My new health obsession

Despite the fact that this blog is 95% about my struggle with secondary infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss, my health obsession is really much broader than this one issue.

I grew up with a worrywart, hypochondriac mother who died of pancreatic cancer at a young age. I was doomed from the start.

From my very early years, I remember worrying about my health. When I was a kid, I used to have a mole in my bottom (yes, it was literally inside my crack), and I was terrified it was skin cancer but was too embarrassed to go get it removed - so I would lay in bed at night and get totally worked up about it instead. (I finally got it removed at age 22.) You get the idea.

Infertility and recurrent miscarriage have given me more than enough to worry and obssess about over the last 4 years, and I haven't had much time or energy for any other health issues. (There was the brief pre-occupation with the fact that an ultrasound tech at my OB/GYN told me I might only have one kidney (no kidding), but even that got overshadowed by the big IF/RPL.)

No longer. I have a new obsession. My glucose level.

We're doing a health screening thing at work, so yesterday I got my weight, blood pressure, body mass index, hip-to-waist ratio, cholesterol and glucose levels checked. The first four items were all fine, but the last (and arguably most important) two were not so good at all.

My cholesterol level was 200. I've known my cholesterol was borderline high for years. I inherited bad genes and I don't think there's much I'm going to be able to do about it other than eventually take a statin drug. 200 is actually lower than it was the last time I got it checked, so I'm only moderately stressed about it. I'm going to investigate some of the alternative treatments such as Polycosonol and Red Rice Yeast, but beyond that I'm not thinking there's too much else to do about it.

The glucose level has me completely freaked. 100 is the cut-off mark for normal levels, and between 100-125 is considered pre-diabetic. She took mine 3 different times, and my results were 103, 97 and 97. The nurse was as shocked as I was, and suggested that perhaps it was due to stress or some other factor - since by looking at me I am not pre-diabetic (i.e. not overweight). Well, I've certainly been stressed over the last 4 years - but seeing the effects of that stress so clearly written down on paper in the form of my physical health was pretty darn scary.

I've been meaning to change primary care physicians for years - from family practice doctor to internal medicine - and this gave me the impetus to call for an appointment ASAP. Unfortunately, there are no female internists in my small town, so I had to settle for a man - but I was able to get an appointment fairly quickly.

The hard part is going to be convincing DH that we need to make some major lifestyle changes. He has high cholesterol too, but chooses to take medication for it instead of doing any diet or exercise changes. I mentioned before, we eat pretty healthy already, but we could definitely cut down on the amount of red meat, butter, refined sugar and cheese we eat. I'll be the first to admit to my sweet tooth, and DH can't go a single day without some beef. He doesn't like change though....