Mercy smiled again at the compliment. “I try to stay informed.” Plus she’d had a long, long time to research certain things. One didn’t live for 1200 years without several periods of wondering how it all worked. Mercy had come to the conclusion that some things were simply unexplainable. At least in human terms. Miracles existed, but they were rare. Even more rare than Mercy herself.

Mercy nodded as the subject of her assailant passed, glad she wasn’t getting too many questions. It was dealt with. They moved on, and after Dr. King was done examining Mercy, she seemed to come to a tentative conclusion. One that didn’t surprise Mercy. Who didn’t like shrinks. At all. “Post-Traumatic Stress,” Mercy nodded as she took the information in. “I suppose that makes sense. I… I used to be a cop. Before I came here. Seattle. New York before that. We got…” She waved a hand towards her head. “- psych screens all the time. I always passed,” she assured the doctor. “But yeah. Okay. I’ll… look into it.” Mercy wouldn’t look into it. She knew what PTSD was. Had probably suffered from it for centuries. Only they didn’t have a name for it then. She was just glad to have checked out alright physically.

Dr. King mentioned a CT scan and handed Mercy a sticky note. “Thanks,” Mercy told Dr. King, tucking the note away in a pocket after she’d read over it. “I’ll think about it and let you know She’d talk to Arthur first, before she made any decisions. Who knew what the brain of a 1200 year old immortal would look like on a scan like that? It might invite more trouble than it was worth. 

“I would be interested in hearing about any further symptoms or experiences that you may have regarding this. Being legally dead that long is practically unheard of, even with the medical examples that Mercy had given. It could be valuable information to study. Not nearly as much of a medical marvel as someone with wings, but still fascinating stuff. If Queenie were a skeptic, she may even consider that Maine or White Crest truly did have something that caused it to be more susceptible to anomalies. If Queenie were willing to make an hypothesis based purely on a string of unrelated coincidences.

Based on the new information, PTSD seemed even more lucky. So Queenie nodded, “Between that and then your recent attack, I would say it’s not unlikely. It may be worth looking into at the very least.” Though Queenie herself had always considered psychology to be more medically adjacent than a study of medicine in itself, she at least acknowledged that sometimes symptoms were outside of her own physical control. Even if she thought that psychiatrists were glorified counselors that liked to play pharmacist. 

Though Queenie did not hold out much hope that Mercy would be returning for a CT scan anytime soon, she also had other things that she could be focusing on instead. She did not have much concern what Mercy did either way. “Well, you have my contact information. If any symptoms get worse please feel free to contact me. Apparently, I make house calls now.” Queenie stated sarcastically, adding in “At least the town seems to think so.” beneath her breath. “If there’s nothing else bothering you at the moment, then I’d guess that you’re good to go.”

The request to hear more about Mercy’s experience of being ‘legally dead’ for almost four hours wasn’t all that surprising. She could understand the curiosity from a medical standpoint - cheating death was what doctors did, wasn’t it? - and part of her even relished the idea that Dr. King was willing to discuss it. To learn. But Mercy wasn’t going to be a science experiment. She’d taken a risk revealing what she had. But Dr. King had been kind, and she’d listened seemingly without bias. So Mercy granted her one thing. “It’s very dark... and very cold,” she said of her experience with ‘death.’ “Wherever I was, I don’t ever wish to return.” She gave Dr. King a small, tight smile. 

As for the rest. “I’ll give it some thought.” And she would. Not a lot, because she wasn’t about to let some human head doctor try and psychoanalyze her. It wouldn’t end well. For either party. Would Mercy be coming back for a head scan too? Also not likely. She’d checked out physically, so that was good enough for her. It might even satisfy Arthur’s insistence that she get herself checked over. Well, now she had. And she was fine. So when Dr. King started to wrap up, Mercy was quite ready to be on her way. She gave Dr. King a small smirk. “Be careful with that around here,” she said of the house calls. “You never know who you’ll run into.” Or what. “People’ll start to take advantage.”

After thanking the doctor for her time, Mercy agreed that if anything new or concerning came up, she’d be sure to call. Though Mercy’s definition of ‘concerning’ was likely far, far different than Dr. King’s. 

~

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Ask D'Mine: High in the Mornings, and Measuring Tape Aerobics

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/ask-dmine-high-in-the-mornings-and-measuring-tape-aerobics/

Ask D'Mine: High in the Mornings, and Measuring Tape Aerobics

Need help navigating life with diabetes? Ask D'Mine! That would be our weekly advice column, hosted by veteran type 1, diabetes author and community educator Wil Dubois. This week, Wil takes on the issues of high blood sugars in the mornings and whether us people with diabetes can just use a measuring tape around our waists to gauge our health. What, you say? Keep reading!

Got your own questions? Email us at AskDMine@diabetesmine.com

Carol, type 2 from California, writes: Newly diagnosed diabetic here. Watching the grams of carbohydrates and testing blood sugar. The blood sugar is high in the morning — why is this so after approximately 8+ hours of fasting, i.e. sleep?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: Because your liver has sprung a leak. Oh, don't worry, it's not as scary as it sounds. But let's talk liver. Now, on a plate with onions, I can't stand liver. I don't think there's a food in the world that I hate more. Hell, to me, would be a place with nothing but liver to eat.

But in a living organism, the liver is frickin' amazing. In humans it's the largest classic organ (your skin, technically an organ, is actually the largest). Your liver takes up quite a bit of space on the right side of your chest, more or less below your bottom rib. It weighs in at three pounds, and is the ultimate multi-tasking organ. I mean, if you think about it, most of your body's sundry parts do one thing, and one thing only. Not the liver. For instance, it makes digestive juices, like bile. It filters nasty stuff like alcohol and Tylenol out of your blood. It produces cholesterol and regulates amino acids. In fact, no shit, the liver does more than 500 different tasks.

