Auroville 2014 – My first HM

There were days when I have argued with @jmr_chn and other twitrunners that, I wouldn’t run a Half-Marathon, unless I run a 10K in less than 60 minutes(and that hasn’t happened yet, though i came close couple of times). So when Auroville announced that they are going to have 10K run only for locals and everyone else need to do either Half marathon or full marathon, I almost gave up. I thought I would run a different competition in Feb and skip Auroville. But Auroville is very special. As i have written in a post last year, Auroville is the first marathon “I saw” and also the fact that many of my running friends were talking about Auroville on emails, didnt help my decision not to run. I registered for a Half marathon.

I had no idea about the timing in which I can complete 21 KM. I decided to set the target to 2:30 hours. With the encouragement from @seevin and @scanman , on the first day of 2014, I ran 22 K ( or I should say walked). This gave a confidence that I can complete 21K, even if I dont meet my target. But then started some personal issues and I couldn’t run at all for 3 weeks after that. At the last 2-3 weeks, I ran few 10-12K runs, just to get back to the mood of running.

As usual @jmr_chn arranged for travel, @ela_m arranged for accommodation. We reached pondy on previous day night, collected bibs, had decent(!!) food, slept well. Next day morning, we started around 5 AM (race for me was at 6:25 AM) and reached early. Earlier I was planning to take little amount of Insulin before the run, so that, If i have to take glucose or a banana in the run, I would have Insulin in the body to get that food to my cells. I missed to take this shot. Mistake number one. 

Race started on time. I ran the first 5 KMs easily. Wonderful climate and awesome trail. It is always a fun to run in Auroville, just for this trail. I was on my 9th KM at the end of first hour. Actually better than my estimate. But “I think” I did a mistake number two , between 5th – 10th KM. Instead of water, i started taking glucose. I will come later on why I think this may be a mistake.

I saw the girl whom I was tailing in Auroville 2013 . I tried running with her, but gave up by 11th KM. There was one guy from Bangalore who encouraged me and I tagged along with him till 15th KM. When I crossed 16th KM mark, I think it was 1 hour 55 minutes. So I thought, I was on target. But then something happened. I almost stopped running by 17th KM. I was not even walking at my normal walking speed. I was almost down to 10 minute/KM speed. I was cursing myself and every try i did from there “to run” failed. One reason i think is the mistake number two above. With no insulin, glucose might have been increasing my blood sugar. Obviously, as i have noticed in my practice runs before, with high sugar, I mostly stop running. Or may be I am over complicating this. May be it is just the lack of practice that hurt. Whatever, I did the run in 2 hour 40 minutes. Last 5 KMS in 45 minutes.

 

There is always a next time. 🙂 And here is the photo. 🙂

 

Salem 10K – Edition 2

So there goes a year from my first 10K run. Have run so many more runs after that. Lot changed from then. Oh yeah, I got married, moved in to a new house. Life has changed so much in last one year as much as it is not-changed. Life has been good. Marriage life is not that bad, as I dreamt. 🙂 Hope all of you are doing well in your little world. So this post is about the travel/run of the Salem Galaxy 10K – second edition. . I am still running 10Ks though many of my friends have been telling me for quite a while now that I should be running Half-Marathons.

 We #twitrunners realized that we need a group t-shirt and @rgokul / @jmr_chn (CEO’s of the group) worked on the last minute (They are IT CEOs, what else do you expect?) and got us the #twitrunners branded t-shirt. With that t-shirt, we a group of about 8 people started for Salem on Saturday morning 7 A.M. Little did I expect that it will be a Foodathon day. We stopped in 15^th KM from Tambaram for breakfast. We thought to have a little snack and then travel. The hotel people suggested buffet and we were impressed at their spread. There started the day with an unlimited buffet in “Saapida Vaanga” restaurant just outside Chennai.  A photo here taken in one of the many rounds that we ate. 

