Lots of Health Numbers - My Health Journey

Let’s start by discussing my meeting with the Doctor from Virta on Wednesday. Virta is the health care company that Blue Shield is hooking me up with to help reduce or eliminate my diabetes symptoms. They provide equipment, medical support, nutritional support, and of course they have an app. Wednesday’s meeting was only mildly informative. The doctor mainly asked me a bunch of questions about my health, such as if I get burning sensations in my feet (I don’t). If I get kidney stones (I don’t). Whether I’ve ever been prescribed insulin (I haven’t). Whether I’ve been hospitalized for anything related to my diabetes (no again). Of course we went over my medications and their effectiveness/issues. He doesn’t seem to concerned about the meds I’m taking, so overall it sounds good.
He spent a little time telling me about the program, and asked if I had done Keto before. I told him I had, and that it had been effective but I couldn’t keep it up long term. He told me that this time I’ll have a support team, which is great, but am I supposed to do this for the rest of my life? Are they still going to be there in five years? We’ll see. For now though, I am still waiting for the “final approval” and for the kit they are supposed to send me. I can’t wait for the unboxing.
After my meeting with the doctor, my wife and I made the drive up to Phoenix. We got out a little later than I wanted because I guess rush hour in Phoenix starts at 3 in the afternoon these days. It was bumper-to-bumper for the first twenty miles thorough the city until it finally cleared a little bit toward the end of the line. We stayed at a Holiday in near the North Phoenix Hospital and Clinic where my wife was having a procedure Covid Booster that day.
Today was my Pulmonary Capacity Test. I’m only going to briefly go over the results there because I haven’t discussed with with the doctor yet. This was the bad news of the trip, but it wasn’t unexpected. I do have reduced lung capacity. This is no shocker because about a third of my right lung has been collapsed for at least a year and a half, but it is the official confirmation that indeed, I am not able to take in or breathe out as much air as I should. We’ll see what that means when the Doctor follows up some time next week.
That’s the summary of my visit to Phoenix. I was able to get my steps in every day, but did fall short of my active calorie goal one day. Overall, considering all the travel and appointments, I think I did pretty well. We’ll talk more about that at the end.
Before that though, I finally got my labs back from Labcorp and I’m seeing a lot of improvement already, even though we’re only about six weeks out from my last labs.
The biggest improvement is in my A1C. That’s gone from 10.3 to 6.9. Considering it’s been just six weeks and A1C doesn’t fully reset for three months, I think that is a spectacular drop. I can’t have asked for a better result. I should add that my fasting glucose was at 93, which is also good. It was 133 at my last lab on January 3rd.
Looking at the other metabolic number that was out of whack last time, my AST was 39 in January, which was high. Now it is down to 21, which is almost exactly center in the normal range. AST stands for aspartate transferase, which is a good reason to just call it AST. It measures Liver health, so getting back in the normal range is fantastic news.
When it comes to my Lipid/Cholesterol panels, I am still in the low range. In January I has a total cholesterol of 79, it is now down to 73. My LDL or bad cholesterol is down to 30 from 39. My HDL or good cholesterol rose from 23 to 29. They would like it optionally to be above 40, but with my total cholesterol so dramatically low, the ratio of good cholesterol to total cholesterol is incredible. They consider a ratio below 5 to be in normal range. My last ratio was 3.43, which is quite good, but now it is down to 2.51. The lower I can keep that ratio, the better my heart health will stay.
The other number I consider a big improvement is my Creatinine, which helps with muscle development. Last time I was barely in the normal range at 7. Now I’m at 9.9, which puts me in the middle of the normal range. So, after six weeks of walking 10,000 steps a day and watching my diet, I’ve got great numbers for everything except my A1C, and even that is dramatically improved. As long as I keep up my routine, I look forward to that number coming down even more the next time.
As for my daily numbers. I’ve been away from my regular scale for a couple days, but this morning the clinic weighed me in at 304. That wasn’t a first thing in the morning fasting weight. I’d actually eaten a big breakfast, so even though it’s a little higher than my last weigh in at home, It is 30 pounds less than I weighed in October. That’s 30 pounds lost in four months, and gives me a lot of hope that I can hit 250 by the end of the year.

[@The0Patt]

Pause to congradulate you on the big improvement on the A1C!

[@JohnHewittpoewar]

Thank you!