But most relevant to those of us with diabetes: the liver is a giant sugar battery. Yep. That stupid bunny with the drum and the pink ears has nothing on the human liver. One of the liver's key functions is to store sugar and then release it later when it's needed. Like, say, between meals. Or when you're sleeping.

All the body's other organs, in fact every one of the 60-90 trillion cells that make up your carcass and hide, eat all the frickin' time. But you can't eat constantly, because, for one thing, you need to sleep. You also need to update your Facebook status and pay attention to your loved ones. So the body's solution to that problem is the liver. It stores extra glucose when you eat, and releases it as needed to keep the fuel coming when you aren't eating.

It's a very elegant system. But as you know, diabetes screws up all the elegant systems of our bodies, and it's very common for type 2s to suffer from an insidious syndrome called LLS, or Leaky Liver Syndrome.

OK. I made that up.

It's really called nocturnal hepatic glucose release. But Leaky Liver sounds so much more fun.

Now, there's really not anything wrong with the LLS liver. It's more like crossed wires than broken gaskets. It's just a hormonal problem that leads to the liver releasing more glucose than the body needs. It shows up most commonly just as you described: you wake up with higher blood sugar than you went to bed with.

(I guess before the flamers burn me at the stake I should point out that less commonly.[W2] elevated morning sugars can also be caused by sleep disturbances such as sleep apnea, nightmares, sleep walking to 7-11 for a Big Gulp and a burrito, or alien abduction; but the liver thing is the most common cause of elevated morning blood sugar.)

So how to fix it? You gotta see your doc for that, but the two most common treatments are to use either metformin, a pill that fixes the gasket on the leaky faucet; or NPH insulin, an intermediate-acting insulin that mops up the water that's dripping from that leaky faucet, so to speak.

Oh, and the third option, if your doc says it's OK, is to do nothing. If the morning blood sugars are only a tad high, and come back down as soon as you start moving your body with the sunrise, no action may be the best course of action.

So now you know why. It's common. It's part and parcel of type 2 diabetes. And there's no reason to get mad at your liver. After all, it's still doing its other 499 jobs pretty well.

Cheryl, type 1 from Texas, writes: I read that to check your health with diabetes, you should skip the scale and grab a measuring tape: your waist should be less than half your height to keep heart disease at bay. Is there anything to this? Or is it just another media-hyped myth?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: I hadn't heard the waist to height ratio before, but there's truth to the measuring tape and heart stuff. In fact, there's plenty of good evidence that if your waistline exceeds 40 inches for dudes and 35 inches for chicks, you're at higher risk for bad heart stuff. You know, like heart disease, heart attack, stroke, and death. Stuff like that.

How on earth were these numbers chosen? Simply by tracking the health outcomes of people with diabetes and seeing at what point people with increasingly large waist circumferences have increasingly bad outcomes, heart disease-wise.

Now, the more inches above target you are, the higher your risk. It's like that tornado rating scale where an f-4 is a whole hell of a lot more destructive than an f-3. Just ask Dorothy.

So, what if you are a lady with, oh... I dunno...a 57-inch waist? Are you likely to get down to the low-risk 35 inches? Frankly, no. Not very likely at all. But here's the thing. You don't need to have a Barbie Doll waist to lower your risk of heart disease. Remember what I told you about the tornados? Any reduction in waist circumference is a reduction in heart disease risk. Maybe you can't get to 35 inches. But 47 is better than 57. Hell, 55 is better than 57. Every inch counts.

And as diabetes is a HUGE risk factor for heart disease in the first place, it behooves us to fix any other risk factors that are in our power to fix, the so-called modifiable risk factors.

Now, a quick note on how to measure your waist size, because it may not be the same as your pants size: You might be one of those old men who wears the waistline of your pants around your nipples, or one of those street punks who wears your waistline at your knees to show off your stylish boxer shorts. A medical waist circumference is defined as: the measurement from the top of the iliac crest in a horizontal plane around the abdomen. Say what?? In English, this means measure around your middle, being sure to go from the top of your hips around through your belly button. And don't suck your gut in when you're doing this. That's cheating. A cloth tape measure is used because the metal ones kink, bend, snap, or cut your skin and give crappy and inaccurate results.

But wait a cotton pickin' moment. Who has cloth tape measures anymore? I happen to have one 'cause my mom was an avid sewer. But of course, I have a solution for you. Just use a piece of string, yarn, or rope. Or chain, if you're one of those kinky types or have been reading 50 Shades of Grey.

Just wrap the string, or whatever, across the proper part of your body, then measure the string with a ruler, yard stick, or metal tape measure. Ta-da! There's your waist circumference. Easy-peasy, as my son likes to say.

Oh. And since you asked, my waist circumference is 38 inches. Well, OK. 38-and-a-half. Or maybe 39-and-three-quarters. I'm six feet tall and my lying piece of shit bathroom scale says I'm 191 pounds. That gives me a body mass index of 25.9, technically overweight. So the tape measure says I'm OK and the scale says I'm not. Should I kick the scale to the curb?

I don't think so. One thing I like about scales is that problems show up there first. If I've put on five pounds, Mr. Scale will tell me if I ask. If I put on five pounds my clothes won't tell me. For one thing, I'll probably stretch them out as I pack on the pounds. For another thing, weight is distributed all over your body. Not just on your waistline.

Like all things in diabetes, scales and tape measures are just different arrows in our quivers. And if I need to defend myself from diabetes with a metaphorical bow and arrow, I want as many frickin' arrows in my quiver as I can get.

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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