The blood sugar of my mother lately had been elevating because she is fond of eating much rice when she is dining

cryptopie (81)Memberin WORLD OF XPILAR • 7 days ago (edited)

Showing my mother's 75th birthday celebration photo, but it's not her birthday today. She is still very active with both her body and mental acuity because of her lifestyle although she have to adjust it now with regards to her diet.

My mother has been having these weird symptoms and it had made me worry that she is developing an illness of some sort. She told us that her legs has been getting numb but what particularly alarmed me was that her legs are starting to have some edema or fluid accumulation. Edema in the legs can mean anything like having a Kidney problem or even it can be a symptom of a bad heart too. My mother I think is far from having a Kidney ailment because she is drinking fluids like a thirsty Camel coming from a long desert journey but not that she is thirsty but she got accustomed to it because she had this issue with her urinary tract when me and my sibling were just very young and her doctor back then recommended her to drink that much water, I mean she is downing a quart and a half of water ever meal, close to maybe two liters. That is why she would visit the bathroom to pee a lot. I just told her not to over-consume water because of the risk that she might get "water intoxicated" and I think that she is always having that by having headaches regularly. But considering that she is already accustomed in drinking so much water, I don't think that she can change that habit maybe until a doctor told her to do so. But I am just worried now about my mother's health issue because it so happened that a few days ago the PA system of our Barrio had alerted us about this ongoing free doctor's consultation happening in the covered court place of our Barangay. So my mother went there because of her symptoms I mentioned plus her complaint about her body aches which we suspected as a symptom of high uric acid in her body. She went to the place as described by our barrio's secretary through the Barrio's PA system and so after a while she came back to us saying that she got diagnosed with a high level of blood sugar in her blood. But my mother is not consuming processed or ultra-processed foods, neither that she is fond of drinking "softdrinks" because she cannot drink cold drinks but rather some large amounts of drinking water. My mother doesn't eat pork much less beef and would maybe eat a little of it with just a sauce or the soup which comes with the dish and just prefers fish stew in either thin soup or just simply cooked in vinegar and long-mid chili pepper as one of her most preferred viands to eat instead of pork and beef which she is off-putted by its tastes whereas for chicken dishes, she no longer eats because she developed an allergy with eating chicken and eggs. However my mother consumes rice because she is always hungry and eating rice with her preferred viand of stewed or fried fish is her way to satisfy her hunger if not eating bread with some "rice coffee" to deaden her hunger fangs and it was like since time immemorial.

Photo by @cryptopie

Maybe we can learn from my mother's experience that as we grow older we must not at least overeat anymore because for one reason that our bodies are not built to eat so much of everything like even rice because there will come a time that our organs will give way because it cannot cope anymore even if we are consuming rather natural foods. So the key factor is to eat in moderation if not eat less or much better, to fast intermittently so that our bodies will have more time to process the foods which we consume (in moderation) so that our organs will not get tired and gave-up on us in the end.

My mother returned home and telling us that she has a high blood sugar level and the "doctor" has already a medicine which she can buy to "help" her with her newly discovered health condition. So upon hearing her bad news, I told my mother to buy that "medicine" already for her high blood sugar because it will give her some convenience not to go out and buy outside where she will have to commute considering that the fare these days in public transport is very costly. My mother told me that the said "medicine" is very expensive and costing around 1,000 Pesos which is equivalent of $17 dollars in the current USD to PHP exchange rate and that is quite a hefty price for a supposed Diabetes medicine. Being alarmed with that "findings" I never thought of the price but I just told my mother to take some of my money and make her buy the supposed medicine for her condition. My mother went back to the temporary clinic set-up by that "doctor" and his staff which coordinated with out Barangay officials prior to their arrival to our barrio and so my mother bought the medicine and showed it to me. To my very big disappointment, she was given this tiny bottle of a food supplement where the ingredients are just bananas and other fruits after I read the ingredients using the magnification and illumination of my Smartphone. Then I asked her if some blood samples are taken out from her but she told me that she is only made to touch this prove from an apparatus which shoed results that she indeed has a high blood sugar level in which the doctor told her that her condition is not that so serious and that it can be controlled by diet where she was given an advice to limit her rice consumption because my mother really is a heavy consumer of rice and that she is eating rice at least two times per day not to mention eating in-between meals plus breakfast which sometimes she also eats rice of not a breakfast of fried noodles or rice gruel with some bread and then this coffee which she also makes out from toasted rice and moringa leaf powder. My mother cannot consume regular instant coffee or brewed coffee because she will get an upset stomach due to her hyperacidity issues where if she does try to drink coffee, it is certain that her stomach would ache afterwards.

