A New Activity from My Tumor--Goofy Insulin Levels

As the title suggests my carcinoid tumor or tumors are now affecting my insulin levels. It began several months ago with an episode at my friend Janet's house.


I began to have my usual symptoms from low blood sugar about 12 noon: hunger, weakness, sweating. Janet offered me some crackers to eat, but I rapidly began to feel nausea and a hint of diarrhea coming on. Janet asked if I wanted to lie down in her spare room, but I thought I had better just get home in case the diarrhea began. You know how it is with carcinoid, and I didn't want to be at Janet's house for hours afraid to get in the car.


Basically, without eating anything my condition began to self-correct. I checked with myself every mile as I drove to see if I should pull off the road, but I never got any worse. It is an 8 mile drive, and I began to feel a little less shaky about 4 miles along the way. Another half mile and I was less sweaty. When I had driven 5 or 6 miles toward home, I was much better. I felt hungry and like my blood sugar was about 75, but not like it was 55, and I was shaking.

After hearing this story, my internist prescribed a glucose monitor for me in August, but I didn't use it much until the middle of September when my sugar did a really fast drop down to 54. It was about 3 minutes from just thinking I needed something to eat, to shaking and sweating again. 

I had another sugar drop down to 59, and one Sunday day I had morning blood sugar of 187. I felt bad for about 8 hours before my blood sugar dropped. 

So now my good internist has sat down with me and looked at my table of blood sugars, and figured out how to help me. I was scared that I was just going to go through this with no way to help myself except to eat frequent small meals. The doctor questioned me and realized that I was not giving myself my Octreotide shots on schedule every day.

Sometimes I will get busy doing something at the computer and I don't give myself my injection until 2 or 3 hours after I should have given them. Twice I did not give myself an injection until 4 pm, so I never got a second shot until the next morning about 9 am. 

Therefore, now I make sure to give my Octreotide injection between 11:00 and 11:30 am and pm. Since I have done that I have not had any unusual episodes. My blood sugar may start to drop and when I test it, it is at 75. So I have learned what the symptoms are for when my sugar is at 75, and I will eat then.
I still get a long-acting-repeatable injection of Octreotide at the cancer center every two weeks. I hope this information helps someone who is beginning to have these same 
symptoms.

Update on 12/27/2013: My sugar levels continue to stay level most of the time. One weekend during Christmas shopping season I had a low blood sugar while I was out shopping. Then the next day I had another one at home in spite of being on regular injections every 12 hours. Luckily, I was alright both times because I had some hard candy with me in my purse, and I slowly walked back to where Richard was loading merchandise in our car. God was good and Richard was still there where I could find him.

Help from Psalm 91

It's fall now, and I have returned to going to Bible Study Fellowship to study Matthew in the New Testament. We are reading about the early life of Christ, and one assignment was to read Psalm 91. We were to put ourselves in the place of Mary and Joseph when they had to flee from Bethlehem to Egypt and write how this Psalm may have comforted them. 

I could see how having to flee to and from Egypt would put Mary and Joseph in the mind to benefit from "If you make the Most High your dwelling--even the Lord who is my refuge--then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. for he will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone."

As I read farther in the chapter, I found verses that helped me, "Because she loves me," says the Lord, "I will rescue her; I will protect her for she acknowledges My name. She will call upon me and I will answer her; I will be with her in trouble, I will deliver her and honor her. With long life I will satisfy her and show her My salvation."

I realized how many illnesses I have that God has rescued me from in-a-manner-of-speaking. He has given me a very mild case of Sjogren's Syndrome. Several years ago my internist commented that my symptoms are milder than most patients after 25 years. At one point, the medication Restasis was released to the market just as I was no longer being helped by over-the-counter moisturizing eye drops. I have a dry mouth, but there are OTC medicines for that. I have developed neuropathy in my feet slowly. There are patients who cannot feel their feet very well and have even fallen off step-stools because they did not feel the bottom of their feet. Plaquenil helps to relieve the stiffness in my fingers.

I have been healed by God from fibrimyalgia and the extreme dryness in my left eye that caused stabbing pains. I have required only one incision to remove carcinoid  tumors; some patients have surgery every few years. I could be near death or crippled up due to arthritis, degenerative disk disease or carcinoid cancer. I don't feel very well today, and my blood sugar is shooting up and plunging down, but God has blessed me and I love Him. I love God and He has blessed me. It's a two-way street.