Advice please

irnbru

Member
Messages
10
Hi everyone, my first post, i was diagnosed type 2 around a year ago, i truely didnt want to face the fact that i had a chronich illness, i had a quick look on here back then but never returned until today.
i have seen a nurse 3 times, 3 seperate nurses, all told me different things, really confused about how i eat what to eat when to eat, what my sugar levels should be, what they shouldnt be and so on, should i go on medication, should i buy a blood sugar monitor

About 7 or 8 years ago i sort of fainted, i ended up in hospital as the heart monitors were showing something was not right, didnt have a heart attack, was in hospital for 5 days, then had 9 months of tests that showed i was over weight and left side of my heart was enlarged.

to cut a long story short after fainting i began having panic attacks when i was out, so year by year i begun not going out much, this has got worse over the years, so makes going out hard, really difficult when im anxious, hense i put on weight which has led to the Diabetes, now i stopped drinking way back then as booze relaxes you so i thought im not going down that route in life.

I recently moved and new doc gave me that fasting blood test which showed my sugar level at 7.5 whatever that means, also my cholestral has gone down a little, but i really need advice on how to deal with this, what i should be doing, i am around 4 stone over weight but my diet isnt that bad most of the time.
I get an unwell feeling a lot, sometimes i can barely get out of bed in the mornings i feel so tired, my mood can swing in an minutes, this is worse in the afternoons if i havent eaten for a while i aslo get speedy like symptoms if i dont eat for a bit and a little confused sometimes, having this is really starting to get me down especialy when i look at my daughter who is 3 and think i may not seee her grown up, any advice you guys can offer would be appriciated so much right now.
 

sugarless sue

Master
Messages
10,098
Dislikes
Rude people! Not being able to do the things I want to do.
Welcome to the forum ,irnbru (love the name!)must be a Scot. Diabetes is very confusing to start with.It is made more confusing by all the conflicting advice you will get especially about diet. Please read round the forum and you will get some idea of the different types of diet and advice you may get.Try and get a blood testing meter.This can help you find out which foods affect your blood sugar and which don't.I'm not going to go off into great details just now,irnbru,there is a lot of information to take in at one time.Please read some of the threads here then come back with questions which we will try to answer and ,within a while you will begin to understand some of the complexities of diabetes and how to control it.
 

beckchar11

Newbie
Messages
1
I'm new to this site and need some advice please. I was diagnosed four years ago with type 2. My levels have been up and down but having gone from an off the meter reading to 7's and 8's I havn't done too badly. My last overall reading at the clinic was 9 and I've been told to go on insulin. I don't feel unwell, and friends have readings of over 25 and remain on oral treatment. I really don't want to go on insulin if I don't need to, the thought of it is distressing me, not just because of the injections but because it takes so long to get control and if my sister is anything to go by, it makes you feel even worse. I have been told I am unusual as I also have an underactive thyroid but because I am not overweight cannot be prescribed any more oral than I am already on. !!?? Any advice please.
 

Dennis

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,506
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Non-insulin injectable medication (incretin mimetics)
Dislikes
People who join web forums to be agressive and cause trouble
Hi Beckchar and welcome to the forum,
I'm afraid it looks like you are being spun a few porkies by your clinic team. Your weight has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you should continue on oral treatment. It rather looks like they are advising on the basis of treatment cost rather than treatment effectiveness. The fact that on oral medication your readings have reduced from something pretty high down to 7s and 8s shows that the medication was working for you. It is quite likely that it needs to be tweaked a little, particularly following your most recent rise to 9 (I presume this is your HBA1C reading?).

There are several things that you can do. Firstly tell your clinic team that you would rather continue on oral meds (assuming that this is what you want to do). If they won't play ball then ask to be referred to a diabetes consultant (they are not allowed to refuse this request).

Finally, and most importantly, you need to look at what caused your previously reducing blood sugar levels to start rising again. Usually this is a result of diet. If you read round the various threads on the forum you will see that the most important thing that a diabetic can do to help themselves is to adopt what I would describe as a "diabetes diet". This is not a diet in the normal sense, but simply a reduction in the various foods that are most responsible for creating blood sugar in the first place. These are all wheat based products (bread, cereals. pasta), potatoes, rice and of course sugar. That doesn't mean don't eat these, but just have less of them than you normally would. You can always make up the difference by a larger portion of protein (meat of dairy) or vegetables.

As I said, have a good read round the forum and you will soon get a good idea of those foods that are better for diabetics and those to avoid.