• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Good And Bad Results

Sue2335

Sue2335

Member
Messages
5
Location
Kent
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
I was diagnosed with type 2 in February 2018. This is my first post though this website has become my bedtime reading since my diagnosis. I'm a nurse for many years but I actually can't believe how much I didn't know about diabetes. Thank you for the very useful information on this website. So my diabetes story started in February but my feeling is, I had been diabetic for a long time. I come from a strong diabetes and cardiovascular history (my mum was diabetic, and 4/5 siblings are also diabetic).
I have been on a strict low carb since diagnosis after reading lots of success stories on this website. Had my first bloods post diagnosis this past Monday, I was very eager to know the results so this morning I went to the surgery for my blood results. The receptionist looked on the computer, the results were available but hadn't been seen by a doctor. She told me to phone back in the afternoon, I tried phoning all afternoon with no answer so decided to go back to the Gp at 415pm. So the receptionist said the Gp tried to ring me at 410pm according to their system, this worried me so I told her I will wait till she has spoken to the GP.
I was told the Gp said she will ring, with my very worried face I walked out of the surgery. Just when I started the car the Gp rang. Her first question was "what have you been doing with your diabetes"? I don't tell lies so I said I have been on a low carb diet since diagnosis. She said "oh thats why". I asked her my numbers, she said my HbA1c is now 39, from the initial diagnosis of 110 in Feb. This made my day as you could imagine but hey she went on to say, "we have a slight problem though". Immediately, I knew it was my cholesterol that I had self requested to be tested on Monday. She said my cholesterol has come back 6.8. She said it is high but didn't talk of statins. Didn't have pen and paper to write so didn't ask the ratios etc. I have my appointment with the diabetic nurse in week's time so will have print out of results. She said you have been working hard to reduce the diabetes so do the same with the cholesterol. She advised me to eat more fish. And also to stop metfomin. (I was on metfomin 500mg BD) I have told her I will reduce to one a day for now. I need your help, how do I balance these numbers? Don't tell me to live on greens! The cholesterol is also family related, obviously now activated by my high fat low carb diet. Please help.
 
Congrats, I loved reading your post and I would LOVE to have you as my nurse at any time because of your positive attitude, honesty, and brains.

I don't think 6.8 is all that high. And I certainly don't think treatment decisions should be based on total cholesterol unless it is super high (and even then, you still need the breakdown.)

So I hope you can relax a little until you get the breakdown. When you do, I think it will be easy for you to address whichever one or two lipid types are abnormal.

It may be that lipids take longer to show improvement than A1c does. I don't know.

As you say, there will be a genetic factor in play in your case.

I'm just so impressed by your story and I know it will change your own practice with regard to patients with BG regulation issues and maybe also help your family members if they are willing to make changes.

Daily low dose aspirin may be more appropriate if you do opt for a drug to assist with lipid management, but as you know it carries some risk of GI bleeding. Always a trade off, these things.
 
Hello, glad to hear from you. Excellent job on your A1c!

When we embark on a radical change of diet it can skew our Lipids for a while, this can also happen when we lose weight. This will soon go back to 'normal for you'.
Dietary cholesterol accounts for just 15% of total body cholesterol so even if you could eliminate all cholesterol from your diet your body would just make more to account for the shortfall. Cholesterol is vital for life, it makes up 30% of every cell wall in the body except for two specific cells which do not require it.

Ivor Cummins has an excellent lecture on YouTube called 'The Cholesterol Conundrum' I can highly recommend viewing it. For shorter presentations view Prof. Ken Sikaris (Associate Professor Pathology) on the same subject.
 
P.S. Dr. Aseem Malhotra (British Cardiologist) also questions advice/guidelines on cholesterol and statin use in the UK. My personal favourite on the subject, though, is Dr. Malcolm Kendrick (British GP), his book 'The Great Cholesterol Con' really opened my eyes. These two doctors agree that we in the west are becoming over medicated and Dr. Malhotra recently gave a lecture to the European Parliament which is enlightening to say the least.

