glucose test

[Bluetit1802]

A rise of 6.5 after just a tin of soup sounds very odd to me. Are you following the instructions with the meter and testing correctly? It is essential you wash your hands with soap and warm water, then dry thoroughly, immediately before testing. Try not to squeeze your finger to draw more blood as this can corrupt the reading.

Has anyone else any ideas?

 

[cold ethyl]

Not really..even if you ate the whole 400g ti it would be less than 20g carbs which doesn't seem massively OTT for a meal.

 

[Alan S]

i,m worried, just taken my BS lever and its gone up to 19.8, i havn,t eaten anything since lunch time

I stopped eating canned soup because I found it often had a greater effect than the label carb count suggested.

What is on the menu for your next snack and meal?

If those numbers don't improve soon you should be discussing a review of medications and possibly insulin with your doctor.

 

[ally1]

thank you alan, thats what i,m worried about

 

[zand]

Hi ally, I have held back from posting as I've seen all the great advice you've been given so far, and thought you didn't need any more from me. Your BG's do seem to be on the way down but the higher ones are still worrying you. I agree with others who say that the labels on processed foods don't always give you the full story, and with this in mind I would like to tell you how I corrected my BG's when I was diagnosed. This isn't for everyone and is only short term but it does stop that constant worry when BG tests are high....worry itself won't help your BG levels.

OK so what I did was to have 3 meals a day, nothing processed at all. If there was more than one ingredient on the packet I didn't have it. (And some things that are only one ingredient are banned too e.g. orange juice) I had leftover vegetables fried in a little olive oil or lard for breakfast, a salad for lunch and more veg for my evening meal. Adding garlic, onions, peppers or herbs gave more flavour. I didn't have any veg that's grown underground. My drinks were water, sparkling mineral water, or unsweetened black tea. (I'm now drinking green tea, this would have been better) If I was desperate for a snack in the evenings (and I found that usually I wasn't) I had cheese or nuts. I ate all food, even the snacks, sitting at a table with cutlery to get myself out of the habit of snacking by picking at 'finger foods'. The reason I didn't have more protein during this time was that the only protein I really like without eating 'white carbs' as well is cheese, so that was personal to me. You could have good unprocessed meat too. The advantage of eating this way for maybe a week to 10 days was that my morning fasting BG went down to 4.9 and remained there even after I started to slowly add back other foods. I didn't bother testing at other times during this period, although I did test again when I added other foods back. The disadvantage is it's boring and hard, but it is only short term.

I appreciate that some type 2's do need to take insulin even if they are doing everything they can with diet and exercise. Getting your carb levels correct with insulin can also be difficult though. My feeling is that for you it would be better if you could try hard to zap your BG levels before going down that route.

 

[ally1]

thank you zand

 

[cold ethyl]

I think you are going to have to accept that you can't live on processed foods like tinned stew and soup and see sustainable downward shifts in your BS levels. As Zand as said, you need to get into the habit of having three low carb meals a day based around real food- breakfast could be scrambled eggs and grilled bacon, or a mushroom omelette- eggs are cheap and filling. Lunch I tend to have a salad with some tinned tuna, or sliced ham. I allow myself a bit of beetroot and some onion even though they grow below ground and a spoonful of coleslaw which I usually make with a carrot, an onion, and loads of red and white hard cabbage. A few dollops of mayo and some natural yogurt, mix and keeps in fridge for 3 days. Evening meals I'll make curry, stews, chilli and have it with more salad or veg, or half a poppadum if it's curry. I don't do sweets often, but might have a small bowl of strawbs with Greek yogurt a few nights. By small I mean about 4 strawbs sliced and 1 tablespoon of yogurt.
I think you perhaps need to go back to your GP and ask for more support as levels like that aren't doing you any favours and it may be that your medication needs changing. I know you are keen to avoid insulin but it is something you may have to consider. But try making these changes first. I know it all seems overwhelming at first but only you can do these things for yourself.

 

[Bluetit1802]

It must be difficult for someone living on their own to set to and cook meals from scratch. It's so much easier to buy ready meals that only need warming up. However, it is something you will have to start doing if you are to get those very high levels down. Bite the bullet, plan some meals, buy the ingredients, cook, divide into portions and freeze them so you have your own ready meals. (Says me who rarely cooks anything - hubby does it for me)

 

[cold ethyl]

It doesn't have to be anything complicated to start with. Get a piece of chicken breast and wrap it rasher of bacon , drizzle with olive oil and bake in oven till cooked with a dish of chopped peppers, onions and garlic and a few cherry toms. Serve with a salad or green beans. Piece of white fish on a sheet of buttered foil, top with slice lemon, seat foil, bake in oven till white and serve with green veg and a spoonful of peas. Slice a chicken breast, and saute in frying pan with a clove garlic and a small onion, add some sliced mushrooms, sliced peppers, a courgette cut into strips and a packet beansprouts. Dash of soy sauce, Or use a bag of stir fry veg from supermarket. Aldi even do them. It is hard but it has to be worth it. Look at the what have you eaten thread for ideas- not all of them require hours in the kitchen and all are low carb.

