Hi
Im becoming very anxious and quite low as a result of the confusion im feeling over this Diabetes merlarky.
Recently diagnosed as Type 2 (only just as readings range 8.2 - 10. Something), i cant remember what the long term readings were but they werent hugely alarming, i was sent to the diabetic nurse, who told me to eat lots of slow release carbs, yet everyone hear is telling me not to eat carbs!
Im meant to be starting on Metformin, but GP was off ill so that will have to wait another week, but am scared of yet another drug, and how that will interact with current meds.
Im really confused and lost!
Sorry to hear of your diagnosis, try not to panic. I've been type II for 17 years and I was in some ways protected from worrying because there were several relatives of all shapes and sizes in my family who were also type II.
I was prescribed Metformin and actually told to eat more carbs by my GP and the hospital dietician. Just as well I didn't follow up their advice to eat more carbs. It's only been in the last two years that I've gone the low carb route, which I actually started before I found this forum and on the advice of a Nutritional Therapist that I consulted, a very well trained Nutritional Therapist I should add as they come in different levels of expertise. Since I stopped eating the obvious pasta/rice/bread/potato I've discovered that the diarrhea side effect that I had with Metformin were partially caused by how much carb I use to eat and I stopped getting those side effects.
In my case I was also able to ditch Gliclazide and Januvia which I took for diabetes and even better than that, I threw away the statins because lowering carbs lowers total cholesterol as well.
As has been suggested, get yourself a meter, you can then at least see the effects of different carbs, low GI or otherwise. We all seem to have different experiences with different carbs, there doesn't seem to be one rule for everyone.
You might like to write a food diary and then calculate how many carbs you've eaten, the info is all there on the internet. You just need to weigh stuff. There seems to be different advice about what's the normal amount of carb, some say about 250 gms carb, whereas others would suggest 125 gms. I'm down to about 80 gms a day and I really don't miss it, especially with the knowledge that my BG is pretty good, my GP actually puts well done in my notes and there's three drugs I don't have to take. I'm not happy with a lot of meds because they've caused me more harm than good in the past.