#5 Hey dude, where is my magic bullet?

I was on a crusade in the first few years of my diabetic life. I wanted to find that magic bullet that would rid me of my diabetes.

In this article I strive to explain why sometimes shifting your perspective is the best thing you can do to find that elusive magic bullet. My crusade and my journey, having a common theme. I let you draw parallels between these two experiences, if any.

Crusade: I have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes around the time my daughter was born. Though I was genetically susceptible to diabetes, the onset was accelerated by my then life style (sedentary, not eating healthy), and stressful work life (self inflicted). I had all the text book symptoms of diabetes and when I went for testing, my sugar, cholesterol and triglyceride numbers came at 300, 300, and 600 respectively. I was a walking time bomb. Typical of such revelations, I spent long hours researching for the cure. I read every article about the benefits of various natural treatments like Cinnamon (Asian), Fenugreek, Bitter gourd, Apple Cider Vinegar, Grapefruit, and supplements like Chromium Picolinate, Magnesium Chloride, Alpha Lipoic Acid, both R-Alpha and Alpha, (not to be confused with Alpha Linoic acid) etc. The nocturnal hypoglycemic episodes would leave me fatigued and would live in a constant fear of experiencing a low hypoglycemia. This constant alert would add to the stress and that would trigger the further mismanagement of blood sugar level. My existential angst about seemingly infallible solutions failing miserably in producing expecting results, the frustration and disappointment would put such an emotional strain that I often felt desperate and discouraged due to the futility of my experiments.

My experiments continued along with increased dosage of medication and I reached a fork around 2011. My endocrinologist said either I switch to insulin or try losing some weight. For the previous 10 years or so, I kept assuring my doctor during quarterly visits that I would lose weight by the next visit. I always had a reason, nay an excuse for not able achieve it. Though there is nothing wrong with taking insulin, millions of people do, to me it was a personal defeat. I can’t explain why it is the case, it just was defeat. Around the same time I came across a quote from late actor Jimmy Dean: “You can’t change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust the sails to reach your destination.”

That was an aha moment. I joined a medically supervised weight management program recommended by my endocrinologist and in 12 weeks I lost about 38 lbs and most importantly my HbA1C numbers came down from 7.7 to 6.2. The program is focused on behavior change about food and weight loss is just one step. It was all about weight management. That program gave me literally about 10 more years of insulin free life. As we know diabetes is a progressive degeneration of body’s ability to process blood sugar, the magic has worn out. My numbers have crept up again to 7.4 about a year ago. Then there was an injection that came into market beginning of 2019 that was added to my regimen. Viola!!! I am back to 6.2-6.6 range with by HbA1C.

Lesson learned: I was so obsessed with finding that magic bullet that I did not see the ground reality. Clinically speaking diabetes is a disease, and I was looking for a cure. Once I shifted my perspective to treat is as a “disability”, i.e. my body’s inability to process sugar like a non diabetic, it was liberating and all of a sudden I was excited with degrees of freedom now at my disposal to deal with this “disability. Please note that ADA does not categorize diabetes as a disability. That was the adjustment to sails I needed as Jimmy Dean so eloquently put it.

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

Here are three examples of changing the perspective.

This is the original image. Nothing special about it. Just another generic capture.

This is a version that is cropped (i.e. changed the perspective). Looks a tad better, IMHO.

I cropped the rest and focused on the flower to the right which star shaped and looked good to my eyes. Also, I darkened the background to look like the one below. Hope you can see and appreciate the point I am striving to make in this article.