A CAUTIONARY TALE FOR DIABETICS EVERYWHERE

Some things come to you like an epiphany. Other things are much harder to comprehend, and understanding comes only after a great deal of soul searching, or, as was the case with me, after a good deal of misfortune. Please allow me one more platitude, how pride goeth before a fall (Proverbs 16:18) before I launch into this week’s message. I have never been a very prideful fellow, but one thing I have always taken a bit of pride in is in how I have managed my diabetes. I was diagnosed in October of 1996, and for eleven plus rather uneventful years, I never had a crash. For those not in the know, a crash is where the sugar lever drops so precipitously that the victim is unable to help himself, and he requires the assistance of medically-trained personnel.

All of that changed as of the 12th of March. I had my first crash. The thing of it is, I didn’t know what caused it. At the time, I couldn’t think of anything unusual about that date. All I know is, I woke up that evening being treated by an Elkhorn Ambulance crew. That is the beautiful thing about a crash, once the sugar level is corrected, you come right back around. The nasty part is not knowing how you got that way. Well, diabetics are rather like John Cleese’s description of the British, we are always feeling guilty. So naturally I felt like whatever had gone wrong, it had been my fault. And I pledged solemnly never to get into that condition again. And I could have kept that promise had I known one important thing. But more about that later.

The whole promise thing came undone this last weekend. Friday found me in the vicinity of the Quality Food market at Regina, and, having never been in that particular store, and since the supermarket at Mouthcard had closed down (soon to be re-opened, or so I am told), I stopped in to see what this store had to offer. One item I found was a drink that said it was a “zero calorie sparkling beverage”. As I am an inveterate reader of nutritional labels, I turned to the one on the four-pack these tall, skinny cans were in, and I spotted a term which I had never seen, chromium. Well, you know how it is, these newer drinks apparently are thinking of everything. So, as I am always in the market for something new for diabetics (it did say zero calories), I took home a four-pack.

Friday night, I followed my usual routine, a late night run, home, and for the heck of it, I drank one of my new drinks. Saturday morning was not usual, however. I did not wake up as I normally do. I was woken by some friendly neighbors and friends, who later had some help from an Elkhorn Ambulance crew, all of whom were alerted by my mother after it was obvious I was experiencing an extreme sugar low. As was the case with the crash on the 12th, there was nothing that I could point to, to determine why I had crashed. Again, feeling guilty, I assumed it was my fault, and promised to do better.

Saturday passed, and I did not touch any of my tasty new drinks (with chromium), but on Sunday, after getting Mother from church, I had one. It was around 12:30 or so. At one o’clock or so, I lay down, and that is all I remember until Ma woke me at 7:30 in the evening, and again I was getting a sugar low. I was down to 51 by this point (normal range is 70-110), and getting lower. Quickly I got some supper on, and we ate, and the low passed.

That evening, after my nightly run, I had a can of that new drink. I stayed up a little late, and got thirsty again, and I had about ¾ of my last can. I went to bed, thinking all was well, but during the night, I suffered a severe crash, the worst of the four that I had last month. I cannot describe to you the agonies that I endured while being revived. Suffice it to say, I told the Elkhorn Ambulance crew that I never wanted to be woken like that again. They brushed off my apologies for having made them and the usual cadre of neighbors come out to see me in my sweat-soaked underwear, and told me that that was their job.

I thanked them, and begin to get myself together when suddenly that epiphany hit me, albeit a lot late. Every time I had crashed, I had had one of those strange drinks. Even the one on the 12th. I drank one then, on Friday night, on Sunday afternoon, and that fateful Sunday night, I had 1 and ¾ cans. It was then I googled chromium and human body. Turns out chromium is a trace element that is in the human body in such small amounts that its presence is measured in micrograms (1/1000th of a gram). But what it lacks in quantity, it makes up for in the jobs it does. And one of those jobs is allowing body to metabolize glucose. In other words, it makes your sugar go down. One website called it a prime factor in the body being able to use its insulin.

There are those diabetics who are called type 2, who developed insulin resistance. In my case, my insulin resistance is apparently tied to a deficiency in chromium. And even though I take a multi-vitamin each day with 100% of the RDA for chromium, this drink, with chromium in a liquid form, was getting into my blood stream rather quickly and, perhaps coupled with the insulin I was injecting, was crashing me in short order. It is with this in mind that I wrote this column. I want to warn other diabetics that they could face the same dangers if they unknowingly consume a drink that contains chromium. First, check the nutritional label, and if a drink contains chromium, the best advice is to stay away from it. And I if you have any questions about chromium, address them to your doctor, as I plan to, when I see him again. I hope by writing this that I save someone else from suffering the indignities of a crash and a revival under similar circumstances to my last one. After all, no one should be on display in sweat-soaked underwear, believe you me.