There are an awful lot of mothers out there that get upset if their kid gets a sugary treat. They're convinced that it makes them bounce off the walls.

Maybe it does. Mama, a teacher, kinda poo-pooed the idea, although she didn't dismiss it entirely. She said a lot of kids are labeled "hyperactive" when two generations earlier, they would simply have been called "all-boy". I've seen the PET scans, though. Hyperactivity is not a myth. And Mama admitted that there were a lot of kids that aren't diagnosed with learning disabilities, because the parents refuse to admit the obvious. Ain't nothing wrong with MY kid!

Hyperactivity And Fractiousness

I tend to see hyperactivity as being restless, constantly wanting to jump up and do something. Fractiousness, on the other hand, is a different type of nervous sensitivity; the fractious person may be quite willing to sit still, but gosh darn it, they're quick to take offense, and even quicker to give offense. And then, there's hyper-vigilance. If you quietly walk up to someone who is hyper-vigilant and say something or make a noise, you have to peel them off the ceiling.

But they are related. The folks at About.com write, "Fractious horses are sweaty horses even during the colder times of the year. All the hyperactivity involved in fighting their handlers and trying to run off causes their body temperatures to rise."

Diabetics are known for being fractious. There are a lot of borderline diabetics that, until they've had their morning coffee, will bite your head off. I'm not sure if it's because they are drinking their coffee with sugar, or if the caffeine in the coffee, a diuretic, is allowing them to flush sugar out of their bloodstreams, but I know it's happening. I've had too many coworkers that have fallen into that category.

Hypervigilance Is Something Else

Hypervigilance is a symptom of abuse. It could be physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse as a child or some sort of abuse - such as exposure to combat as an adult - that leads to the hypervigilance. Debbie ended up divorcing Stan when he came home from VietNam. Two weeks after he got back, they had a heavy rain. He grabbed a bar of soap, ran out into the yard, stripped naked, and lathered up. For years, he couldn't sleep without a pistol under his pillow - and if he was awakened during the night, he jumped to his feet, with the pistol in his hands. Finally, Debbie gave up; she might have risked her own life, she said, but she couldn't chance having one of the kids accidently killed.

My hypervigilance comes from sexual abuse and torture as a preschooler; I don't carry firearms. I have ADD, or maybe that's a side effect of the depression. And because of my diabetes, I have swinging blood sugar levels. It gets confusing for Blondie, trying to figure out whether a given response is hypervigilance, hyperactivity, or fractiousness, and frankly, it's not easy for me, either. All I know is that my diabetes control has gone to hell, I'm angry a lot of the time over things that don't really matter and I don't like being angry.

That's not to be confused with Joplin's Law. At this point in my life, I don't have to keep my mouth shut in order to keep a job. I have plenty of time, so when I'm dissed, I'm prepared to fight it out on that line if it lasts all summer, and on behalf of people similarly situated, I feel a duty, somewhat, to correct bad situations on behalf of other people who are being poorly treated. Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose, and I have little to lose. But sometimes, I wonder if I'm being free, or just being angry. Hey you, kids, get off my lawn! Except that this grumpy old man doesn't care if kids walk on the grass. What is grass, after all, except carpeting for feet and Charmin for dogs?

Side Effects Of Diabetes

The biggest consumer on the body's energy budget is the brain. All those things about having to wear a hat in winter because your body loses so much heat through your head? They're all true, give or take a minor quibble. Your tender bits also make good radiators, but if you wear a good thermal hat, and good thermal undies, you'll be warmer in winter than if you go nekkid in those two places and dress your arms and legs warmly. (Feel free to test this theory on my front lawn next winter. Women, especially, are invited.)

Regular (T2D) Diabetes is an inability of the body to use insulin so that our mitochondria can turn sugar into useful energy. Mitochondria are actually another life form found in every cell, complete with their own DNA. You need never feel guilty by referring to yourself in the plural. We will argue in your defense; you need not assert that you're suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder, but it's the same thing.)

If the brain doesn't get enough energy, it doesn't work right, same as if your car has a dirty carburetor. Duh. Although depression isn't normally listed as a major symptom of depression, depression is much more common among diabetics, and a 1997 study by Luskman says that as diabetic control improves, depression lifts. Double Duh. The American Diabetes Association is trying to correct this problem, and recently made depression a major theme at their annual meeting.

The Secret Testosterone Connection

All the body's hormones are very similar, chemically. In fact, if your body is short on one hormone, other hormones will try to pinch-hit. For instance, the reason common Type 2 Diabetics (T2D) get fat is that when insulin doesn't work right, the first hormone to try to pinch-hit is cortisol. Cortisol causes your body, among other things, to lay down layers of fat, especially in the viscera. Normally, women that get fat develop a pear "Do these jeans make my butt look big" shape. Men and women with diabetes, through, develop an apple shape body, not a pear shape. You've heard that getting fat causes diabetes; actually, it's the other way around.

After you've had diabetes for a while, your thyroid tries to pinch in and help. You've heard that low thyroid function makes some people get fat. Actually, it's commonly the other way around. You lose thyroid function because your have diabetes, which is far more responsible for making your body fat.