 Now that stomach is full, we started our real journey towards Salem. We drove all the way to Salem and with little guidance from @scanman we reached his SKS hospital where we collected Bibs, T-shirts. We went straight to hotel and from there @scanman took us to a restaurant for another “unlimited” lunch.  That lunch was so good that we forgot to even take photo of the food we ate. Then @scanman suggested we go to Yercaud and see a Gated community. Oh, I forgot to take my Insulin pen with me for lunch. I don’t know even after living with Diabetes for years, how the hell I forget this. So I have to break the rhythm of travelling/eating/travelling and make these guys wait idly for some time. I went to hotel to take Insulin and others went to @scanman ‘s home where Mrs.Scanman gave them a warm welcome. (I don’t know what and all she scolded @scanman for this. But that is another home’s internal matter. We should not enter).  

 I joined them about 30 minutes later and we all travelled to Yercaud to checkout WILD ORCHID. What a place, that is. They have excellent amenities that beat even the best of GCs in Chennai. It was plots of 10,000 sq.ft with a regulation that only 2,000 sq.ft can be used to build and that too based on the specifications of the promoters to make sure that entire GC is glued with nature. Excellent place. Times when you think you should have been be richer to own properties like that. There were lot of rumors linking @scanman and couple of plots in that. But those are all rumors, so we will not get into it. We are very decent people, no? Guys had some excellent tea from the wild orchid team. Promoter was very friendly and he ran with us next day.

 We came back to yercaud around 8 PM and on the way back had Salem special “Thattu vadai”. Super taste and didn’t cost much. We ate stomach full of pre-dinner and went into a hotel for dinner. Another set of people from Chennai/Bangalore joined us there. After dinner, we came back to room and got the twitrunner t-shirt and placed everything ready for next day and slept.

 We woke up around 4:15 A.M with a wakeup call from @jmr_chn (when does this guy sleeps ya?) and were in ground by 05:00 A.M. The run started around 05:35 A.M. I tried running at @jmr_chn’s speed, but after 2 KM, I was not able to keep up with his pace and I slowed down. After that was running at about 8-9 KM/hr speed till the end. I finished the run in 66 minutes. So still sub-60 minutes is a dream and that adds up as a reason to why I should not upgrade to half-marathons. I will think about upgrade only after I do a sub-60 minute 10K run. I didn’t get dehydrated like last run, but drank lot of water for the fear of dehydration. About 150 ml water every 2 KM. I think this also slowed me down to an extent, but the important reason is that I didn’t have endurance to run the 10 KM run without walking in the middle. So I will have to put some effort to be able to do a non-walk run before Wipro Chennai Marathon. We had good food again in a hotel thanks to @scanman (we just ordered “bring everything you have” and then after 2-3 rounds, ordered specific items, we wanted).

 We started around noon from Salem, had lunch in Ulundurpettai Adayar Ananda Bhavan and then we reached Chennai. I am 100% sure, net-net we added more calories than what we burnt in a 10KM run.  Photos below of #twitrunners with our t-shirt and mine.

 

  

 

Auroville 2013

Auroville 2012 was the first time I went for a marathon run. Wait, I wasn’t running. Since @Jmr_chn was offering me a free ride from Chennai to Pondy and as usual, since I didn’t have any big plans that weekend, I went with him. What I saw there did a make a difference in my seriousness about running. I saw lot of young kids, elders running with joy. I didn’t think many of them were running for some kind of competition. It was more of how we would celebrate a festival. There is no winning/losing in a festival, right? Same here. People were running with their kids, life partners, friends. I also always thought running as an activity to enjoy, than of an exercise. I had days 3-4 years back when I would go for a run instead of playing cricket with colleagues. Somewhere deep down there I decided I will also start running more.

Come back to 2013, here I am , after a very good fun run in Auroville for 10 Kilometers. Like last time, thanks to @jmr_chn for the free ride and motivation. This time group was big and we had all kinds of characters in the team. There were people who won’t understand a simple joke unless explained to people who ‘try to joke’ every word they say. People who would stretch for 2 hours for a 70 minute run, to people who ask “What Stretching?” Hilarious. Good that I was not running in same race (most were running 21k), as otherwise i would have laughed for the entire run and never finished it.

As Wiki says, Auroville is an experimental township http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auroville . I was told many come for the search of inner peace and the divine experience. I will not get into the politics or economics of how Auroville runs. Looks like it is more complicated than what you would think.

