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I’ll beat Diabetes with nutrition and knowledge and the help of Diabetes Free DFW

By Dennis Guten on March 21, 2013 3 Comments
Blood sugar readings

My blood sugar readings from the iPhone app called BloodSugar. Click to enlarge.

Ten days ago I started a new eating plan. I am eating very low carb for eight weeks in the attempt to lower my blood sugar and get off the insulin shots and diabetes (type 2) medication (Metformin) that I take.

I have been on Metformin for over eight years and the insulin shots were started after last summers’ hospital stay for Acute Pancreatitis.

Ruthie has started a new venture – a company called Diabetes Free DFW. She and her business partner, Deneice Scott, are holding classes, once a week for 16 weeks to educate participants about how nutrition can help them take charge of their own health and beat diabetes the natural way. The classes teach a method called The Diabetes Free Zone System.

The image shows my daily morning fasting blood sugars for the last 14 days. This morning it was 96. I have not seen a 96 since before June 11, 2012 when I went into the hospital.

I am very pleased with my progress on this plan. If my readings stay under 100 for three days, my doctor says to reduce the insulin by five units. If it continues to stay low, I can lower it five units until I am off the insulin.

This stage of the plan is eight weeks trying to hold to 60 carbs or less daily. So far, I have managed to be under 60 once, but have been close a few days. The first few days I kept thinking “no way am I going to go a whole day under 60 carbs,” but it actually is possible.

I have been keeping track of my daily food intake with an iPhone app called MyFitnessPal. It is intended to be a calorie tracker, but it also tracks carbs and that is what I am paying attention to. I have also lost 6-1/2 pounds in the last 10 days, but that is not my primary goal – getting off the diabetes medications is the primary goal.

I’ll try and post updates as often as I can. A big challenge coming up is the Jewish holiday of Passover. It’s not the week of not eating bread that is the challenge, but the two traditional meals with big Jewish families that I will have to negotiate carefully to stay on track.

I urge anyone wanting to rid themselves of the complications and medications of diabetes to look into taking these classes. i am learning so much about eating right and nutrition at each class.

Categories : Food, Health, Medical, Ruthie

Yes I was in the hospital, but I’m fine and energized

By Dennis Guten on September 15, 2012 3 Comments

On June 3, 2012 we attended the wedding of our son David and his lovely bride Amy in Colorado Springs, CO (video short). Everything about the trip and the wedding was perfect.

We got back, I worked three days and we went to another wedding (Mel and Brad Krugel – photos) on Sunday June 10.

On June 3, I went to work and fell violently ill midday and had to be transported to Methodist Richardson Medical Center by ambulance.

By late that night, after many painful hours I finally left the emergency room and was admitted to the hospital on the third floor (intermediate care). They had diagnosed me with Acute Pancreatitis, which we later found out, was caused by a gall stone blocking a duct to the Pancreas.

This was the first of anything I had to eat in a week, strawberry jell-o, which to me tasted absolutely wonderful!

This was the first of anything I had to eat in a week, strawberry jell-o, which to me tasted absolutely wonderful!


I spent the next week hooked up to multitudes of tubes, IV’s and other assorted devices and was pumped full of all sorts of stuff. For a week I was allowed no food or liquids (yes, I cheated on the liquids a bit).

I was there for a total of 15 days until I was healthy enough to have an operation to have my gall bladder removed.

My wonderful wife, Ruthie, stayed with me all 15 days and nights with only a few trips back home to take care of herself and minor details like paying bills and washing clothes. She was perfect and watched over me when the hospital staff tried to do stuff I had no strength to argue about.

I spent another three weeks at home recovering until I was finally able to get back to work at my job at UT Dallas doing Web Design. Luckily I had five weeks of sick time built up so I never had to lose any pay or take any vacation time.

It has been a while since I have blogged – January 29 of this year to be exact, but I’m back, healthy and energized to start up again. I have recently upgraded this blog to use the new version 3 of the Headway framework and Ruthie and I have been working on some new sites, one also built with Headway 3.0. I will try and showcase some of the work we have been doing in additional posts, plus some of the fun stuff I have been doing at UT Dallas (new template, a blog on our WordPress multiuser platform & mobile work).

Categories : Family Stuff, Medical, Ruthie
Tags : Hospital, Ruthie

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