Coming to Terms with T2

Messages
2
Hi all!

Been diagnosed for about 2 and a half years now but have been ignoring it. I'm now very worried about it and have previously been worried about seeking help from doctors and struggle to be able to come to terms with my diagnosis.

I'm worried about my future and was seeking first step advice for people who may have also found it very hard to come to terms with the diagnosis. What are the first steps people took, and how did you push yourself into taking those steps.

I am extremely scared of needles and blood tests (to the point of panic attacks) so some advice on those would be lovely as well.

Thanks in advance!
 

Resurgam

Expert
Messages
9,850
Type of diabetes
Type 2 (in remission!)
Treatment type
Diet only
I can't help with how you feel - I'm just rather sad to think that you could now have normal numbers and have nothing to worry about rather than not knowing how you are getting on.
Have you managed to have your Hba1c tested?
Do you eat a low carb diet?
 
Messages
2
I can't help with how you feel - I'm just rather sad to think that you could now have normal numbers and have nothing to worry about rather than not knowing how you are getting on.
Have you managed to have your Hba1c tested?
Do you eat a low carb diet?

No I haven't. I have been avoiding everything to do with it in denial. No I haven't especially changed my lifestyle at all apart from walking more.
 

Mike d

Expert
Messages
7,997
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Other
Dislikes
idiots who will not learn
What was your HBA1C?
 

HSSS

Expert
Messages
7,465
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
What was your HBA1C?
The test you had at diagnosis that is. If you don’t know call your drs and ask for the results you had.

How did you manage having that test? Could you bring yourself to get an up to date one? Perhaps having a chat first to let them know how you feel about it. You won’t be the first nervous patient they’ve successfully got blood from.

Do you or have you done any sewing? The daily testing is a needle you don’t/can’t even see if you use a device like a multiclix and feels no worse than a pin prick, often less, sometimes I don’t even feel it. I ask because testing foods for a while can really show you what works and what doesn’t and even better it’s great motivation when you see improvements. Although it’s a really great idea to test it’s not essential though. So long as you’re getting regular checks at the drs if it’s really that bad it could be avoided.

I’m assuming you’re not on medications if you’ve taken no action other than walking. Is weight loss a goal too?

I see you’re only very young (21). You have lots of time to live yet so getting to grips with it now will make the rest of your life so much smoother. However it also means you’ve got a long time for things to get complicated if you keep ignoring it. a smaller and simpler issue to deal with now rather than later. I’m going to tag our resident young inspiration @Caeseji here too.

In the meantime cut out the bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, cereals and flour based items as well as obvious sugars and you’ll have made a huge improvement. This explains why
https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html
 

Caeseji

Well-Known Member
Messages
658
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Self-fellating idiots that don't at all look at other people's views
The test you had at diagnosis that is. If you don’t know call your drs and ask for the results you had.

How did you manage having that test? Could you bring yourself to get an up to date one? Perhaps having a chat first to let them know how you feel about it. You won’t be the first nervous patient they’ve successfully got blood from.

Do you or have you done any sewing? The daily testing is a needle you don’t/can’t even see if you use a device like a multiclix and feels no worse than a pin prick, often less, sometimes I don’t even feel it. I ask because testing foods for a while can really show you what works and what doesn’t and even better it’s great motivation when you see improvements. Although it’s a really great idea to test it’s not essential though. So long as you’re getting regular checks at the drs if it’s really that bad it could be avoided.

I’m assuming you’re not on medications if you’ve taken no action other than walking. Is weight loss a goal too?

I see you’re only very young (21). You have lots of time to live yet so getting to grips with it now will make the rest of your life so much smoother. However it also means you’ve got a long time for things to get complicated if you keep ignoring it. a smaller and simpler issue to deal with now rather than later. I’m going to tag our resident young inspiration @Caeseji here too.