Enjoy.

 
Jenny15 said:
Congrats, I loved reading your post and I would LOVE to have you as my nurse at any time because of your positive attitude, honesty, and brains.

I don't think 6.8 is all that high. And I certainly don't think treatment decisions should be based on total cholesterol unless it is super high (and even then, you still need the breakdown.)

So I hope you can relax a little until you get the breakdown. When you do, I think it will be easy for you to address whichever one or two lipid types are abnormal.

It may be that lipids take longer to show improvement than A1c does. I don't know.

As you say, there will be a genetic factor in play in your case.

I'm just so impressed by your story and I know it will change your own practice with regard to patients with BG regulation issues and maybe also help your family members if they are willing to make changes.

Daily low dose aspirin may be more appropriate if you do opt for a drug to assist with lipid management, but as you know it carries some risk of GI bleeding. Always a trade off, these things.
Click to expand...
Thank you, of course I will be happy to be your nurse. I will update my post once I have the lipids breakdown. I have to be honest though, I got carried away so ate lots of meat/cheese during the past three months. Learning as I go I suppose. I appreciate your reply.
 
Guzzler said:
Hello, glad to hear from you. Excellent job on your A1c!

When we embark on a radical change of diet it can skew our Lipids for a while, this can also happen when we lose weight. This will soon go back to 'normal for you'.
Dietary cholesterol accounts for just 15% of total body cholesterol so even if you could eliminate all cholesterol from your diet your body would just make more to account for the shortfall. Cholesterol is vital for life, it makes up 30% of every cell wall in the body except for two specific cells which do not require it.

Ivor Cummins has an excellent lecture on YouTube called 'The Cholesterol Conundrum' I can highly recommend viewing it. For shorter presentations view Prof. Ken Sikaris (Associate Professor Pathology) on the same subject.
Click to expand...

Thank you. Unfortunately, I haven't lost a lot of weight (a stone in the past 3months). I hoping to loose a bit more. Thanks for the explanation and links, will definetely listen to them soon. I just hope the numbers will be better on the next 3months check.
 
I was just thinking about Metformin... I think your A1c may well drop further, which is great, and that would make your GP even more likely to ask you to stop taking it but...

Looking at your health as a whole, it may be best to delay deciding on stopping it for another 3 or even 6 months. Metformin doesn't do a lot to reduce BG but it does reduce liver glucose output and do several other things.

It is also a good treatment for women diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome PCOS (which is very hard to diagnose anyway). I have some of the symptoms of PCOS but am unlikely to be diagnosed with it unless a good test is developed. So I appreciate the extra help Metformin gives me with my liver glucose and with any degree of PCOS I might have.

Not enough is known about female hormones and how they interact with weight, BG, BP, lipids and other issues. Controlling diabetes and losing weight is bound to help, though.
 
Sue2335 said:
Thank you. Unfortunately, I haven't lost a lot of weight (a stone in the past 3months). I hoping to loose a bit more. Thanks for the explanation and links, will definetely listen to them soon. I just hope the numbers will be better on the next 3months check.
Click to expand...

I did not lose much weight, either, but another little factoid for you is that statins can actually raise blood glucose levels in some people. Keep up the great work and keep eating that meat and cheese!
 
Sue2335 said:
Thank you. Unfortunately, I haven't lost a lot of weight (a stone in the past 3months). I hoping to loose a bit more. Thanks for the explanation and links, will definetely listen to them soon. I just hope the numbers will be better on the next 3months check.
Click to expand...
I think your body will settle into a state of steady weight loss as you continue with LCHF. It's early days at the moment and I think you will be pleased with your results at 6 and 9 months. It can take time to fine tune eating and exercise habits.
 
Guzzler said:
I did not lose much weight, either, but another little factoid for you is that statins can actually raise blood glucose levels in some people. Keep up the great work and keep eating that meat and cheese!
Click to expand...
Another thing that comes to mind is the little bit of carbs in meat and cheese... the latter would be higher I think?
 
