I was diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic about 18 years ago, and have never had good control during that time. My lifestyle was a little crazy moving all around the world, no consistent healthcare and ignorance about the long term effects of high blood glucose. For many years i have been living and working in India and the diet here is generally not a good one for diabetics, white rice, flour based breads and potatoes all used in various combinations at virtually every meal. Combine that with the expat party lifestyle and it resulted in a rather scary stroke in 2012 followed by progressive neuropathy and other complications. in 2013 I was back in the Uk and found control very difficult and being a temporary visitor my local GP just let me convert my indian generic medicines to Uk names and gave me repeat prescriptions on a month by month basis. I was on Novorapid 2 x 30 and Novomix 18 and things were never good. In december 2013, back in India, I had major eye problems with significant bleeding from my retinas, had previously had laser treatment and now had injections into my eyes followed by 2 more rounds on each eye to zap the worst bleeders. My Hba1c was over 14% in January and my doctor here got pretty annoyed by my l;lack of care for my health, they changed my meds, Huminsulin NPH 2 x 30 and Huminsulin R 2 x 24 and Voglibose 0.2 x 3, as well as some other struff to protect kidneys etc. For once I read the booklets and spent some time on the net learning and reading Diabetes.co.uk forums and made some major changes. The most important being a complete change in carb intake, no more white rice or potatoes and no more white flour based breads. I educated my domestic staff on what is carb and what is not and now I have a healthy and tasty diet which has had a dramatic impact on my sugar levels. I use an IPhone app to track my results and my doctor was amazed by the steady decline in average levels and the huge reduction in spikes. But then I started to get the odd night time hypo, sometimes with levels too low for my meter to read, another education session with the family and staff on what to do for hypos and training on how to give a glucagen injection if required, but now with careful inclusion of carbs in the evening meal I am normally at 80-100 mg/dl before bed and 90 in the morning all is ok. My calculated predicted Hba1c is 5.9% based on an app I use to record BG levels for graphing and trending purposes, will get a test dome this week to check actuals, one of the nice things about private health care here is it is good and cheap and quick. I will call someone to my house to take my blood, and results will be mailed to me by the evening and the full set of normal diabetic blood tests cost about 50 GBP. A visit to my Doctor who is a Professor of Endocrinology and one of India's top diabetes specialists cost 15 pounds and my average bill for drugs per month is 50 to 60 GBP. i can get appointment in minutes using the online booking service and dont have to deal with receptionists who belive they are doctors.
My experience tells me that low carb is the way to go, my worst spikes have n=been caused by eating out and having 'normal' rice as no brown rice is available or by flour etc.
Happy about diabetes for the first time in 18 years.
Aman.
Huminsulin NPH 2 x 30, Huminsulin R 2 x 24, Nefrosave, Deplatt 75, Telma H 80, Telma 40, Cilnidipine 20. Shelcal, B12 Injections and Vitamin D Powders.
My experience tells me that low carb is the way to go, my worst spikes have n=been caused by eating out and having 'normal' rice as no brown rice is available or by flour etc.
Happy about diabetes for the first time in 18 years.
Aman.
Huminsulin NPH 2 x 30, Huminsulin R 2 x 24, Nefrosave, Deplatt 75, Telma H 80, Telma 40, Cilnidipine 20. Shelcal, B12 Injections and Vitamin D Powders.
