(no subject)
May. 23rd, 2026 12:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedarlingonehave gotten in touch with the pcp. apparently my insurance is denying the prior auths that have been filed, because the recall for their preferred brand of test strip and meter is not properly in some system or other, i have to assume due to how the regime has gutted the fda to line its pockets. i know the recall is on the fda website itself because i have gone and looked at it there, but obviously one cannot expect an insurance company to look at a website, they're too busy denying every possible sort of care in case somebody might be too sick to fight it.
anyway the pcp has initiated another attempt at getting me test strips and a matching meter, but due to our long weekend it cannot progress further until tuesday at the earliest. i continue titrating my insulin dosages upward; i am now doing 30 units of long-acting insulin in the morning and 10 short-acting with each meal, plus an extra amount determined by how overly high my blood sugar is at that meal. my numbers continue to spend 95% of their time between 200 and 250, which is sort of unsettling given that i'm now taking *counts on fingers* more than double the total insulin dose i was prescribed, but leia tells me it's quite normal to have your numbers look like nothing's happening and then you step it up just once more and everything goes plop into the target range.
i am a little dubious because leia is such a freak of nature but she does have 30+ years of experience taking insulin, and given that the hospital diabetes educator hasn't called back and the one i'm referred to appears (from the 70-question registration questionnaire i had to fill out today as part of the signup) to be mainly focused on "do you know what a carbohydrate is? eat less of them", leia is my main source of actual information i can use.
(by halfway through the questionnaire i was writing in the answer fields the sorts of indignantly sarcastic essays i usually save for the tags on tumblr polls. i was especially proud of the reply, to the question demanding my height and weight on a page otherwise fully devoted to questions about diet, "No. I was extremely athletic when I could walk and I still have too much muscle mass for my BMI to do anything except send your brain tweeting out of your head to be replaced by the altar call of our lord and savior Anorexia". i'm supposed to have a one-on-one assessment call with the doctor leading the three-session class, this coming tuesday, before the class starts the following tuesday, so we will see whether she actually reads the questionnaires and how she reacts to having an extremely combative and mouthy one. i'm way too shy to mouth off to doctors in person, my fawn response kicks in at full force, but seventy questions is way too fucking much if you don't want me to turn into the version of myself who has thoughts on overly long uquiz surveys. i was genuinely taking it seriously for the first twenty or thirty questions but somewhere around "Is Your Health Important To You: All the time; Most of the time; Hardly ever; When I have a problem" i kind of snapped. and then it ended with a straight up altar call, which i didn't even know it was going to when i wrote the earlier bit, of "What one change are you ready to make today in order to control your diabetes? Lose weight" and then some other equally snide choices ending with "Start checking my blood sugar levels". i put down in the "other" box that i am VERY ready, capslock original, to start checking my blood sugar levels again if i can ever acquire any test strips. i did not explain that i also have a cgm, because frankly the cgm was running consistently 20-30 points lower than the finger stick so i don't actually trust any of the numbers it gives me, only the general trendlines. also i don't feel like explaining myself to someone who phrases quiz questions in a way that expects a tickybox and then provides radio buttons. of course, if it turns out the diabetes class doctor has had a terrible quiz inflicted upon her -- i think the signup lady said it was a her -- and understands that it is terrible and i have no reason to trust her based on it, i am happy to recalculate my opinion at that time.)
honestly with how everything is going i feel like i may wind up having to learn how to mouth off to doctors' faces. i feel it's only fair to the physical therapist, for instance, once that process starts, to be up front with them that while i am referred for twelve sessions at twice a week, the doctor made it very clear that he simply does not care to treat me and hopes the PT will suffice as a placebo -- he didn't even prescribe the prescription-strength ibuprofen he promised, and i haven't called back because i fear he's the sort who will somehow spin that into "drug-seeking behavior" -- and that travel is so difficult and draining for me that they will have a maximum of two sessions to convince me they can offer some amount of improvement which might be worth six weeks of complete inability to spend any time interacting with my partner on a more articulate level than "can't talk, ow".
(given that my second round of lumbar PT, undertaken when the exercises from the first round stopped helping, not only produced no improvement but injured my right shoulder so badly that i had to get muscle relaxers from the doctor to keep my desk job, i am currently at a general attitude of "there is at most a 0.1% chance a third round will help but the second physical therapist *was* kind of full of himself so i will at least meet with this one and see if they seem any less useless than the doctor who referred me".)
i'm still only getting two meals most days, which means my total insulin intake is running rather lower than it really should. but frankly given how badly getting a bad grade in blood sugar triggers my anorexia, and how absolutely calculated that quiz was to trigger it even more, i'm fairly proud that i managed two today. also i'm starting to discover how to manipulate my glycemic index by eating something high in protein and/or fat first and then my carbs afterwards.