About the event, Auroville marathon is one unique marathon event in south India, where you run mostly on unpaved way. You will be surprised of number of Auroville residents who run barefoot. An event within India, where you will see good number of foreigners running with you. The arrangements they do are best in class and the trail is superb by itself. Though we started the run around 7 AM, I don’t think I got dehydrated at any point. Wherein during my practice runs in Chennai, if I start around 6:30 AM, I would be dehydrated by 5th KM. There are enough trees on either side of the road and the road by itself is just wide enough for 3-4 people to run together.

Because of the narrow roads, when we started, it was difficult to get my pace for first 750 meters. I have to overtake many and for that I started running in the edges of the road. There was one point where I almost slipped because of uneven surface. Then I decided to run slower or at a comfortable pace till the crowd gets leaner. By the end of first KM, I started running at better than my regular pace. Then by 4th KM, I started slowing down a bit thinking I might exhaust energy before the finish. By 6th KM, I was back on the regular speed. There was one beautiful girl and an elderly person running with me from that point till the end. Never got a chance to get her name and/or her number though ;). The crowd throughout was encouraging. Towards the end, people were shouting for you on both sides. Incredible feeling. There were drum beats all over the place. At the end, I felt almost like running another 10K. I was not at all tired, felt excellent at the end. In my clock, I finished by 62nd minute. My personal best. Decided that I will stick to 10K for some more time and reduce the timings.

I did two things differently on this run from other runs. I took about 1/3 of my regular morning Insulin about 1 hour beore the run. I think it did help with the run. But one mistake was, I took a whole banana before the run. I kinda felt heavy throughout the run and I have to run to restroom as soon as I crossed the finish line. 🙂 We had a buffet lunch in the hotel we stayed and we almost emptied that restaurant in 30 minutes. I am sure you will see more posts like this as months come. 🙂

Family Doctors

First of all, Happy Deepavali to everyone who is celebrating the festival of lights. Also Nov 14 is “World Diabetes Day”. Let us make sure we spread more awareness of Diabetes at least to our near and dear ones. Also sorry about length of this post. I didn’t expect it to go this long.  But please do read. 🙂

I will come to topic of this post little later.I will touch some of the #medsm tweets/topics that i saw in twitter recently before I come into the topic. I am going to narrate totally unrelated incidents and will try to make some sense out of it at the end.

@AtulChitnis commented in tweet about how bad is to have a medical insurance less than Rs.10L. With so much advanced procedures costing a fortune he was emphasizing the idea that any insurance that is less than 10L is basically nothing. It is not going to cover the most expensive procedures. I have my differences with this idea. But just remember how much you will be paying for your insurance every month for 10L insurance coverage.

There was a blogpost that @writeguy tweeted which said a very popular private hospital in Chennai was negligent on a patient care and it costed the life of a breadwinner of a family with very young kids. He was asking for opinions from doctors on how much medical negligence is true. Sad incident. Death at a young age is really painful.It aggravates when you think that they had financial capability to go beyond what an average Indian can spend. The family and friends feel that Doctors/Hospital management didn’t really give their best. Again I am not medically trained/educated to talk about negligence of doctors or the misunderstanding of family/friends. Another similar case was tweeted by @alexpaulmenon an IAS officer about his Father-in-law. One thing I would want hospitals to do is, to be more transparent. To provide results/procedures that they are doing to patients and keep them informed. Doesn’t matter, whether patients understand it or not. Hospital should take printouts of the test results and their inferences as much as possible. Legally there might be problems here, I will address that concern soon.

I have one blogpost for a long time on my drafts about “Second Opinions”. Lot of us don’t take second opinions in many critical medical procedures. I think that should change. We all should ask for second opinion before undergoing any critical surgeries/procedures. I would even go to the extent that if a patient feels that he/she needs a second opinion, doctor should be open to provide help on getting a second opinion. Oh there will be questions of how different another doctor suggested by the first one would differ and so on. I believe in people. I believe when life is at stake, the most educated community will not be silent to voice their opinions. Yes, this is more of a cultural change and will take some time before we all (including doctors) agree that asking for a second opinion is the right thing to do.