Jenny15 said:
Another thing that comes to mind is the little bit of carbs in meat and cheese... the latter would be higher I think?
Click to expand...

With regard to cheese, the fat content would carry the few carbs further along. Very few carbs in meat to speak of and, again, the protein and fat in meat would carry it further along the GI tract.
 
ringi said:
Well done, that is a admizing drop in such a short time, do you test your own BG?

Have you lost a lot of weight?
Click to expand...
Yes, a bit obsessed by it actually. I forgot to mention that I have been doing 16/8 fasting so I only eat after 12noon. I also, try and eat my last meal around 6pm. So some days its actually 18/6 fasting depending on my work pattern. So, I test my BG's at 6am, when breaking the fast and before bed. My BG's have been good ranging from 4 - 6mmols. I use Ontrack app my average for the month on there was 4.9mmols.
 
Hi Sue and welcome. I see you’ve received lots of good advice already but no one has tagged in @daisy1 for her welcome info post, just incase you haven’t come across it yet. I dropped my HbA1c quickly after diagnosis eating low carb and had a deterioration in my cholesterol numbers. Since then although my total cholesterol remains the same the breakdown with in that has improved. Hang in there, you’re doing brilliantly.
Oh and btw I was a nurse until I took early retirement in 2016, it came as a shock to me how little we were taught about Diabetes too :wideyed:
 
Sue2335 said:
Thank you. Unfortunately, I haven't lost a lot of weight (a stone in the past 3months). I hoping to loose a bit more. Thanks for the explanation and links, will definetely listen to them soon. I just hope the numbers will be better on the next 3months check.
Click to expand...

Sue, as Guzzler has said, for some folks, in the period following adoption of a low carb diet, they find their total cholesterol rises a bit, but it often sorts itself out again by the next round of bloods.

Without a doubt, the breakdown of your lipids is critical to any assessment, never mind diagnosis. I always have what my GP and I have agreed to call an inconveniently high total cholesterol, but the breakdowns and ratios are all excellent to ideal, so why would anyone want to meddle with that? Personally, I wouldn't be interested in adopting any medication without good scientific evidence to back it up. Again personally, I don't like taking aspirin for a headache, never mind every day, whatever the dose.

There is a lot on YouTube on lipids, and one of my personal favourite presenters if Professor Ken Sikaris who explains all manner of lipid related things, in easy to understand language. At the beginning of my many "chats" on lipids with my GP, I introduced her to Prof Sikaris and she admitted she learned a lot. I rate my GP, but they can't be experts in everything.


At the point of, or since diabetes, have you had a good, wide ranging blood panel done? I'm thinking of things like Vitamin panels - particularly D and B12, and hormones, like your thyroid levels.

Our helth can sometimes become a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, but a good broad set of bloods makes a great benchmark for future tracking of your general health moving forwards.

A big well done from me on that huge shift in HbA1c. You should be very proud.
 
Last edited:
You’ve had some great comments above, so I won’t repeat them, but I will offer my congratulations - that reduction in HbA1c is brilliant - and a testament to all your hard work :D
 
Jenny15 said:
Another thing that comes to mind is the little bit of carbs in meat and cheese... the latter would be higher I think?
Click to expand...
No .. meat and cheese are great no/low carb foods.. Meat has no carbs (apart from some residual in liver) and most cheese is very low. Please don't mislead people. The information (in the UK at least ) is freely available on food packaging or supermarket websites.
 
Hi Sue. Congratulations on achieving such an excellent reduction in HbA1c in such a short time. I have maintained a steady HbA1c of 35-37 for four years but my total cholesterol has increased to a steady 7.6. The HDL is high and the ratios are within range so I have decided to live with this level. I did cut out all saturated fat for 3 months but it did not make any difference. I choose not to take statins as the actual reduction in heart-related events is three in a hundred per year between people taking statins and those not taking them.
 
Back
Top