(i am also incredibly worried about what happens when i lose my food stamps, which i am told will happen in july unless i am applicated for ssi by then or have gotten a job working at least 20 hours a week, which latter based on local minimum wage would lose me my food stamps anyway. i was attempting to see the orthopedist in order to get either a diagnosis with which i could apply to ssi or, preferably, a brace or shot or operation to fix whatever is causing the pain so i could then at least try to obtain a job with the basic qualification of "able to sit up". but the PT won't be done until mid july and then i have to have the followup appointment, which he actually told me not to schedule unless the PT didn't fix me but i scheduled anyway because the front desk lady didn't say i couldn't, and i don't expect him to be any help there either so i'll have to either figure out how you do the asking for a second opinion thing or whether i just ghost him and try another practice with an even worse travel situation. and protein and fats are expensive! carbs are the only things that are cheap! so my food insecurity anxiety is really fucking acting up too.)
i don't even have a real cane, for christ's sakes. he couldn't offer me a prescription for a goddamned $20 cane from the cvs. i have a hiking stick, which is actually an unfinished dowel with ten years of skin oils ground into it, and a rubber foot on the bottom and the carved top handgrip of a previous hiking stick that broke. what i really need if they can't actually fix me is one of those walkers you can also sit down on. but he couldn't even offer me a fucking cane. or to write a letter to the metro system asking them to give me door-to-door transportation so i don't have to hike a mile minimum every time i have a doctor appointment. it is very clear that he simply does not believe i'm in pain, because i am able to drag myself so far. idiot. i've had to do my own menstrual sick-day care since i was nine. if the pain isn't making you vomit, it's a seven at best. i've pushed through things that would give your weak ass a fucking stroke to experience.
but noooo the x-rays say i have a normal back and he won't order any soft tissue imaging (not that my research suggests it would be likely to show what i suspect is the problem, but i did Tell him what i suspect is the problem, a torn ligament in my right sacroiliac joint twenty years ago that never healed right and keeps getting worse, and he simply did not acknowledge it. which was perhaps one step better than the previous doctor i told about it in 2015 who said that's impossible to happen and i'm just fat -- well, he said "deconditioned" because they get paid by the syllable when it comes to insults apparently -- but still does not address the fact that it keeps getting worse.)
(other hypotheses include the hip dysplasia, which i had at birth and was never treated for but have never found out if it cleared up by itself, or the weird bulge in my abdominal muscles which happened around the same time as my back got really bad but has never been imaged because my pcp at that time was like "it's probably a hernia, i won't order imaging for it unless it gets infected". it hasn't gotten infected but i feel like having a hernia in the middle of my core muscles would probably make it harder to hold my back up with them perchance. but the orthopedist did not want to know any of my hypotheses. he wanted me to take my normal x-ray and my PT referral and leave. i don't know why. perhaps i'm not expensive enough to fix, or perhaps he was offended that i rescheduled twice due to being stuck in the icu, or who knows what. he didn't even tell me to lose weight which is usually step one for doctors who don't want to treat me.)
anyway the pcp has initiated another attempt at getting me test strips and a matching meter, but due to our long weekend it cannot progress further until tuesday at the earliest. i continue titrating my insulin dosages upward; i am now doing 30 units of long-acting insulin in the morning and 10 short-acting with each meal, plus an extra amount determined by how overly high my blood sugar is at that meal. my numbers continue to spend 95% of their time between 200 and 250, which is sort of unsettling given that i'm now taking *counts on fingers* more than double the total insulin dose i was prescribed, but leia tells me it's quite normal to have your numbers look like nothing's happening and then you step it up just once more and everything goes plop into the target range.
i am a little dubious because leia is such a freak of nature but she does have 30+ years of experience taking insulin, and given that the hospital diabetes educator hasn't called back and the one i'm referred to appears (from the 70-question registration questionnaire i had to fill out today as part of the signup) to be mainly focused on "do you know what a carbohydrate is? eat less of them", leia is my main source of actual information i can use.
(by halfway through the questionnaire i was writing in the answer fields the sorts of indignantly sarcastic essays i usually save for the tags on tumblr polls. i was especially proud of the reply, to the question demanding my height and weight on a page otherwise fully devoted to questions about diet, "No. I was extremely athletic when I could walk and I still have too much muscle mass for my BMI to do anything except send your brain tweeting out of your head to be replaced by the altar call of our lord and savior Anorexia". i'm supposed to have a one-on-one assessment call with the doctor leading the three-session class, this coming tuesday, before the class starts the following tuesday, so we will see whether she actually reads the questionnaires and how she reacts to having an extremely combative and mouthy one. i'm way too shy to mouth off to doctors in person, my fawn response kicks in at full force, but seventy questions is way too fucking much if you don't want me to turn into the version of myself who has thoughts on overly long uquiz surveys. i was genuinely taking it seriously for the first twenty or thirty questions but somewhere around "Is Your Health Important To You: All the time; Most of the time; Hardly ever; When I have a problem" i kind of snapped. and then it ended with a straight up altar call, which i didn't even know it was going to when i wrote the earlier bit, of "What one change are you ready to make today in order to control your diabetes? Lose weight" and then some other equally snide choices ending with "Start checking my blood sugar levels". i put down in the "other" box that i am VERY ready, capslock original, to start checking my blood sugar levels again if i can ever acquire any test strips. i did not explain that i also have a cgm, because frankly the cgm was running consistently 20-30 points lower than the finger stick so i don't actually trust any of the numbers it gives me, only the general trendlines. also i don't feel like explaining myself to someone who phrases quiz questions in a way that expects a tickybox and then provides radio buttons. of course, if it turns out the diabetes class doctor has had a terrible quiz inflicted upon her -- i think the signup lady said it was a her -- and understands that it is terrible and i have no reason to trust her based on it, i am happy to recalculate my opinion at that time.)