Now, to the topic of the post. Family doctors is a profession that is almost dead today. With today’s generation ready to move across oceans for work, with moving across the country every few months because of change in work, we have stopped seeing same doctor. On the other hand, today a doctor with just MBBS is almost never consulted. We want specialists for everything. This mentality is not just in cities, today even in towns across TamilNadu, doctors with just MBBS have hard time selling their services. Ever thought when this glamour for specialists came? I think that is because, we started going to doctor only when we are seriously ill. We all started Googling for medicines and started buying them over the counter for small problems with our body. Again, I am not saying whether it is a correct or not. I am just saying that this is what is triggering us to see specialists.

So where am I arriving at? With the younger generation like me earn more than what our fathers would have never thought of, live a lifestyle that we ourselves would have only thought in dreams, invest in houses that cost more than entire salary of previous generation, I think we are missing one good thing that our parents had. A family doctor. My dad was a postal clerk and we lived a middle class family life. Most of our doctor visits are to a hospital that is run by a trust for completely free. Doctor there knew us by name. In my sister’s case, she doesn’t need the case history to recall her health. She would know that the moment she sees my sister.

We are told that we need to pay hefty money for insurance. As much I understand Insurance, medical insurance in a country like India where the regulations don’t work is a pain than of “insurance”.

I think there needs to be a model that should emerge where I should be able to pay my “family doctor” a monthly fees for a reasonable number of visits. If not physically, I should at least be able to call him and get suggestions. I wouldn’t want him to be a specialist on anything , but should know the basics of medicine to diagnose bigger problems when there are some recurring signs. I would be happy to pay someone I see everyday than a medical insurance company. I should be able to pull him into decision making process where critical procedures are done. He should be able to choose doctors for second opinion, if needed. Hospitals have to allow him to look at the tests/procedures done to me. With the technological advancements, I should be able to reach him whenever i need, even if i am traveling somewhere. The same tech that brought us to this world of running across time zones, will/should help us to be healthy as well. Prevention is always better than cure, no? Also in the worst case like loss of life like the case of @writerguy ‘s friend, at least family can be sure that we tried everything on our capacity and just that science is yet to catch up with mother nature. Also legal cases also should be minimal because the family doctor who has no motive of making money with those procedures wouldn’t have recommended them, unless needed.

Please leave your thoughts as comments. I am sure I might be missing lot of things from a doctor/patient perspective. Put in your thoughts.What am I missing?

Salem10K

What a long weekend it was. (September 29 – October 2nd). It started with a tweetup on Saturday afternoon & ended with one on Tuesday afternoon. Couple of years back, had you told me that I will spend entire weekend only with people whom I got introduced in online world, I would have laughed at you. Not today.  Every event on that weekend was worth its own blog like #tedexChennai . Will try to post some of them in the next couple of days, but this post as title suggests, is about #salem10k, my first 10 km run.

I was/am inspired by @jmr_chn on long distance running. At his age, Murali does things that are extra-ordinary. I would question myself many a times, can I do what Murali does like running my own company or running marathons. He is my hero of life. Thanks to twitter for introducing me to him.

I went with Murali to Auroville where he ran half marathon.  I didn’t run that day, but noted in my mind that some day I should try long runs. I was trying to put weight that time & as usual, I had the question of being diabetic, can I save energy to run long distance run? I did Googling to find many insulin dependant marathoners. Noted lot of tips from their blogs & tweets. I started running 3-5k two-three times a week. My plan was to run 10k in Chennai Wipro Marathon in December.

But @scanman organized #Salem10K & agreed to sponsor for us as well. Now there is no excuses for me to ‘run away’ from this. I was not prepared, but then life never gave me time to prepare for many things. So it is not new.

We reached Salem on October 1st evening. (Murali drove all the way & @SujayS was with us). We met @scanman in the stadium where race starts , collected bibs/tshirts & then had a nice dinner. Slept well & woke up with Murali’s wake up call at 0430. We reached ground around 0530 & race started at 0600.

Lot of school kids and college students participated in the run. I started slow, to leave those kids run their first lap fast. I was in my 7 minute/km regular speed for first 3 miles. Surprisingly I felt thirsty on third km itself. In practice runs, I never drink water. (3-6 kms). So that was surprising. By 4th km, I was little tired &  that is when I found a voice behind me, that said, “come on, come on, we can”.

