The Answer to My Blood Sugar Struggles Was NOT Skipping Meals, NOT Giving Up Every Food I Loved, and Definitely NOT Ordinary Cinnamon Capsules

By Sandra Keller, RN | ICU nurse for 38 years

If you take your medication, watch what you eat, and still dread the number on your glucose meter, I understand how exhausting that feels.

I spent 38 years caring for people with diabetes…

Then I became the woman crying in her bathroom after a dinner of grilled chicken and broccoli.

My meter read 192.

I hadn’t eaten dessert. I hadn’t helped myself to a second plate. I had eaten the kind of dinner I thought I was supposed to eat, and there I was, wondering what else I could possibly give up.

Months later, I would find myself reading about a ship’s surgeon named William Harwick, a bark carried aboard Royal Navy ships, and a detail in his notes I couldn’t stop thinking about.

But first, you need to understand why I went looking.

When You Know Enough to Be Afraid

I’m Sandra Keller. I’m 58, and I have type 2 diabetes.

Working in intensive care means you see what people outside a hospital rarely see.

You sit beside families waiting for news. You hold a patient’s hand when they’re frightened. You understand why blood sugar deserves attention.

That knowledge didn’t make my own diagnosis easier. If anything, it made it harder…

My fasting glucose had been running in the 180s for months. My A1C was 7.2, and every appointment seemed to bring the same frustration.

I was making the effort, but my numbers weren’t where I wanted them to be.

I’d wake around three in the morning to use the bathroom, check my glucose, then lie awake thinking about the reading.

By afternoon, I could barely keep my eyes open. After dinner, my husband would settle in to watch something with me, and I’d be fighting to stay awake beside him.

Eventually, the worry started before I even picked up my fork. It was constantly on my mind.

A Smaller Plate and a Smaller Life

I began treating every meal like some sort of weird test of willpower.

Potatoes? Better leave them.

A family breakfast? I’d have something different.

Birthday cake? Easier to say I wasn’t hungry than explain why I was staring at everyone else’s plate.

My husband would ask what I wanted for dinner, and I wouldn’t know what to tell him.

I missed enjoying food without calculating, second-guessing, or wondering how I’d feel an hour later. More than that, I missed being present at the table.

I kept following my treatment plan. But I also started reading, because I wanted to understand what else might be worth discussing with my doctor.

One night, around two in the morning, a footnote in a medical history journal sent me down a rabbit hole I never expected.

The Footnote That Sent Me Back to 1803

The account described Royal Navy sailors suffering episodes a surgeon called “sugar sickness.”

There were descriptions of shaking, sweating, confusion, and men collapsing while on watch.

A surgeon named William Harwick had begun investigating what was happening aboard ships traveling between England and India.

The story mentioned cinnamon bark.

That was enough to make me pause…

But it wasn’t enough to make me believe it.

I wanted the original account, so I spent the next three months trying to trace it.

I emailed naval archives, contacted maritime museums, and followed leads that went nowhere.

Eventually, a librarian at a medical university in Edinburgh replied. She said she had access to logs associated with HMS Gloucester in 1803.

Harwick’s name was in them.

What the Ship’s Surgeon Had Noticed

According to the account, some sailors had been chewing true cinnamon bark carried among the ships’ cargo. Others mixed it into their grog or ate it with a little pork fat.

Harwick began giving the bark to sick sailors and recording what happened.

The account said the collapses stopped within three weeks. But the detail that held my attention was the difference he described between giving the bark alone and giving it with fat.

“The bark alone does nothing. I ground it into powder and saw no improvement. But when taken with animal fat, pork drippings, butter, or oil, the body receives it fully. The men recover, the sickness lifts.”

The story said Harwick sent his findings to the Admiralty, where the practice was classified and retained in naval medical records for roughly 140 years before disappearing from use after World War II.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that distinction between the bark and its preparation.

If I was going to investigate cinnamon, I needed to look for the winning combination.
Bark plus fat.

Why I Didn’t Head Straight for the Spice Rack

I knew how this sounded. An ICU nurse, awake in the middle of the night, reading about sailors and cinnamon.

But I wasn’t about to trade my medication for something from a kitchen cupboard.

I wanted to understand what modern research had examined and whether the products being sold resembled it.

That meant asking questions about the species, the preparation, the amount used, and the people who had taken part in the research.

An old account could give me a reason to investigate. It couldn’t tell me how a modern supplement would work for me.

And the more labels I read, the more I realized that “cinnamon supplement” could describe very different products.

Three Details I Started Checking… That You Should Too.

Those became the questions I took to supplement companies.

I read labels, compared explanations, and asked about testing. I wanted information I could take to my doctor and a product I could identify precisely if I decided to try it.

The Bottle I Finally Ordered

That search led me to Metabolae.

Its Ceylon cinnamon formula was described as a concentrated 12:1 extract, delivering a 7,200 mg whole-cinnamon equivalent per softgel, suspended in MCT oil from coconuts.

