I am crazy

I am crazy... Believe me it took me 3 1/2 years to post again and a fucking week to figure out how (thanks Jeremy) A short crazy post as am off to pick up the baby girl from afterschool. Big Boy is out of the home again. We just went to his Diabetes Clinic appointment where is was yelling and swearing the whole time and my blood is boiling as he yells and carries on about how everyone is an "ASSHOLE" and his life sucks. pretty sad thoughts for an 11 year old. I got crazy and freaked out on the social worker about how everyone at the clinic is uncaring and tiptoes around the fact that my son is really struggling with his Diabetes diagnosis and why doesn't anyone seem to care about my son's life. ARRGGHHH it is so flippin' obvious that he is super pissed about having Diabetes and the fucking Endocrinology clinic refuses to acknowledge the emotional impact of this diagnosis on my son. Every part of craziness inside me just wanted to scream at the top of my lungs at everyone who doesn't fucking care!!!!! don't even get me started on the lameness of type 1 diabetes ever being compared to type 2 every fucking minute. type 2 is a lifestyle you can change type 1 is not changeable you got it forever baby your pancrease does not make ANYMORE insulin. your own immune system attacked your cells and now you are insulin dependant. stay tuned for more rants from the crazy lady of the day...

How does insulin work?

Diabetes has come onto my radar in more than one way recently. Both within my circle of friends and my direct family. With type one diabetes I thought I had a basic grasp of insulin function. I thought insulin would kind of "digest" the blood sugar in the bloodstream. Well, then I encountered type 2. The explanation I recieved was that the body built up a "resistance" to insulin over time. How could sugar build up a resistance?

Yes, that is a silly question. It made me realize I had it all wrong. I looked it up. Insulin is an enzyme that plugs into the receptor sites of cells in the liver and muscles. As a result, these cells are coaxed into absorbing blood glucose, turning it into glycogen, ready for use as energy. It's these cells that build up a resistance, not sugar.

It has some other effects as well. Insulin also stops the cells from using stored fat for energy and takes the excess fuel in the blood and converts it into fat. That's way eating sugar and simple carbohydrates makes new fat and keeps us from losing fat.

The prevelence of obesity and increasing cases of type 2 diabetes in our culture points to the dangers on industrial farming, monoculture, and distributed food systems, but we'll leave those issues for another thread.

-Jeremy