In the meantime cut out the bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, cereals and flour based items as well as obvious sugars and you’ll have made a huge improvement. This explains why
https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html

Thanks for the tag @HSSS and this advice is pretty much what turned my life around for the absolute better. Let yourself breathe for a while, I know that I ignored it for a while and I got the wakeup call of my life with a HBA1C of 114 but I managed to plunge that down quite quickly by the time I started taking the advice on the forums.

The best ideas right now is A. Get your full HBA1C from your doctors and any other tests and B. Push for any and all insulin production testing that you can get your hands on like C-Peptide because it's important to rule out Type 1 before anything with you being so young.

I myself ended up from 22 stones to now 12 stones by the last count and seems like my levels have followed suit with my low carb lifestyle, it's best to test and figure out what food affect you in which ways because otherwise you're floundering in the dark and trust me I absolutely loathed having to stick myself with needles but you get used to it in the end.

Welcome to the forums though @Eeveesophs0710 and I hope we can all help you (great name choice by the way, stands to get rather a lot of evolution in there)
 

JoKalsbeek

Expert
Messages
5,937
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Hi all!

Been diagnosed for about 2 and a half years now but have been ignoring it. I'm now very worried about it and have previously been worried about seeking help from doctors and struggle to be able to come to terms with my diagnosis.

I'm worried about my future and was seeking first step advice for people who may have also found it very hard to come to terms with the diagnosis. What are the first steps people took, and how did you push yourself into taking those steps.

I am extremely scared of needles and blood tests (to the point of panic attacks) so some advice on those would be lovely as well.

Thanks in advance!
Extremely scared of needles, eh.... That's inconvenient. If you let things get out of control by ignoring them, you are a step closer to having to use needles to inject insulin. A few times a day. I don't know if that's a reason for you to adjust how you've been dealing (or not dealing, as the case may be) with the diabetes? Because you know what? ANY reason to change your current approach, is a good one. Find reasons, any reason, to change the way things are now. For me personally, I saw a lot of complications, pain and death in my family and friends, and I didn't want to put my husband through that. He's already my carer, and I didn't want him to have to put me on the toilet as my legs have gone AWOL above the knee, like my uncle, or become an early widower. I don't quite care about me. That's not going to change. What I do care about is my husband, so I do everything I do, for him. Like I said, any reason is a good one, and while "love yourself first" is nice on a tile, that doesn't work for everyone! (If I had to wait to come to terms with myself, I'd never have done anything!). So you figure out your motivation, whatever it may be, and then take this condition on. Also.... @Resurgam is right. You could've had your blood sugars under control within months, maybe weeks, if you'd not stuck your head in the sand. Now there's years of damage to undo, far as that's possible. Let's make sure not to add more years to that, eh? You CAN get a grip on this, you know. It's not even all that hard, when it comes down to it. Well, a little more complicated if you don't check your blood glucose with a meter (requires a finger prick after all), but yeah.... Depending on what medication you're on you could just go as low carb as possible and hope for the best. (Wouldn't fool around with moderate low carb, as you can't test whether it's enough or not.) If you're not on insulin or gliclazide-like medication.... If it's just metformin or something, you could just dive right in and go for a ketogenic diet. Meaning 20 grams of carbs a day or less. (Some remain in ketosis at 30 grams, but again, that requires finger pricks and those are a no-go, by the sound of it. At 20 grams or less you're assured of it though.) It'd get your blood sugars down and into the normal range quick.

https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html hopefully will help. Keep in mind that there's always someone here who'll have answers to your questions, and there's no need to do any of this alone. Oh, and one more thing: Once I found out I could actually have a say in how high or low my blood sugars went, I felt rather empowered.... You don't have to be a victim to this condition, you do have some influence here. You have a say in how this condition progresses, if at all!!!
Hugs,
Jo
 

Roggg

Well-Known Member
Messages
286
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
@HSSS has provided very good advice. What I would stress is that new research shows that T2 is not necessarily chronic and progressive. It can often be beaten with a major overhaul of diet. This is not necessarily a quick fix and then go back to your old habits. So if the prospect of a lifetime of T2 is scary, turn that fear into motivation to fix it yourself.