 

[AndBreathe]

@ally1 - do you have a freezer, and do you have a slow cooker?

I must admit my OH does virtually all our main meal cooking. I do breakfasts and lunches. But, when I'm on my own, I obviously have to do it all. I'll be having a few weeks of solo living from next week, when I come back to UK. He comes back in a few weeks.

In the time I have solo cooked, as a diabetic (a month back in UK in February), I found cooking, then freezing the excess portions ideal. I also got into the habit of ensuring, if I was putting anything into the freezer I portioned it up, or at least ensured things were separated, so that I could easily access a single portion of something to minimise waste. I also used the slow cooker to get casseroles, or soups on the go, with minimal fuss or intervention.

I was astonished how little I was spending on food shopping, without alcohol or some of the treats we might have had, so that was a bonus.

I agree it makes sense to try hard for a period of cooking from scratch. It doesn't all have to be expensive. Roast belly pork, with crackling is inexpensive, and low carb. A batch of chilli, using a quality mince can be mega tasty. Lemon pepper on chicken breast or frozen fish is delicious, and again can be at a modest cost.

I also tend to make a Tupperware box of undressed salad - rocket, grated carrot, red onion or shallot, a pepper, shredded cabbage and whatever else is around. Give it a shake and take a portion out at mealtimes, and it lasts 2 of us a couple of days. We tend to dress the salad as we go, so that we chan choose a dressing to match whatever else we are eating. One of my favourite lunches is a handful of salad, open a tinny of sardines in lemon oil or hot Louisiana sauce, and toss through the salad, and enjoy.

 

[Ruth B]

You have had some great advise to chose from, so I'll add another option to the list. Try and spend a day or two testing every hour on the hour and writing the results down, at the same time every time something passes your lips make a note of it. It can be a fairly intense process but it can be a bit of an eye opener and might give you some clue as to what your blood sugars are reacting to, how quickly they come down after peaking and if your liver is being rather enthusiastic about trying to keep the BS levels up. It's all about trying to spot the trends and then trying to organise your eating to keep the levels as low as possible.

 

[cold ethyl]

Ruth has made me wonder if you drink lots between meals? Tea, coffee and the like- milk is full of lactose which is a sugar and the caffeine in tea and coffee and diet coke can bump BS up too. Also some people find that diet drinks even when sugar free do strange things to their BS levels,

 

[ally1]

and breathe, i don,t have a freezer or a slow cooker

ruth b i like your suggestion about testing my BS every hour and writing everything down, thank you, i will do that

 

[cold ethyl]

You could make a pan of stew up and it would keep for three days in the fridge. Chops, good quality sausages, gammon steaks, chicken pieces all keep a few days once opened and are great with salads and veg.

 

[zand]

I'm not great at cooking, that's why I just ate mainly veggies in the beginning. I was stressed enough with trying to sort my BG's out - I couldn't cope with learning to cook too.

I agree with cold ethyl about diet drinks and drinks with milk

 

[Ruth B]

Make sure you write down everything you eat and drink as well as the BS reading and all the times. Like others have said, you might find that it is going up steadily just because you are drinking diet coke or equivalent. Weight watches hot chocolate was one of my surprises, I thought as it used sweetener it wouldn't be too bad, but it put my sugars through the roof. Cocoa powder, canderel and cream makes a wonderful hot chocolate and doesn't touch my sugar levels. Potatoes, bread etc are the obvious ones, finding the surprises is the tricky part.

 

[Sancho panza]

Living on my own I have always found it difficult to cook for one by the time you have added all the ingredients you always ended up with too much to eat and it's a shame to waste good food.
What I do is I make a great big pan of whatever and I have loads of small Tupperware type tubs and I fill those and freeze them better than ready meals no waste and more importantly these days I can control the portion size. Plus it saves me the hassle of cooking everyday.

 

[cold ethyl]

Living on my own I have always found it difficult to cook for one by the time you have added all the ingredients you always ended up with too much to eat and it's a shame to waste good food.
What I do is I make a great big pan of whatever and I have loads of small Tupperware type tubs and I fill those and freeze them better than ready meals no waste and more importantly these days I can control the portion size. Plus it saves me the hassle of cooking everyday.

Ally has no freezer, but I think that things like a beef stew would keep for three days in fridge anyway. I used to cook for just me when I was a student and things like a packet of chicken thighs can be roasted and kept for few days in fridge- you can eat with salad, or roasted veg, strip off bone and use in a curry or stew etc. Salmon if you like it can be baked or microwaved and served hot one day with green veg and then flaked into a salad the next. Cooked sausages( good quality ones) can be cooked and added to crustless quiche or frittatas with courgettes and mushrooms. Ir is all about cooking smartly and planning ahead. It can be done even with just a fridge.

 

[Sancho panza]

Sorry my mistake I misread and thought she had one.
But yes you are right it can be done with a fridge a little more planing is required as you say.

 

[ally1]

thank you all for the suggestions