The 7,200 mg figure referred to the whole-cinnamon equivalent. It didn’t mean a softgel contained 7,200 mg of extract.

The company also described its cinnamon as DNA-verified Cinnamomum verum, sourced from Sri Lanka, with third-party testing.

Those were the details I’d been looking for: a named species, a stated preparation, an explanation of the amount, and information about the finished formula.

I ordered it and began taking one softgel with breakfast, alongside my existing routine. I continued my prescribed care and kept recording my readings.

For the first week, there wasn’t much to report.

I thought I felt a little less foggy, but I wanted more than a hopeful impression.

The Dinner When I Noticed Something Different

During the second week, my husband made pot roast and mashed potatoes.

It was the kind of dinner I used to enjoy without thinking, before I began anticipating how tired I’d feel afterward.

This time, I ate and waited for that familiar heavy feeling.

It didn’t arrive.

When I checked my glucose an hour later, it read 118. I looked at the meter, then back at my plate. After so many disappointing readings, it took a moment to absorb what I was seeing.

One reading wasn’t the whole picture. But it was enough to make me pay attention to the days that followed.

The next weekend, I had pancakes at breakfast. My reading afterward was 112.

I kept the numbers in my log. I wanted my doctor to see the pattern over time, rather than hear about one good afternoon.

My Husband Noticed Before I Said Anything

Around the fourth week, he reached across the dinner table and took my hand.

“I miss this,” he said. “You’re different.”

I asked what he meant.

“You’re eating with me again. You’re not picking at everything. You’re not anxious the whole time.”

Until he said it, I hadn’t realized how much of our time together had become a conversation about what I couldn’t eat or how tired I felt.

That evening, we finished dinner and sat down together. I stayed awake through the program.

I wasn’t waiting for bedtime or wishing I could lie down halfway through washing the dishes.

Those ordinary things meant more to me than I’d expected.

I wanted better numbers, of course. I also wanted to enjoy an evening with my husband without my blood sugar occupying every minute of it.

What Happened at My Next Appointment

Three months after I started, I brought my glucose log to my quarterly checkup.

My doctor read through it, then looked at my results.

“Your fasting glucose is consistently in the 90s,” she said. “And your A1C is 5.8. Down from 7.2.”

She asked what had changed.

I told her about the reading I’d done, the historical account that started it, and the exact supplement I was taking.

She wrote down the details so we could discuss them alongside the rest of my care.

I was relieved to have something concrete to talk about after months of feeling discouraged.

Seven months after starting that routine, my fasting readings were generally between 90 and 100, and my A1C was 5.6.

Those are my reported results.

They aren’t a prediction of anyone else’s, and a personal story can’t establish what caused a change. My doctor remained involved in my care throughout.

Before You Buy the First Cinnamon Supplement You See

I understand the temptation. You read someone’s experience, search for cinnamon, and choose a bottle with plenty of reviews.

But after spending so long comparing products, I would want to answer these questions first:

• Does the label identify Cinnamomum verum?
• Is it ground cinnamon or an extract?
• Does the amount listed refer to the extract itself or a whole-cinnamon equivalent?
• What else is in the formulation?
• What testing information does the company provide?

You should be able to find those answers without guessing from a photograph or an impressive-looking number.

That is why I’m naming the product I took. My experience relates to that particular formula, used alongside my existing care. I can’t speak for every bottle with “cinnamon” on its label.

A Simple Part of My Morning

My routine is one softgel with breakfast.

Metabolae describes its formula as:

Species	DNA-verified Ceylon cinnamon, Cinnamomum verum, sourced from Sri Lanka.
Preparation	A concentrated 12:1 extract providing a 7,200 mg whole-cinnamon equivalent per softgel.
Formulation	Ceylon cinnamon extract suspended in MCT oil from coconuts, in a softgel.
Testing	Third-party testing, with product information to review before ordering.

For me, it became something manageable that fitted into breakfast. I still kept my appointments and paid attention to my readings, but I stopped treating every dinner as something to dread.

Give Yourself Something Useful to Discuss

If you’re already taking medication for diabetes, discuss adding a supplement with your clinician. Bring the actual label, including the formulation and dose, so they know exactly what you’re considering.

Keep following the monitoring schedule and treatment plan agreed with them. If your readings change, share the record rather than adjusting medication yourself.

I know how tempting it is to pin all your hopes on the next thing you try. I had spent enough nights staring at my own meter to understand that feeling.

What I wanted was a way to investigate something carefully while continuing to look after myself.

My search happened to begin with a footnote, a ship’s surgeon, and an account from 1803. It led me to ask more precise questions about a supplement I might otherwise have dismissed as just another bottle of cinnamon.

You can see the formula I chose, check the current price and availability, and read the guarantee details below.

Sandra Keller, RN
ICU nurse for 38 years