Surprised and saw a school kid may be at sixth grade, encouraging everyone. He was funny at the least, motivating at the best & something striked in between us. We ran next 4 kms together. In between, when we slow down, he would ask questions like, “you came from chennai just for running?”, “you paid Rs.100 for this?”, “even this tshirt is not worth Rs.100”, “This water they give has some smell. They didn’t get Mayura brand water,huh?”, “btw they say computer company people are brilliant,  but you come here to just run, how?”, “we will not win price, if we complete 10k, that is enough”. I LOLed even when I was running. I have to leave him by 7th km, as he was tired. I promised him that I will wait in finish line for him.

By 9th km, I had a weird headache. It was more like sinus headache. Even felt like being on a high for few minutes. Lost 2-3 minutes, as i had to almost come to a stop to regain my senses. Somehow managed and completed the run in about 73 minutes.  Not bad, as my average pace is 7 min/km anyway.

Entire team of twitrunners :

It was nice feeling to cross the finish line. Thanks to Murali again. Special thanks to @scanman. Thanks to others who ran with me, lets meet in #WiproChennaiMarathon , December 2nd .

Hey thanks to you for reading this longg post. 🙂 Do leave a comment of whether you like it or not.

P.S : posted via mobile WordPress plugin. So you know, whom to blame for any formatting errors. 🙂

A trekking trip and couple of other things

Been a long time since I blogged here. No, I am not gonna claim that I am busy. Let us just say there were more bigger things to face. It is amazing how much you learn in life in these late 20s. A period  when you are both young to accept new thoughts and matured enough to understand them. Thanks for friend @Rajeshpadman who reminded me that i have this blog.

Anyway enough of rantings. Let us get to business. Topic today is of two things. One is about some of  the ‘educated’ people and their reactions when I told them that I am diabetic. Second is about a small trekking trip that i went with few of the twitter friends, couple of weeks back.

This person is one of those first few people who joined this popular company that today employs more than 150K people. I was reporting to him for couple of years. First he didnt believe that I have diabetes (which is quite normal with many people whom i meet). After that, everytime when we were eating outside in a restaurant or someone is sharing some sweets/choclates,the first question, he use to ask is “Do you miss sweets?”. I use to smile as answer and move on. Sometimes he used to insist for an answer, and I use to say, “No. I got used to it”. Real answer is, hell yes, I miss sweets. I am from a place where people make sweets for evening snacks. I grew up like that. But why do you ask that? I understand when you ask me first time, but asking that again and again, is so stupid. I couldnt tell in first place, as I was reporting to him. But at one point, I broke and told him what I wrote here.

Second story is harder than the first one. It is not enough you get educated on diabetics, you need to get your loved ones also get educated. My dad use to walk 150 KM every year from my hometown to Pazhani  (popular temple of tamil nadu) as pilgrimage. He and mom believe in that murugan, than anyone else.  Every year he use to get a bucket of Panchamirtham. (yes, you heard it right, a bucket) It is a sweet made with complete carbs. Banana, dates, brown sugar. Even if you remove the religious attachment of my parents, I would rate this as the best sweet I have ever had. Coming to today’s story, an aunt of me told mom that it is too much of sweets that she fed me in my childwood is the reason for my diabetes.  Especially this panchamirtham. Mom really gave a consideration for this thought and she got confused.  Because in one hand, it is the murugan she loves and in other it is her kid with diabetes today. She started feeling it is her mistake. I didnt know about it for a week. One sunday during our long chats  (oh,i love these chats like anything), mom said this. I have to make a huge effort to tell her that it is not her fault at all. She even started questioning things that she ate when she was carrying me. Took sometime to convince her that it is not her fault. So dear Aunts/uncles, even if you dont help me,  can you please not spread things like this?

