Health Detour

We took a tough 15 month detour down a dark road of severe health issues with Roy and both our cats, too!  In September 2015 we pulled into Camp Verde, AZ for the winter.  We were feeling the effects of having been on the move for the last year and Roy was starting to feel an increased sense that his diabetes needed tended to.  As stated in the last post, Roy has been battling Type II diabetes for about 10 years.  He hasn’t done well on medications and has managed it the best he could through exercise and diet, but had waned in his vigilance during the prior two years.  In September he started doing the traditional changes diabetics make to their diet and began exercising again.  In November we moved to Cottonwood.  The techniques that had been successful for Roy in the past were no longer effective and by February his blood sugar readings were getting critical!  His blood glucose reading was breaking 400, when it should have been below 100!  He discovered a vegan diet espoused by Dr. Gabriel Cousins to cure diabetes.  Through riding his bicycle and implementing Dr. Cousin’s extreme eating plan, Roy brought his blood glucose down around 200.  Eating vegan we both quickly lost 20 plus pounds.  This proved to contribute negatively to the health battle we were to face, as Roy in desperation resorted to medications, despite knowing he is chemically sensitive.  What I want to convey to you at this point is the importance of researching the side effects of medications.  Be proactive in talking with your doctor, as to what you will and won’t do!  Look for and keep an open mind to alternative treatments.  We feel it made all the difference in Roy surviving his trip through the array of medications offered by the doctor.  The doctor’s first choice in diabetes medications was Januvia.  We said no, as it was already having lawsuits.  It is a medication that you might do fine with, but if not, the side effects could be serious.  The Januvia lawsuits were in regards to the drug causing pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer!  The doctor also wanted Roy to go on cholesterol medications despite our telling him that Roy had been very sick on them when he tried them before.  Roy feels he may have acquired diabetes, as a side effect of the cholesterol drugs Tricor and Lipitor!  We have to wonder how many people would take these cholesterol drugs, if they were forewarned that there was a chance they could acquire diabetes from them!  We told the doctor, no!  Besides the aforementioned factors, how would any of us know which drug was affecting Roy negatively, if he took two medications together!  The most common oral medication for diabetes seems to be Metformin.  Other drugs are compared to it for how hard it is on a person’s stomach!  Roy tried Metformin, Glipizide and Glimepiride.  The side effects are stomach pain, nausea, loss of appetite, jitteriness, shaking, irritability and many more.  The side effects worsen with exposure to sunlight and here we are in Arizona!  Roy spent his days in bed, sick to his stomach and without an appetite.  He had to force himself to eat and couldn’t take in enough nourishment to sustain a healthy weight.  You can calculate the number of calories required daily to sustain a particular weight by multiplying 13 times the desired weight (i.e. 13 x 180 = 2,340).  The doctor didn’t seem to acknowledge side effects other than to offer a switch to another medication and didn’t address how to bolster Roy nutritionally!  It was only through our Internet research that we discovered the high calorie drinks of Glucerna and Boost.  Original Glucerna is 190 calories per 8 oz. shake and Boost comes in 3 levels starting at 240 calories for the original to 530 calories for the Very High Calorie 8 ounce shakes.  Roy lived on these at his sickest.  We learned that anything from McDonalds is high calorie for a small amount of food intake.  It may not be the most nutritionally sound, but when you are fighting a lack of appetite and a high rate of weight loss, it can make all the difference!  Roy got so thin while trying diet and medication changes, I was in fear of his organs shutting down.  His stamina was so low he couldn’t sit through a doctor’s appointment!  The next step was to try an injectable insulin called Lantus.  It was presented as basically side effect free.  Wrong!  As memory serves, approximately 50% of men age 60 plus will experience the side effect of severe depression, confusion and drunken mannerisms!  Seeing Roy go through these side effects was even more difficult than the more comprehendible stomach upsets.  Safety in driving became an issue!  At this point we were done with prescription meds and with the help of a woman (or angel) we met at the dog park, we were guided into homeopathic answers.  The results were instantly good in lowering Roy’s blood sugar without the accompanying sickness.  He also had happened upon the Ketogenic Diet, which is a high fat low carbohydrate way of eating and felt like a very normal style of eating to us.  There is a wonderful Facebook page of supportive people to teach you how it is done.  Here is the link:  Ketogenic Diet Science & Support.  Two recipes you need to try just because they are soooooo good are Caulimash (cauliflower prepared like mashed potatoes) and Caulirice (cauliflower quick chopped in a blender to the texture of rice).  Cook the caulirice in a skillet with butter, salt and pepper.  You can find them in the frozen vegetable section at the store, but they are really quick to prepare from fresh cauliflower.  There is also a health tracker called My Fitness Pal that will track about anything health wise that you want it to track!  Here is the link:  My Fitness Pal.  The original homeopathic supplements Roy took were Nopal Cactus tablets and capsules called Diabetic Support, by Better Health brand.  Roy slowly worked on his stamina and neuropathy through taking advantage of the local aquatic center hot tub and lazy river.  He added recumbent bicycling, walking and lifting light weights, as he could.  He has very painfully toughed his way through the regeneration of nerves from his feet up into the upper half of his body.  He has areas that are once again feeling normal and areas still regenerating.  It has been a long hard physical and emotional journey for the both of us, but we are happy to say that as of December 9^th we are on the road again!  We traveled down to Sierra Vista, AZ to be with friends and to help one of our cats that acquired a mystery ailment in February 2016.  Our cat, Odie, has been to two vets and tried many treatments.  He appears to have what is called Eosinophilic Granuloma Complex and it is indeed complex.  Here is a link to information about it:  Eosinophilic Granuloma Complex.  Thinking his health disorder is allergy related, we returned to Sierra Vista, where he spent a healthy winter getting outdoors from December 2014 through February 2015.  I met a friend of a friend via Facebook whose cat has the same thing.  He has been to 6 vets one of which is a dermatology specialist.  It is only after several vets and the passing of a year that he has some tentative results in curing the sores and itching that this disorder presents itself as.  Odie is making progress in that the sores that appeared last February have healed, but the two that arrived in April may take until this April to heal.  Our cat, Charles, gave us a scare, but with lots of money and most of his teeth pulled, he is back to his fat and sassy self!  We’ve spent almost 3 months in Sierra Vista physically and mentally recuperating and have plans to travel to Kingman, AZ on March 11^th!  Odie spent a healthy summer getting outdoors there in 2015.  We are looking forward to this summer and once again traveling down the sunnier roads of life!