We grow up hearing so many wives tales that sometimes we have no idea what to believe is true and what is false. Like I had always heard that if you give yourself an injection and there is air in the syringe that you could kill yourself because you would be causing a jump in your heartbeat. Is this Fact or has this been stretched a wee bit beyond to the point of fiction?

I was first diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when I was 28 years old. I was afraid to give myself shots of insulin because I did not want to take the chance of injecting too much air into my system. Truth be told, it would take a whole lot of air for it to affect you negatively. I was told that if you ever get a low blood sugar that somebody should right away give you something sweet. Do you know how long after eating a chocolate bar for it to affect your blood sugar? Even orange juice, one glass, would take about 15 minutes to just affect your blood sugar by maybe 5 points.

For the first year I had somebody else give me my injections which got to be pretty damn expensive. Insurance would not cover this so I was paying cash for this service. I thought if I ate some candy right before taking a blood sugar test that it would elevate my sugar right away. This is another untruth.

These days I am trying to improve on the types of foods I eat as well as getting enough exercise. Wheat bread is so much better for you than White. Whole grain wheat is even better. Pasta made with white flour is another no no. They have what is labelled as Sugar Free white bread but you need to not look at the sugar but instead look at the Carbohydrates. My wife will get me something that only has 5 grams of sugar and she thinks this is great. But when you look at the carbs and see that it has like 90 carbs something that had 30 grams of sugar would be better for you.

Another item you need to look at which is not on the label of a lot of products is the foods Glycemic value, the lower the number the better it is for you. Look at a bake potato which may have a glycemic value of 90 and then look at a sweet potato which only has a glycemic value of 30. Which one do you think is better for you? Do you think that all sweet potatoes are bad? White potatoes are a definite no-no.

Are you diabetic? Do you want to be almost like a normal person where you can have a hot fudge sundae? I had my doctor prescribe me the insulin pump because as far as being diabetic goes when on the pump this is the closest you can get to being normal unless you clone a healthy body and are able to have your brain transplanted.. Medicare actually pays like 80% of the cost of a pump and if you have a supplement in addition then your cost will be almost nada.