Photo by @cryptopie

My mother now consumes watermelon now instead of ripe bananas because it has fiber and less sweet compared of what she always prefer to eat with her meals as an additional viand to eat with rice and as a desert food too after eating. My mother also feels weird after consuming ripe mangoes during her mealtime which I guess can be attributed to the sugar content of ripe mangoes probably spiking her blood sugar level.

So the doctor also gave her some advices for using other herbs which I found weird because a regular doctor doesn't make that kind of advice to their patients but rather to specifically tell them when to take their prescribed medicine per day. Upon investigating my mother further because as she said, not a drop of blood was taken out from her was taken to get examined but she was only made to handle probes of an apparatus and it printed the results after a few second maybe. Then I took both the "prescription" of the very, very expensive and most probably useless herbal medicine and then the results of her diagnosis. it only showed a detailed graphs which indicated that my mother's blood sugar level is a high and some words that I didn't bother to read because then and there I already discovered that my mother was already scammed by an alleged "herbalist" and not a real doctor. I told my mother that her blood sugar results cannot be read without having her blood examined for that purpose and so I instructed her to take my money again and go to the nearest laboratory center where we are always going if I would have to have to get my blood work done for some purpose which is not that strict when it comes to asking them to get a blood work done without a request coming from a doctor. So my parents went to accomplish a blood test for the sugar level of my mother and to my surprise it was indeed high and upon learning from my nurse after asking her about the normal ranges of a person's blood sugar should be, it should not exceed 120, but my mother's blood sugar was 160 as an RBS or random blood sugar test result. The medical technician also told her that it was already high where I first thought that it is still in the normal ranges which the highest point was 170 which I later realized upon learning from my nurse that it was high already and that my mother is in the pre-diabetic stages already.

Photos by @cryptopie>
What my mother was prescribed with by that Herbalist

Some of us knows that certain herbs, roots, spices, special vitamins, or even a particular vegetable like Moringa leaves has a medicinal effect for a particular health condition that we have, it does work in various ways, efficacy, strengths to make a difference which can either cure us or at least control our current medical conditions so we must be careful and vigilant in assessing which food supplements or natural products we use for giving us a supposed relief or cure that we needed in order not to get scammed and waste our money for nothing.

Well, I already knew the reason why my mother has an elevated blood sugar level, it is because of her rice consumption and her frequency of consuming it because she eats three times a day and more and always says that she is already hungry and wants to eat already to the point that before 11:00 a.m. lunch is already ready to be had. Most of the time I would skip lunchtime and would only eat at around 4:00 p.m. because I am using Calcium Carbonate when I eat and I would tend to overdose myself with calcium if I would eat frequently because I am using it as my Phosphate binder and could also cause me to get constipated in the process. Then I also have to consider that I have a physical storage space for both food and water in my body plus the by-product toxins of consuming foods is also my one bog concern. So I am always making it a point not to overeat although I needed to fulfill my caloric and protein needs which at this point in time I accomplish due to the aforementioned factors plus my lack of appetite being the number one issue as well. Now my mother as she said is controlling her rice consumption but the problem is that she always gets hungry all the time which prompts her to eat again. I just told her to not eat too much rice but when she gets hungry that she should eat. I also to eat fruits like water melon which we are frequently buying when she begins to feel hungry. But now my mother is consuming raw "Saba" variety of banana but I don't know, it is still carbohydrates and is still getting converted to sugar in the blood. But for my recommendation it is better for my mother to eat frequently but in lesser amounts and not like she was doing all these years where she is heavy on consuming rice although her diet of mostly vegetables and simple fish stewed in vinegar as a viand is considered healthy but now it seems that it will not be as healthy because my mother is like a "rice monster" like the Cookie Monster character from an old children's popular TV show, Sesame street.