Diabetes - since my mid-30's - now am approaching 50. Have maxed out on all pills. Very soon will be put on insulin. Did lot of running for a decade or more. Diet control is my weak point and toughest to be disciplined about. Not that I gorge on sweets/candies - but rice, fried food is something I cannot do a clean breakup with. But as and when I can - do regular exercise (running) and diet control. Very difficult fo…
Ask HN: How do you deal with chronic illness?
91–100 of 187 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with chronic illness?
#92Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with chronic illness?
#93You can’t let it dictate anything. If it hurts to go to the gym, still go. Find the constraints that allow you to do what you want to do without aggravating your body too much, and build some pain tolerance. Psychological tolerance is a must as well, but you almost have no choice but to develop that unless you literally want to never progress. This is advice for people that make it out of their critical treatment pha…
Your comment about finding the constraints of the body that don’t aggravate things too much is good though.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with chronic illness?
#94I blog and I run a bunch of Reddits in part to try to spread the word about how to do this well and in part in hopes of developing an adequate income for myself. I have about six years of college. I can write. I know a bunch of useful stuff. But I can't work a "regular" job and punch a clock and yadda.
I learned a lot about how the so-called "immune system" works and I take a diet- and lifestyle-based approach to dealing my condition as a superior approach to a primarily drugs- and surgeries-based approach.
I'm not anti-drug. I'm pro-health.
People routinely think that my focus on doing what is more effective means I'm some high-handed, judgy anti-drug person in the extreme and this is absolutely not true. It is the opposite of true.
I was thrilled to pieces to finally get good drugs when I finally got a proper diagnosis after a lifetime of being dismissed as some kind of hypochondriac. But eating right for my condition and living "defensively" to protect my health made drugs less and less necessary and my quality of life is just better this way than it was when I was on scads of drugs.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with chronic illness?
#95I suffered from terrible psoriasis. The medicine was expensive ($100 copays) and it was constantly itchy, flaking, and ugly. In my case, it was stress related. I quit my job, took another job that paid more but with less stress. And everything disappeared over the course of two weeks. I realize this doesnt work for every disease, but some are stress related.
What stress did your old job have that your new one does not?
In one case, a person found a major accounting issue where prices were faked and suddenly found himself facing sexual harassment claims from the very department that was responsible for the fake prices. In 2009 and 2010 people were desperately clinging to jobs and that meant stabbing anyone else that could be stabbed to get the spotlight away. This is mostly in Quant/IT/Ops at mid-senior'ish levels (below Managing Director.)
Every single decision was memo'd with signatures. Worse, we weren't in the group of people making millions, so if we got in trouble it wasn't as if we had millions of dollars worth of defense attorney costs saved up.
One lesson learned is that if the money is good, there are probably some shadow liabilities. I mean, $300k/yr (mind you, this is 12+yrs ago) is great, but not great enough to be worth this stress.
I took a job in tech paying the same in annual TC. There is some delivery stress, but not huge. No investigations. No financial reporting improprieties. No depositions. No memos. No execs in prison. NO MORE PSORIASIS! YAY!
Mostly stress over getting some random Linux driver working, pretty nice!
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with chronic illness?
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fasting should help. A friend of mine reversed the process already in his 50s
Fasting might be a bit risky at advanced ages but reducing carbs (not only sugar) to the minimum for quite a while and then being very conscious about the intake in the future is the key to success. Also you'll lose some weight which can be good if you're not that slim. Source: two family members on his 50s and 60s completely cured, one was about to use insulin and the other one was using it already for about a year.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with chronic illness?
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think they invited you to give them health advice.
Incoming downvotes... Why should GP post at all then? Sounds like he or she has given up on something that some others have been able to defeat. I realize it’s hard to get over the idea that there isn’t a magic pill to “fix” you and allow you to continue treating your body/mind like a garbage can, and yah, big changes are hard. Looking for pity maybe?
"I realize it’s hard to get over the idea that there isn’t a magic pill to “fix” you..."
Is that deliberate irony?
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with chronic illness?
#98Diabetes - since my mid-30's - now am approaching 50. Have maxed out on all pills. Very soon will be put on insulin. Did lot of running for a decade or more. Diet control is my weak point and toughest to be disciplined about. Not that I gorge on sweets/candies - but rice, fried food is something I cannot do a clean breakup with. But as and when I can - do regular exercise (running) and diet control. Very difficult fo…
Fasting should help. A friend of mine reversed the process already in his 50s
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with chronic illness?
#99Diabetes - since my mid-30's - now am approaching 50. Have maxed out on all pills. Very soon will be put on insulin. Did lot of running for a decade or more. Diet control is my weak point and toughest to be disciplined about. Not that I gorge on sweets/candies - but rice, fried food is something I cannot do a clean breakup with. But as and when I can - do regular exercise (running) and diet control. Very difficult fo…
I was diagnosed when I was 30 (A1C of 13). After maxing out pills (7 a day between Metformin, Glimperide, Onglyza, Invokana), I went to multiple daily injections, and then a pump with CGM. The pump is life changing as far as getting better control. It still isn't perfect (latest A1C of 7.5), but it makes a big positive difference.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with chronic illness?
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
> --Stay away from online "support groups" for chronic illness. 99% of them are toxic as hell, especially the "spoonie" community. Instead, seek out people who have chronic illness and are living the sort of life you want. Develop individual friendships with them, and learn from them. Totally. The more I think about the disease and difficulties, the unhappier I am. If I don't read that garbage the unhappiness and bit…
Oh, hey, fellow epileptic! Couldn't agree with your comment more. I've also found that diet has a huge impact, and I'm fascinated by research into the gut microbiome and the giant impact it has on the brain. I also follow a low-carb diet, and I've found it helps a lot (even though it's a pain in the ass.) Fasting doesn't work quite as well for me, since I already have low blood pressure and sugar. Any tips for buildi…
I basically just eat 2-3 eggs for breakfast (100% no carb breakfast). Then I don't eat lunch until 2-3pm. I find I can pretty much eat whatever I want for lunch and dinner but I still try to keep it low/medium GI foods and opt for fattier stuff if I can.
I don't have any problems with blood sugar, and I don't get crazy hungry (I actually forget to eat pretty often, I find it more of an inconvenience, hah). I WFH so it's not like I burn many calories sitting on my biscuit anyway. My main problem with it is weight loss. I'm not overweight and I like to exercise, so I need to make sure I eat enough. Another downside (I'm guessing) is electrolytes or vitamins. Maybe I'm simply underfed but I seem more prone to muscle tightness/cramps.
I find I can break the "diet" regularly and not lose therapeutic effect. I do it 4-5x/week. I'm down to 1-2 partial seizures a month, whereas previously I was hitting 30+. I have neocortical TLE (likely focal cortical dysplasia, adult onset), so the partial seizure numbers tend to be higher than your standard hippocampal/mesial TLE. Overall my seizure control is pretty good lately. I'm hoping it stays good - but as you probably know, can't let your guard down.
I ended up here after failing to maintain keto and the low gi ("south beach") diets. They seemed to improve seizure control a bit, but I had real problems sticking to them. Fasting is all the rage now, so I figured I'd borrow the easy/good parts from both of those diets, while trying out a simple, loose version of fasting. I'm glad I gave it a shot. Good luck!