Diabetics cure again

[Guest guest]

I've taken the liberty of cut and pasting the notes from Hess' and Scoparinos'

reports to a couple of my diabetic lists,

just to see what they have to say/think about the cure claim.

Like so many other diabetics here, I also have been amazed at the results and of

course I love not having to shoot

up insulin any more but I am pretty cautious about the consequences of

uncontrolled diabetes and tend to be

conservative when it comes to calling myself cured. Testing will always be part

of my life I'm afraid.

Though I haven't had an abnormally high test, my HbA1c was not " Normal " by any

means at 6.9 at 3 months.

Thats considered controlled....and the fact that it's controlled not by

medication but by weight loss, exercise and

whatever magick the DS gives me is great.

However I will have to see much lower HbA1c's and better eyesight (which is the

first place I notice high BG's) before

I call myself cured.

We all know that surgeons want to claim the best results from their surgeries

but it would have to be an

Endocronologist who considers the DS a cure, not a DS surgeon before " cure' is

accepted in the Diabetic field - and

many more studies done by Endos not Surgeons.

But diabetes is not a surgeons primary field of experience...and sometimes

doctors say things in lay terms about

fields that aren't their specialties....for example when I told the specialist

at my Pain Clinic I was going to have WLS

she said I " shouldn't have to, that I should just diet " . Of course she knew

nothing about all the diets I had been on,

nor did she know anything about WLS. I'm still dealing with the confusion about

mal-absorption of my time release

pain medication as there have been no tests done on this med and people with the

DS. WLS wasn't her area of

knowledge, just as diabetes isn't the surgeons area of great knowledge.

I personally think there is a big difference between the words cured and

controlled. Cured might tempt someone to

not test or consider diabetes as a significant medical problem but diabetes can

kill, miserably and horribly.

I post monthly to my diabetes lists about the WLS my weight loss and my

contgrolled diabetes and know of only

one other diabetic on those lists who has had WLS - A friend in Seattle who had

a VGB 2 years ago and who is down

over 100 lbs and doing wonderfully, and who has encouraged me thru my surgery

journey. We saw each other

last weekend and had a pic taken - I'll have to post it.

I don't want to sound like I doubt these surgeons....but I also don't want to

take chances with my health by

assuming too much. My Endo was very encouraging about this surgery as was my

PCP, who is so WLS positive

but both of them call my diabetes " well controlled " .

I'd like to know the URL for those cites, if anyone has it - I'd love to print

the whole thing up to take in to the

doctors for consideration, post it to the diabetes lists and see what springs

up.

elle in rainy wretched Oregon