Ok, now to the good part. I went to a trek with twitter friends organized by @arima_raj and @ela_m in  twitter. I had packed chappathis and my insulin pens and was in really excited mood, when we started.I  have to tell you that this group is one where i am more comfortable sharing anything. Literally few of them knew me and my family very well. We started with a long walk and then started climbing. It was an awesome experience. I have been to many places in mangalore like this. But near to chennai, with a gang that cracks mokkais (aka jokes) every other step, it was fun. Tons of fun. There was one spot where it was so peaceful and I felt my slippers were really slipping. I should have bought some trekking shoes. Mistake. Anyway, I decided to stay back and man, believe me, and let these guys continue. I think that is my best decision. I was all alone with no mobile on a spot for about 4 hours. There was only 2 times when a group of people passed me. I slept on a rock with waterfall next to me. First I had fear of some insect bite, but after sometime I slept off without even realizing. Amazing sleep that was. It was fun to wash those fishes taking trips all around and biting your feet. The bigger ones really hurt a little bit. 🙂 Best trip and looking forward to more trips like this with this gang. Amazing post about this by @iamkarki here http://www.karkibava.com/2012/06/blog-post_26.html

Diabetic treatment in India

On the same lines as previous post, we will see how the diabetic centers work in India. I am going to talk about private system, as my interaction with public healthcare system is zero.

Typically there are diabetic specialists now in every town. They have usually masters in Endocrinology. These doctors are usually the first point of contact for most patients who have ability to offer medical care. Cost is affordable and they usually tell the basics of Diabetes and the medications you need to take. The quality of treatment varies based on the skill of the doctor.More than the quality in the medications they offer, I think what is missing is a customized plan of how to handle it. The doctors give generic advice which is similar to what you will get on a google first page search result of “Diabetes lifestyle changes”. Doctors at this level, don’t have enough time for every patient they see. What can change? We need second level medical professionals, more like someone who works without a medical degree, but has enough knowledge of Diabetes, to tell you what you should do and what not. It could just be a bachelor degree course with the specialization on Diabetes. For the number of patients in India( increasing multifold every year), there is a huge potential of people with this skill. Given that Diabetes, hits you at age of 45+ (or <5 as type1) , the age looks for someone to talk to you in a caring sense. Most sons/daughters don’t have time/knowledge for it. So it is more of training someone who cant prescribe you medicines, but can talk to you in length about all kinds of questions you might have.I understand complications of handling a medical problem without a medical degree. But I think with proper training and making these professionals understand their limits, this model should work.

If you step into Metros. you have bigger hospitals which are specialized just on Diabetes. Good news there. They do have some kind of second level professionals that I have explained above( though I am not satisfied with the knowledge they have). They do have all equipments, professionals needed as one stop shop. This is also good, as people don’t want to go to 4-5 medical centers with their 50+ dad/mom.Procedures are more standardized. The quality is generally better than the small town doctors( which can be debated, but this is my opinion). But doctor time is still a problem here. 15 minutes with a doctor is the average I saw on a visit. Remember these are medical supermarkets. Highly costly. So if I am stepping here, which means I have money to afford the best in the town or I am in a critical situation where I am spending my savings to save me or a family member. With this background, the 15 minutes looks like nothing. What else, I would like to change? I understand that these supermarkets are not going to offer me the personalized service that my town doctor gives. But they need to be more human. I get a feeling of entering a factory where they consider patients as raw materials to be diagnosed and spit out with better health. You are just a ‘XYZ’. Doesn’t matter what your condition is or what kind of help you want.

Though on face of it, the second level medical research centers look good, there are some problems with them as well. They are not really research centers. They have A1Cs of thousands of patients. But I don’t even think they even do data mining. Let us go to real research later. Do they know, how many percentage of type1’s come to their hospital? do they do localized research to find what are the common triggering point of type-2 in India? Indians (generally) are not as Obese as Americans. So how do we apply a medical research done in USA to India? Food/Lifestyle/Climate, there are too many different parameters here. These organizations portray that they do research, but what they really do (and they do this really well), is standardizing the diagnosis/treatment plan and scale up the operations to handle thousands of patients in a day.

On a longer term, I prefer a hybrid model. I still prefer a place that has all equipments needed to diagnose for all kind of complications, when you get someone first diagnosed or in some bad state of diabetic management. Real research centers, that can really come up with the research conclusions for Indians, instead of copying something done in western world. But on a longer term, I still prefer to work with my small clinic doctor on my diabetic management. With the second level professionals that I talked earlier, I think patients will get close to 80% of their needs satisfied with just these two people. Then once in a year, medical checkups, expert consultations can be done at the research centers.

All are personal opinions. Feel free to disagree or argue. In the next post, I will talk about a (fake) clinical trial where i was asked to participate.

