Been extremely busy in the last 6 months, working a average of 12h/d including most of the weekends.
Seating the whole days and just hitting the bed. Also smoked 3 packets a day. Often my feet were swollen and ended up this journey with extreme fatigue.
But knew one thing: things gonna change, and this is what happening right now.
These changes started with a complete health assessment.
Took 2 weeks holidays for that in South Africa where I’m still right now until this coming Saturday.
The medical check-up I did were:
- ECG (heart)
- Blood draw
- Lung test (pre-bronchodilator test)
- CT scan abdominal and pelvis area (non-contrast)
- Tooth check and tar removal
- Pap smear
- Colonoscopy and gastroscopy
All have been done, excepting the last one, due next Wednesday. The colonoscopy is recommended now from the age of 45, the gastroscopy in case of heartburn, diabetes, over weight, high blood pressure. The acid can attack the esophagus tissue. In reaction, the cells there will ending up over time altering their initial function to protect the tissue from the acid attack, to mimic the stomach tissue. At the end, this can lead to a cancer.
The total cost, including travel, accommodation, car rental, medicals examinations (GP, Gastro specialist, urologist, dentist) and running costs will reach probably USD3’000 but find this a well spend money as never did most of those tests my whole life and that it is giving me a good idea of where I stand. Moreover, it has allow me to initiate correctives actions based on the results I have got so far.
I’m sharing this journey to encourage anyone to do a full health assessment, based on the risks one may have being given its age, health condition, lifestyle, etc. And because it seems to be right now the best things ever I did for my health.
Warning: I’m not a medical doctor. The interpretation below may be specifics to my health condition and may have others reading for others persons.
Current health status
Overall, my body is showing many signs that it is time right now to make radical changes. All sounds still reversible, but immediate action is required.
I’m sharing my labs results for the sake of helping the people who may benefit from such information: understanding what a full health check may look like, and what benefit one can get doing them.
Kidney, liver, lipid
Interpretation:
- S-SODIUM: sign of dehydration
- S-CREATINE: Too good: this marker usually fall under the lower range when the kidney get swollen, filtering better, before starting showing sign of failure that could lead to kidney damage and more if not taking care of.
- LIVER: uncontrolled diabetes is causing sign of NAFLD (Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease)
- LIPID profile: Very high cholesterol and triglyceride levels inducing high risk of CVD event.
Glucose metabolism
Interpretation:
- HBA1C: The doc never saw such a high. Such a high reading can damage any internal organs leading to many complications. To support this value, my blood sugar often reading between 25 and 29 mmol/L in the last few busy months.
- Vitamin D 25: 21 ng/mL (haven’t take a pic): ideally should be > 80 ng/mL
FBC
Interpretation:
Despite looking very slightly high, the higher the hematocrit the thicker the blood and the higher the risk of blood coagulation, and so the risks of CVD event, especially with high total cholesterol, blood pressure (169/91) and sugar level.
Lungs
Interpretation:
Got 55% of my lungs capacity (moderate restrictive ventilatory defect). Continuing smoking would lead to needing a respiratory assistance. But as I was still smoking at the time of the test, this test isn’t significant and may improve greatly stopping smoking.
Others medical tests
All others tests I did were perfectly normal.
Consequences
New lifestyle (for good presumably)
Took the following measures after getting those results:
- Quitted smoking. On e-cigarette 12mg nicotine. So far so good. No craving. After 2 days already, feeling more lung capacity ! Quitting this way is really EASY
- Eating mostly green + fish since.
- Good sleeping patterns.
- Sport routine will start this Thursday (hiking) the cardio once back home
- No more overtime !
Medications
Surprisingly, got very few medication. But there is a big BUT.
- Aspirin cardio 100 (to make the blood less thick)
- Statin 40mg for the cholesterol
- Vitamin D supplement
- And the BIG one: Ozempic
Ozempic
That wasn’t expected at all. Based on my blood sugar, I asked my GP to be on insulin. His answer was: nowadays, you don’t need a daily injection but a once a week one. He asked me if I want to try it, starting with a 30min counselling about what it is all about. And I said ok.
What a surprising medication. From drugs.com:
Ozempic (semaglutide) is similar to a hormone that occurs naturally in the body and helps control blood sugar, insulin levels, and digestion.
Ozempic is a pre-filled, disposable, single-patient-use injection pen used along with diet and exercise to improve blood sugar control in adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Ozempic is usually given after other diabetes medicines have been tried without success.
Ozempic is also used to reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke or death in adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus with known heart disease.
My prescription in hand, I decided to check the internet first before buying this medication. Many places, including the official website, are mentioning side effects and among them, the risk (very low through) of developing thyroid cancer. That was a scary side effects and I at first decided to not give it a try.
Until I met the gastro, which told me it was a really great medication. I then googled more about it, in particular about what is said about it by the doctors in my country. And there were saying great things, in more to be approved by the FDA in the US, in Europe, some Asian countries and in South Africa.
I went then to the pharmacy, and lucky as I’m, the pharmacist was on this medication since a month. I have been able to ask any question I wanted, and that was a deal maker. To the risk of developing cancer, her answer was: if you read the side effects of Paracetamol, you will never take it.
Then I went on YouTube, checking few videos all from MD, and I decided to give it a try.
So I did my first injection last Thursday in the tight. The needle is small, and it wasn’t painful at all.
The only side effect I have experimented so far is diarrhea, few hours after the injection only. But nothing special, and no others side effects otherwise.
It’s now 4 days since I’m on it, and its first effect is to cut the appetite.
The others actions it has is to stimulate the pancreas to liberate insulin after a meal, and to make the liver to release less sugar.
A consequence of that is that people are experimenting important weight loss (15% over a 68 weeks time period, and more than 20% for 30% of the tested group in the double blinded randomized controlled trial Phase 3a). This is almost as good as a bariatric surgery as per my gastro and online research conclusion, without the risks and irreversibility of a bariatric surgery.
A request is ongoing so it can be prescribed to non diabetics patient.
Interim results
At this stage, I can’t tell if the drop of blood sugar is due to this medication (cutting hunger and stimulating the liver and the pancreas) of to the new life style I have initiated since my first injection. But the day of the injection, my blood sugar was 24.6 mmol/L. Two days after it was 19 mmol/L.
And today, it is 12.9 mmol/L ! But the reason for that is that I haven’t eat today, and won’t tomorrow, preparing myself for the colonoscopy on Wednesday, which require an empty stomach.
Still, this is telling me 2 things:
- I have no craving
- Diabetes can be controlled so fast, just by eating wisely. It is not like it will take forever to lower the blood sugar and so, to revert the diabetes. At least for what I can see, and have observe before. But this time, it’s really easy to control my food intake.
Obviously, I’m not writing this post to promote this medication, and only a MD must be able to do so. I have of course no personal interests in mentioning this drug neither, and not enough distance to provide any personal conclusions, other than so far so good. Fingers crossed.
Conclusions
This journey has allow me to know my health and has trigger correctives actions that I will certainly benefit from. It has open my eyes on the fact that my health started to decline but also that fortunately, everything seems reversible. That’s obviously a big motivation to start for good a complete overhaul of my health. I’m looking forward to lose weight, have a healthy lifestyle and sport routine. For at the end, reach a healthy BMI and restore fully my health.
Good luck to anyone on this journey!
Final notes
- Weight at the time started Ozempic: 116kg
- Was extremely tired the whole last week (probably cholesterol, diabetes, etc.).
Back to full energy since yesterday. - I will update later this post with the prices so people interesting doing some of the tests can get some figures about it.
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