I hate doctors!

Settle in for another long post. My life has been nothing if not dramatic lately.

Doctors suck. They just do. I will never go to a doctor again and ask for something without knowing exactly what I want and why. I told the physician's assistant last week that I wanted a glucose tolerance test, and that I knew I wasn't diabetic, but thought I might have insulin resistance or hypoglycemia. So what does she do? Order a straight glucose tolerance test that will tell me if I'm diabetic or not! I just got done telling her I wasn't diabetic! Hello?! Anyone home?! To test for insulin resistance you need a GTT including testing for insulin levels.

I found out she hadn't ordered the insulin part until after the test, and proceded to go around in circles with the doctor's office to 1) get them to alter the test to test for both glucose and insulin, and 2) make sure they tested insulin at both the fasting and second hour draw.

I made a big enough bitch of myself (the squeaky wheel gets the grease) that I eventually got to talk one-on-one to a physician's assistant. She said they contacted the lab, told then to test for insulin, and the lab had tested for both glucose and insulin at both blood draws. Ok, cool.

She said to call Wednesday and they would have the results for me.

Then I asked her about my cholesterol and complete metabolic panel and asked them to fax me the results. She said my cholesterol was a bit high, and I asked her what it was. When she said 214 I could have had a heart attack! It's jumped 48 points, and 40 of those points are LDL (bad cholesterol)! I think it might be time to add flax seed and cut back on the eggs.

She wasn't worried because the HDL (good cholesterol) was so high. At 82 she said she's never seen it so high, and with HDL the higher the better. I know it's so high because I exercise so much.

In The Protein Power Lifeplan optimal cholesterol should be between 160 and 220, so at 214 I'm totally normal.

At any rate, I'm looking at ways to get the LDL down a bit. The rest of the numbers are awesome. Eventually I will put all the numbers online, with past results and normal ranges. I'll put a link here when I've done that.

Walked well over 10,000 steps yesterday, easy considering my 5 mile run that racked up 9300 steps all on it's own. 18,000 is definitely a new record. :)


Click to enlarge.
Ok, on to food today. The GTT is a fasting test, although I found out today that the reason they ban coffee is because people put cream and sugar into it. They said black coffee was fine. Well, why didn't you tell me before? I prefer my coffee black! So after I'd drunk the glucose drink I went over to the Starbucks in Safeway and got a small black coffee. Between that and three Ibuprofen tablets to deal with my headache, I started to feel human again. Plus the glucose drink got my blood sugar up so even though my tummy was empty, my body thought I'd eaten something.

After the second blood draw I walked over to Burger King and got a Whopper with cheese (no fries or anything else). I ate that while waiting for the bus. When I got to work I went next door to the mom and pop burger joint and got a cheeseburger, fries, and coffee shake. They have the best burgers and fries.

For a snack later I ran over to the gas station across the street and got a cappuccino and a Snickers bar.

Dinner was at Subway and semi-healthy. I got a 6-inch tuna on sourdough with a Diet Coke and chose cookies as my "side." (They give you a choice of chips, raisins, or two cookies.)

Back on Atkins tomorrow, and I should be able to hit the gym as well.

Technorati tagged: atkins, diet, atkins diet, low carb, weight loss, health, health and wellness, food, obesity, obese, overweight, fat, exercise, fitness, pedometer, high carb, cholesterol

Doctor image courtesy of WaveJumper.