dlydailyhope,
I have stenosis, spondylolisthesis and idiopathic peripheral neuropathy.
I smoked for 25 years and hard. I'm 58. I'm the sole bread winner with a stay at home 'homeschooling wife who cares for our two young kids one four and one seven. I did sports all my life; triathlons, swimming, distance bicycling and a lot more. I was beating some of my old triathlon speeds in running, swimming and biking only two years ago. Lately I've been having trouble carrying a heavy business bag across the room as the numbness in my feet gets triggered and the pain in my ankles becomes unbearable.
Regarding the metabolic issues. I've been teetering on the brink of 'pre-diabetes' for over 15 years. Prior to that I would describe myself as a sugar addict. I've worked harder or lessor at controlling my blood sugar at different times and in response to occasionally getting it low then having it return up again. When I was first warned about blood sugar by a doctor it was ten years ago and my fasting blood sugar was 113. At that time my doctor was saying it was not technically 'pre-diabetes.' There's been an ongoing debate over where the lines should be. About three years after missing my annual check ups because of covid I was diagnosed with more metabolic issues including; fatty liver, high blood pressure and cholesterol issues. Now I've got these nerve and back issues. I've seen; Ortho, neurology, vascular docs plus regular doc. All of them insist that all my issues are not metabolic issues. Instead I'm being told that the spinal issues are 'normal' aging and that the neuropathy is 'idiopathic.'
Meanwhile, I've seen what actual diabetes can do to the human body first hand and in my research. It's such a destructive condition and especially when uncontrolled. So full diabetes is wildly destructive to humans and I'm being told that elevated blood sugar levels that show statistic relevance to my conditions is not the cause. Perhaps you can begin to see my interest in the topic. So, if diabetes is so powerful a condition why are blood sugar and other metabolic issues not at the very least co-conspirators in my conditions. An 'input' into a result doesn't have to be the sole 'input' into a result in order to be fully accountable for that result. What I mean by that is that perhaps I damaged my spine by running to hard and it's begun to degenerate as a natural part of my aging. Ok but what if I did that damage but there wasn't an underlying condition of elevated blood sugar for over 15 years. How would my body have responded to the insult if I were in top metabolic health? I think that way about how I got here but also about how I might help heal myself. I've been being told to 'chill' out regarding so many metabolic issues that they're inherited or any number of things. I've been told 'NOT to worry' about slightly elevated blood sugar levels by so many in the medical profession. For the time being I think I'll be not believing this anymore. I'm going all out to eliminate the metabolic issues. I might go down but I'm not going down because I didn't try first to correct these metabolic issues. There's an ongoing debate about whether metabolic syndrome even should be an excepted name for something. Now thanks to our little dialogue I think I'll use that term liberally to describe my condition. Thank you for responding and reading.