History

In 1994, I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. I had gone in for my annual woman's wellness exam, and they found sugar in my urine. My blood sugar at the time was over 300. Everyone in the office was in a panic, but I just felt like I always felt and didn't really know what the fuss was about.

I was pretty anti-drug at the time, and asked the doctor to work with me with diet and exercise to get my blood sugar down. I was very diligent in my eating and I took a walk every day. I got my blood sugar down to about 170. At the time, I wasn't taking it very seriously, but I did watch what I ate.

I moved to Arizona in 1996, and my first visit to a doctor came in 1997 when I was on public access insurance. At that time, the doctor put me on a mild drug - I believe it was Glyburide - which I took, but again didn't make too many major changes.

It was at my job in 1999 where one of our clients came in and told me about her father who had diabetes, and how he had to have a leg amputated, and how important it is to really take care of yourself - that the damage is being done INSIDE even if you don't feel it on the outside. For some reason, her warnings stuck, and I found a doctor who specialized in diabetes.

I went to Sobel Family Medicine for 10 years. My primary doctor was a physician's assistant, Diana Saylor. Diana was great! We had a good rapport. She did what she could to control my blood sugar with the necessary drugs, and also seemed able to motivate me to take the right actions for myself. For most of that time, my sugar was very controlled, although it did come with a rather high dosage of drugs. For most of the time, I was on 2000 mg Metformin and Avandia, which I got down to 1000 mg Metformin with some help from Weight Watchers and Curves.

Diana left Sobel Family Medicine in 2007, and the three physician assistants I had after that were not as effective, at least not with me. They changed my drugs to get me off the Avandia which had highly publicized negative side effects. One of them tried to convince me every time I was in to go on injectibles. Another one kept telling me to go off one drug or another, each time with disastrous results. After three years of not-as-controlled blood sugar levels, I finally gave up on Sobel in September 2010, and started searching for alternatives.

I had looked into some options and in October, I was able to get a 4 month supply of Eleotin tea which has been wonderful. My weight started coming off after a month of drinking the tea. I had lost over 10 pounds by the end of December. In January, I also started seeing a new doctor who is involved in integrated medicine and open to new ways to do things.

On January 20th, I met with Debbie Cyrel, my nutritionist, to discuss the results of my tests, and I am going forward with confidence that I am doing the best I can for myself at this time.