honestly with how everything is going i feel like i may wind up having to learn how to mouth off to doctors' faces. i feel it's only fair to the physical therapist, for instance, once that process starts, to be up front with them that while i am referred for twelve sessions at twice a week, the doctor made it very clear that he simply does not care to treat me and hopes the PT will suffice as a placebo -- he didn't even prescribe the prescription-strength ibuprofen he promised, and i haven't called back because i fear he's the sort who will somehow spin that into "drug-seeking behavior" -- and that travel is so difficult and draining for me that they will have a maximum of two sessions to convince me they can offer some amount of improvement which might be worth six weeks of complete inability to spend any time interacting with my partner on a more articulate level than "can't talk, ow".
(given that my second round of lumbar PT, undertaken when the exercises from the first round stopped helping, not only produced no improvement but injured my right shoulder so badly that i had to get muscle relaxers from the doctor to keep my desk job, i am currently at a general attitude of "there is at most a 0.1% chance a third round will help but the second physical therapist *was* kind of full of himself so i will at least meet with this one and see if they seem any less useless than the doctor who referred me".)
i'm still only getting two meals most days, which means my total insulin intake is running rather lower than it really should. but frankly given how badly getting a bad grade in blood sugar triggers my anorexia, and how absolutely calculated that quiz was to trigger it even more, i'm fairly proud that i managed two today. also i'm starting to discover how to manipulate my glycemic index by eating something high in protein and/or fat first and then my carbs afterwards.
(i am also incredibly worried about what happens when i lose my food stamps, which i am told will happen in july unless i am applicated for ssi by then or have gotten a job working at least 20 hours a week, which latter based on local minimum wage would lose me my food stamps anyway. i was attempting to see the orthopedist in order to get either a diagnosis with which i could apply to ssi or, preferably, a brace or shot or operation to fix whatever is causing the pain so i could then at least try to obtain a job with the basic qualification of "able to sit up". but the PT won't be done until mid july and then i have to have the followup appointment, which he actually told me not to schedule unless the PT didn't fix me but i scheduled anyway because the front desk lady didn't say i couldn't, and i don't expect him to be any help there either so i'll have to either figure out how you do the asking for a second opinion thing or whether i just ghost him and try another practice with an even worse travel situation. and protein and fats are expensive! carbs are the only things that are cheap! so my food insecurity anxiety is really fucking acting up too.)
i don't even have a real cane, for christ's sakes. he couldn't offer me a prescription for a goddamned $20 cane from the cvs. i have a hiking stick, which is actually an unfinished dowel with ten years of skin oils ground into it, and a rubber foot on the bottom and the carved top handgrip of a previous hiking stick that broke. what i really need if they can't actually fix me is one of those walkers you can also sit down on. but he couldn't even offer me a fucking cane. or to write a letter to the metro system asking them to give me door-to-door transportation so i don't have to hike a mile minimum every time i have a doctor appointment. it is very clear that he simply does not believe i'm in pain, because i am able to drag myself so far. idiot. i've had to do my own menstrual sick-day care since i was nine. if the pain isn't making you vomit, it's a seven at best. i've pushed through things that would give your weak ass a fucking stroke to experience.
but noooo the x-rays say i have a normal back and he won't order any soft tissue imaging (not that my research suggests it would be likely to show what i suspect is the problem, but i did Tell him what i suspect is the problem, a torn ligament in my right sacroiliac joint twenty years ago that never healed right and keeps getting worse, and he simply did not acknowledge it. which was perhaps one step better than the previous doctor i told about it in 2015 who said that's impossible to happen and i'm just fat -- well, he said "deconditioned" because they get paid by the syllable when it comes to insults apparently -- but still does not address the fact that it keeps getting worse.)
(other hypotheses include the hip dysplasia, which i had at birth and was never treated for but have never found out if it cleared up by itself, or the weird bulge in my abdominal muscles which happened around the same time as my back got really bad but has never been imaged because my pcp at that time was like "it's probably a hernia, i won't order imaging for it unless it gets infected". it hasn't gotten infected but i feel like having a hernia in the middle of my core muscles would probably make it harder to hold my back up with them perchance. but the orthopedist did not want to know any of my hypotheses. he wanted me to take my normal x-ray and my PT referral and leave. i don't know why. perhaps i'm not expensive enough to fix, or perhaps he was offended that i rescheduled twice due to being stuck in the icu, or who knows what. he didn't even tell me to lose weight which is usually step one for doctors who don't want to treat me.)
no subject
Date: 2026-05-23 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-05-23 07:26 pm (UTC)I continue to hope that just statistically you will meet a specialist who doesn't suck as hard as humanly possible, but in the meantime I am glad that you know how your body works.
*hugs*