Before
& After:
14 Patients Share Their Experiences /
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Carmine DeLuca is in
his early sixties and has had Type II diabetes since
about age forty-five. Like many of my patients, he
had been in "standard" treatment and found
his condition getting progressively worse.
"I was taking pills,
tried some diet changes, but after about ten years
my diabetes just got worse. Through the years, as
a diabetic, I had seen some articles about Dr. Bernstein,
and he had appeared several times in the local newspaper.
A colleague at work mentioned this Dr. Bernstein to
me, the same guy who had been in the paper. She said,
'If you ever want to go to someone, go to this guy.'
And I heard from a few other people around the area
who said, 'He's excellent.'
"Over
the years, I've had trouble with my eyes, my feet,
and my hands, but that was before Dr. Bernstein saw
me. I had tried to watch my diet, but being Italian,
you know, you're always involved with the pasta, the
bread, and so forth, and so I really didn't do very
well on dieting. Apparently the pill that I was taking
was literally burning me out. I was just going to
a general doctor, an internist, and what did he know?
I used to keep blood sugar about 140 to 160, and then
all of a sudden it started hitting the 200 mark, and
it was starting to hit it consistently, and then close
to 300, and then over 300, and the nerve endings in
my feet were gone, and the feeling in my hands. I
did have, at age fifty, two cataracts. I don't know
if you want to blame it on diabetes, but I guess you
can. Finally, when it was so high, I said, 'Well,
something has to be done. What have I got to lose?'
"And so when the time
came, I thought, let me go to the best. Everybody
talks about how excellent he is, so I made an appointment.
My blood sugars were very high, in the high 300s,
like 375. When I saw Dr. Bernstein, I had no idea
what I was getting myself into. I had just heard that
he was one of the best, and so I said, 'Lemme do it.'
He struck me as very, very knowledgeable. I learned
an awful lot—he told me things about diabetes that
I just never heard about, even from people with diabetes.
He made you feel good, because he literally grew up
with it. He was very professional, yet you could sit
down and talk to him. He said he was always available,
available 24 hours a day, and he has been, no matter
what. You go into that, and you feel pretty good.
"I've lost weight
since I started seeing him. A few pounds here and
there, but the thing is, even though I haven't taken
off a lot of weight yet, everybody says, 'Hey, you
look great.' But you could see, prior to seeing Dr.
Bernstein, that it was tearing me down, people could
see I wasn't looking that good.
"Starting the program
was tough, but it was carbohydrates that were killing
me. He put me on the diet. I never had a problem with
cholesterol, but for some reason, every time you turn
around, people are talking about high cholesterol
this, high cholesterol that, so I thought about it.
But I didn't give a damn about carbohydrates; nobody
talks about carbohydrates and cholesterol. At least
until Dr. Bernstein said, 'You don't eat this, you
don't eat that,' and I said, 'These are all carbohydrates.'
And so I'm on the diet and, boom, I start losing a
little weight.
"The thing was to
get used to doing without the carbohydrate, but it's
okay, because I like meat, I like salad, I like vegetables.
I can eat all the cheese I want—I mean, within reason.
My blood sugar has been good, averaging under 100,
and I feel like a million.
"I'm strictly on insulin
and one pill, and we've reduced the insulin, and as
my blood sugar improves, I think we'll reduce it even
more. I see him now every two months or so, and for
a week prior, I measure my sugars 4 times a day and
bring the chart to him. He really analyzes it—you
know, 'All right, take this, don't do this. We'll
reduce this. Don't eat that.' He's got a system all
his own and it's great. It works. It can be a pain
in the neck, but hey. He tells me I'm a good patient.
I'm here to prove that it's not impossible to change,
and the results are there."
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