When one of our support group members
told me about his being cut loose by his doctor because of his age
and A1c, I was going to vent and write a non-complementary
blog about doctors. Now that I have had a few days to cool down and
read a couple of other blogs, I know what needs to be said.
Allen had an A1c result of 5.0% and
being on insulin, his doctor went ballistic and said he was no longer
a patient. That A1c converts to an average blood glucose reading of
97 mg/dl. Allen showed me that he only had two readings below 70
mg/dl, one of 68 and one of 66 mg/dl. He had many readings for the
last three months between 80 and 115 mg/dl, but only one reading at
129 mg/dl. Allen is on a low carb – high fat meal plan and has
medium protein as part of the meal plan. He does eat a lot of
self-caught fish and he does eat other purchased fish.
His doctor did not believe his meter
readings and asked where his second meter was to be able to download
that. Allen has a very good attitude and replied, “What you have
is what you get, there ain't no more. If Dr. Bernstein can do this
as a type 1, why can't I as a type 2?” For someone that was
interested at one time on going back to oral medications, I don't
think we could convince him to stop insulin now. He has even stated
this to us, and said when he has problems or memory lapses, he will
consider it then.
He is about five pounds under weight
and says this is where he feels best and exercise is what he does to
keep it there. We are all hoping he can find another doctor, but he
does not seem concerned at this time. He says if he needs to rely on
his VA doctor, so be it. He has mentioned Dr. Tom, but seems in no
hurry.
This is an overt discrimination of the
elderly to my way of thinking. Even I am considering a change now as
my doctor has been asking me to raise my A1c to above 7.0%. We know
what the doctors are afraid of and that is hypoglycemia. Never mind
that we are managing our diabetes. I have a long way to improve mine
to be at the level Allen is maintaining. In addition, I have more
medications and other health problems of high blood pressure and
cholesterol which are managed by medications.
Many of our group are concerned now and
wondering why doctors have a difficult time assessing us properly and
treating us accordingly. I won't use the person's name, but one of
our members said that it may be because we are elderly and no longer
contributing to society that they don't like us to be concerned about
our health. He continued, they wish we would quietly die.
No comments:
Post a Comment