Indian medical system

Problem with LADA, especially in developing countries like India, is the wrong diagnosis of it as Type 2. (or T2). This is mostly because of the age in which LADA shows itself and the symptoms which are more identical to T2 than T1. On my Initial diagnosis period, I was always diagnosed as T2. There was never a mention about LADA. If you ever get diagnosed as Diabetic, especially below 40 years of age, make sure you raise the question of LADA with your doctor.

Sad part in the Indian medical system, is the lack of education for newly diagnosed diabetic patients. There is very little that is told to them about how their lifestyle is gonna change from now. The doctors don’t have time to talk about all these and there are not enough medical assistants in the hospitals, who are educated to talk about the lifestyle changes.

Also there is little talk that goes on hospitals about different treatment options that are available. I would have preferred to switch to Insulin long before I really started using it. But there was a huge perception in my friends/family circle that Insulin treatment should be the last step. It was perceived something like where you are spoiling the body by providing Insulin, wherein other medications are considered more natural way where the Insulin produced in the body is used. I understand that most patients in India may not want to confuse themselves about their medications. But when people are ready to get involved in their treatment plans, the doctors need to help us more.

You will easily find lot of online resources on Diabetes and treatment options. Following are couple of tamizh books that I found useful to understand easily in mother tongue and may be help some of you who have diabetic parents.

சர்க்கரை நோய் சமாளிப்பது எப்படி https://www.nhm.in/shop/978-81-8368-430-9.html

இன்சுலின்- நீரிழிவுக்கான ஏகே 47 https://www.nhm.in/shop/978-81-8493-570-7.html

BTW, I started another twitter account to follow the Diabetic tweeps all over the world. It is @4snd . 4SN Diabetic. 🙂 Follow me there, if you want to get my daily cribs on Diabetes. 🙂

LADA & ME

People who have seen me know that I am not( and was never) Obese. They know that I was not Diabetic from my childhood. So which category under which Senthil falls? Type 1 or 2? My condition is called type 1.5, Well, life is never black and white. Is it? There is always a gray area and I belong to that gray area.

LADA – Late AutoImmune Diabetes of Adulthood. Without going into technical details of what is AutoImmune really means, let us simplify it and say “LADA is a slowly progressing Type 1”. The symptoms and the age may sound more like Type 2, but there are specific tests to measure the production of Insulin (again simplified, it is too complex than that), that can differentiate between type 2 and LADA. I was first diagnosed as type 2, with weight loss and other symptoms I had. But further tests revealed that it is LADA. Unlike type 1, LADA patients may be able to postpone their daily insulin take for sometime. But eventually they will have to move to daily Insulin intake. When you compare to type 1, LADA is better, as at least for some part in life, you enjoy the benefits of being a common man and it hits you on an age when you can understand all the scientific things that these doctors say.

MODY – Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young, Again simplified version of this is, Type 2 happening at the very early age than the usual above 40. Treatment is usually as it is done for Type-2. This is where many doctors believed this early type-2 happens because of lazy lifestyle. (Not proved though).

There are many research that is going around the world on understanding the causes for Diabetes. Most of them point to inheritance as the reason. Sure lazy lifestyle, inactivity, tensed life all are factors that cause diabetes. The way I look at it( not science, me personally, based on what i have read and seen), becoming a diabetic is written on your genes 90% of time. 10% of time is when you get it without inheriting it. But in the 90% of time when you inherit, you have all the options with you to easily postpone it by 10-20 years. So if you happen to be diabetic, don’t blame yourself for everything. Take the life from there and see how you can improve your health in spite of being a diabetic.

I thank diabetes(Irony, I know :)) for many things in life. Like most other Indian IT consultant of 21st century, I was on top of the world thinking I have achieved everything in life when I joined a MNC. Diabetes brought me back to the ground. I realized nothing is permanent in life. Diabetes helps you to be on heels always. That is a major difference between Diabetes and other life threatening conditions. Like you breathe, you will live with Diabetes. It is tough, but not so much as many other conditions in life.