And now, they're finding that testosterone is playing a factor as well. Many men with diabetes have impotence problems, and some of this is caused by the microvascular damage caused by high blood sugar. Far more common, it turns out, is that diabetic men develop low testosterone levels, because the testosterone is pitching in to help solve the problem with insulin.

So What About Depression

Admittedly, with depression, it's hard to think, so it took me years to come to this conclusion, but I started to wonder about whether eunuchs suffer from depression. It turns out, they do. Testosterone has a nasty reputation, with some body builders taking as much as ten times the normal amount of the hormone. It's hard on a body to do that. However, when they give diabetic hormone replacement therapy to build them back up to normal levels, it doesn't cause heart attacks, strokes, and the sort. What it does is reduce heart attack and stroke, it relieves the symptoms of depression, it builds muscle, and it reduces those dangerous visceral fat deposits.

Sounds like just the ticket for diabetics with low testosterone levels. Normal is 300 to 1000. A check of my blood showed mine to be in the 200s. However, my physician refused to give me hormone replacement therapy. It's dangerous, he said. I didn't have the presence of mind to ask if he'd already had an orchidectomy in order to protect his own health. It doesn't have to make sense, of course; killing off patients is just policy at Ephrata Community Hospital.

Not The First Time

In 2008, I switched my Medicare Type D insurance from Humana to Advantra Health Care. As a result, I was denied Actos for seven months.

Diabetes medicine comes in several forms. You typically take either a sulfonylurea medication (Amaryl, DiaBeta, Diabinese, Glucotrol, Glynase, Micronase, tolazamide, or tolbutamide) which stimulates your pancreas to make more insulin, or else you take shots of insulin. (The insulin shots go through such a small needle that they rarely hurt when they punch a hole in you, and they are injected into fat beneath the skin, where they don't cause a sting; it's not a big deal to take insulin injections, even if you're a big baby like me.)

There are two medications that make insulin work better in your body, directly attacking what's wrong. These are Actos, which is fairly safe, and Avandia, which is controversial, because careless doctors give it to patients who are on insulin, which is a no-no.

Metformin: Treats The Symptom, Ignore The Disease

In addition, you may take Metformin. This is a medicine that prevents your liver from dumping sugar into your blood stream. Now, there are problems caused by too much blood sugar, but the predominant problems caused by T2D are caused by a lack of sugar in your body's cells. So tell me: if you had dirty a carburetor, would you fix the problem by dropping something into your gas tank to prevent the gas pump from working? I don't think Metformin makes sense, logically. Physiologically, I have a much more serious objection to metformin: it rapidly makes me suicidal. Very suicidal.

I took Metformin, repeatedly, in the 1990s, and finally, after visits to multiple loonie bins, someone realized that it was my problem, took my off the Metformin, and I've not attempted suicide since. Advantra, however, compared the cost of Metformin with Actos - it costs about 10% as much - and refused to let me have Actos until I tried Metformin again. That's not funny. That's a serious threat to my life. I told them that if I had to take Metformin, I'd be visiting their offices with a shotgun, and they would have a mess to clean up, because I sure as hell wouldn't want to stick my wife with that job. Oh, and the newspaper stories might convince someone in management that threatening the lifes of their customers is a bad idea. Soon, a police officer came to me door, and told me that the people at insurance company said I was making terroristic threats.

Yeah, right. That doesn't meet the definition of a terroristic threat. A terroristic threat has to be a crime - and it's not a crime to kill yourself, not in Pennsylvania, not in any state. But you know what? A couple of months later, they started letting me have Actos. But by then, my insulin resistance had shot up off the charts, and I suffered irreparable damage. If I had the energy, I'd organize a class action suit against them - but then, one of the side effects of diabetes is that it saps your strength.

Whose Fault Is Expensive Health Care

So, now that I've found something else that might make me a little healthier, Ephrata Community Hospital has decided by policy to deny me that treatment.

You know, the faster diabetics die, the less expensive it is to treat us. On the other hand, if there's an inexpensive therapy that will vastly improve our condition, that eliminates an important source of revenue for health care providers. First, do no harm to the health care provider's income.

It's a pain to switch doctors. It's a real pain. But I've found an independent endocrinologist, and his receptionist says that he is willing to boldly and aggressive conduct battle with the disease.

I hope it works, because I sure am getting tired of whining about doctors specializing in "refer-ology", doctors who want to treat only one little part of a problem, doctors who specialize in "uh-huh-ology" in that they observe rather than treat. When Em was diagnosed with Lupus, that's all we could find in the Fort Wayne area for her, and finally, I located someone at the University of Cincinnati who actually wanted to treat her, aggressively, not necessarily without missteps, but kept fighting to keep her as healthy as possible, as long as possible. I've got my fingers crossed.

You're probably tired of my whining, too. I'd appreciate it if you keep your fingers crossed, too.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
actos - avandia - cortisol - depression - eunuch - fractiousness - grumpy old men - hyperactivity - hypervigilance - insulin - Joplin's Law - metformin - mitochondria - PTSD - sulfonylurea - terroristic threat - testosterone - thyroid