blood_sugar medicated bird the essential source of bodily energy the safe range in a healthy person is between 80-120 mg/dl, from 121 - 150 mg/dl a person is considered borderline diabetic anything consistently above 150mg/dl is considered diabetic and is indicative that the either the pancreas, specifically the islets_of_langerhans, is not functioning properly in the production of the body's own natural supply of insulin, or conversely that the blood itself has somehow begun to fail to utlize the insulin that is already present. if blood_sugar levels reach a consistent level in the 250+ mg/dl range, diabetic complications begin to set in such as neuropathy (nerve deterioration resulting in numbness) slow recovery from wounding injuries, increased tendency toward infection, retinopathy (retinal damage caused by weakened blood_vessels, cause of blindness in some diabetics) long term incidence of high blod_sugar can result in the onset of ketoacidosis, which causes a bodily domino_effect depleting the body's electrolyte supply as the the body drains all available fluids in an attempt to flush out and eliminate the unuseable excess glucose in the bloodstream, which also results in the body reverting to the breakdown and consumption of it's own lipid (fat) and protein (muscle) supplies for sustenance resulting in extreme, rapid weight loss (like, say, oh, about 58 lbs in just under 3 months - which is nearly twice the medically recommended rate for safe weight loss) and further, ironically incidental increases in blood_sugar levels at 500mg/dl and above, the danger and likelihood of lapsing into a diabetic_coma are very high, although in a few rare cases some patients have remained conscious as high as 2,400mg/dl When i was diagnosed, i tested at 298mg/dl... six days later, when i was admitted to the intensive_scare_unit i tested at somewhere over 700mg/dl and the attending Dr. told my family that by the looks of the blood_work i was maybe only hours away from a coma...it took six days of rather involved treatment and management to keep my blood glucose below 300mg/dl, but from there, the decrease was more controlled and now some ten days since i got home, i am averaging between 110 to 135mg/dl for this week (of course the agressive dose of long-acting insulin that i have to inject every morning an evening might also have something to do with that too) of course, conversely i now also cannot let myself fall too far below the safe level for too long or a whole separate set of complications will set in (hypoglycemic symptoms...or worse, insulin shock) in which case i must then make an effort (candy or juice or soda) to _raise_ my blood_sugar levels or again risk a coma this all sounds precarious, but managing it so far has been an easier proposition than i expected, one of the attending doctors intuited that i had something (a familiar, opiate laden skeleton in ye olde closet) in my history that diminished my fear of needles when i was finally permitted to draw up and administer my own dosages and stuck the needle in without flinching or hesitating (well, since it is only a 28 gauge needle it doesn't feel like much at all anyway) 020714 ... Igor are you saying you brought me an abnormal bir had a false high reading (235) and took my standard evening dose, now three hours later i actually had to snack on something sugary ASA-fucking-P, else i risk having a REALLY lousy night 52mg/dl is insulin_shock territory ... bottoming_out for lack of a better phrase for fuck sakes, from one extreme to the other, even in my body chemistry i was always convinced that i was an anomaly of one sort or another - not simply unique as all people inherently are, but downright abnormal ... more than a little bit "off", now even more so... if i was anymore of a goddamn freak of nature they'd have me floating in a nice big jar of formaldehyde 020718 ... she Sex_Magic 020718 what's it to you? who go blather from