Diabetes has made me lot less materialistic and more of “live the life for you” lifestyle. From someone who grew up as “believer”, today i believe more in my Insulin pen than god. Today, I don’t ask this question, “why me?”. I am lucky not to be type1. Would I have survived with small income of my father, if i was type1? Bigger question than that is, as a kid with less self confidence, how would I have coped up with it? My town teachers would have understood it? hmm.. so I am lucky. I am lucky to get the education that i got, lucky to have parents who invested all they had in my education, lucky to get a first job though I still have questions on whether i was really qualified for it. I am lucky to have good friends at every stage in life (before and after Diabetes) and supported me in many tough days.So it is not “Why me” now, it is “Ok. What now?” What else I can do to improve the current situation I am in. I give the credit to Diabetes for teaching me that. First few days of “Why me” with Diabetes, tore the lean physical/mental strength I had and my health started to deteriorate. Then with help of a few friends, I realized “ok. What now” is what going to keep me alive and “why me” will kill me. So thanks again Diabetes for that.

I will try to go into details of LADA in the next post. But other than that, I think my introductory series is done. Many comments asked me to write about different types of treatment options of Diabetes. I think I am not the correct person to do that. It needs medical knowledge and would be great, If someone with medical degree writes about it. Having said that, I will try to write the small “home remedy” kind of things, lifestyle changes that worked for me and/or for my friends.

Diabetes is not a disease

You sure have heard this. Diabetes is because of Obesity. People get Diabetes because of lazy lifestyle. Right?. Before we go to find whether it is true or not, I will tell you about types of diabetes. I hear you asking, what “Types of Diabetes”. Yes, there are many types of Diabetes. I will give very very simplified definitions of different variants of Diabetes without over-complicating it. (Disclaimer: I didn’t receive any medical education to define the medical terms with accuracy. I will try to do it with what I have learnt as a patient).

First What is Insulin? Let us say (again simplified), Insulin is a key that is needed to open the cells and store the carbohydrate that we consume. So unless we have Insulin in the body, the carbohydrates that are consumed will not reach the cells. They instead roam around the body through blood for sometime before the kidney identifies that these bodies are circulating in blood for long time and then removes them. That will explain why a diabetic with poor blood sugar control, has to run to the restroom more often than others.

So what is Type 1 diabetes? When the key to the cells, Insulin is completely absent or the percentage of production is meager, then the body fails to store the energy we want. It is also called as juvenile diabetes, as it usually hits in the early ages of life. 2-5 years kids get diagnosed with Type 1. Treatment is by taking Insulin from external sources like Injections. This is the most cruel form out of all form of Diabetes. Imagine being a kid at the age of 5 and someone explaining you that you ARE VERY DIFFERNT from others in so many ways. I will talk more about this in the next few posts.

What is Type 2 diabetes? When the key to the cells get rusted( because of genetic reasons and many other causes), Diabetes that hits people is called Type 2. In Type 2, the insulin production is still there. So the key to the cells is present in the system, but it is less effective now. Medical term is “Insulin Resistance”. Body cells refuse to accept the key. So when the key doesn’t work, we lubricate it or repair it, correct? Which is exactly how the treatment for type 2 diabetes works, In most cases, life style changes like exercises, diets are enough to keep the Diabetes in control. In some cases, medications are needed. About 10% type 2 diabetic patients also need Insulin as part of their treatment plan.

Gestational diabetes is another form which happens during pregnancy. It is a transient condition and usually the condition disappears after delivery. Though transient, proper treatment is necessary to avoid complications during pregnancy.

Except for Gestational diabetes, other forms are not curable. Once Diabetic, you are always a diabetic. It becomes part of your lifestyle. It is like those who are differently enabled. But with Type 2, if the “key to cells” is not so badly rusted and if the patient is ready to do all the lifestyle changes that are required, they can live a normal life even without any medications. (Over simplified again. It is a case by case basis analysis that is needed by a doctor to make this decision).

Based on what I have described above, hope people understand that Diabetes IS NOT A DISEASE. It is a deficiency. Even in Tamil, many use the word “Sarkarai Noyi” which is wrong. This is just a deficiency, not a disease,

What I have described above is the major types of Diabetes. There are a few like me who don’t fall directly under any of these types. They usually call mine as LADA type and another type is MODY. More on these types on next post.

P.S: Please point out any factual errors. If you feel, I over simplified it, please point it out as well.