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

Any advice!

B

berrygemma

Newbie
Messages
1
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hi everyone.
I am 31 years old, I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant at 25, taking insulin and metformin. It went away but I was diagnosed again about 3 months ago with type 2 and moved quickly from diet control to metformin twice daily.
In the last 48 hours my readings have spiked 4 times to over 19.5 and I am feeling pretty worried.
I follow a low carb diet and haven't eaten anything unusual and don"t feel unwell.
Any advice about what to do with such unstable readings would be great. Thankyou x
 
It is common for approximately 1 in 4 ladies who experience gestational diabetes to go on to develop conventional diabetes (usually type 2) within a few years of their pregnancy.
I am assuming that because you are taking the metformin, that you have been diagnosed as diabetic. Something must indeed be making your blood/glucose levels behave erratically and a level of 19.5 mmol/L is far too high.
You will need to know what your initial B/G reading was before eating and take a reading 2 hours later to see how well, or otherwise your digestive system coped with that particular meal. Also bear in mind that readings can be raised if you are suffering with any infection that your body is fighting (colds being the classic symptom at this time of year), stress and anxiety, and certain other medications (notably Steroids) are also known to raise B/G levels to high extremes.
If there is nothing obvious that is causing the High spikes, you might need to do some detective work of your own to see if something that you are eating is causing these rapid rises.

Best Wishes - Lazybones
 
Hi and welcome to the forum.

Did you test before your meals? Without that knowledge the post meal level is pretty meaningless. What did you eat on those occasions?
 
Recently my BG has been all over the place, woke up today 16.5 breakfast and medications 2 hours later, followed at lunch time with a smoothie, 2 hrs later BG is 20.5
Seeing Doc tomorrow, last A1C was 95
Am I destined to become insulin dependant?
Meds Metformin x 2 daily and Gliclazide 4 x daily
 
brileo said:
Recently my BG has been all over the place, woke up today 16.5 breakfast and medications 2 hours later, followed at lunch time with a smoothie, 2 hrs later BG is 20.5
Seeing Doc tomorrow, last A1C was 95
Am I destined to become insulin dependant?
Meds Metformin x 2 daily and Gliclazide 4 x daily
Click to expand...

Hello and welcome

What sort of diet are you following? What sort of smoothie was it? A fruit one or a veggie one? Fruit smoothies are not a good choice for diabetics (and neither is most fresh fruit or juice) Are you still eating a lot of carbs, especially bread, cereals, potatoes, rice, pasta? Maybe we can help a little if you give us some idea of your diet. I can't answer your question as to whether you are destined to become insulin dependant, but with a suitable diet you may be able to postpone this.
 
brileo said:
Recently my BG has been all over the place, woke up today 16.5 breakfast and medications 2 hours later, followed at lunch time with a smoothie, 2 hrs later BG is 20.5
Seeing Doc tomorrow, last A1C was 95
Am I destined to become insulin dependant?
Meds Metformin x 2 daily and Gliclazide 4 x daily
Click to expand...
Hi
As Bluetit said please let us know your diet what you eat and we might be able to help what you could cut out
I would also request you to calm down my levels at diagnosis were much higher than yours so a good diet will get everything under control
Just let us know your diet and also please test before your meal and 1 hour and 2 hours after your meals to get better and accurate readings.
 
I have cut out bread, and most cereals, today I had bran flakes with semi milk, for breakfast and the fruit smoothie for lunch.
I have been diabetic for 8 years, but previous Doc did not believe in "testing", which was fine with me, changed Doctor, who
asked me to start testing, initial numbers were high teens, she adjusted medication to current, and numbers started coming down to low teens, and even 7 - 8, as you can imagine I was delighted, however a few days ago they started to climb, until today when the fasting level was 16.5, and 2 hrs after Lunch 20.7
Thanks to brettsza and to bluetit1802 for your input
 
@brileo Cereals are not always a good choice, no matter what sort, and the fruit smoothie needs to be avoided totally. Fresh fruit is bad enough as it is full of sugar, but blended down into a smoothie alters the composition, making it even worse. Same with fruit juices. If I were you I would discontinue with the smoothies, and test out the cereals. Test immediately before you eat, then again after 1 hour and again after 2 hours and see what the rise is. Ideally it should be under 2mmol/l. Have you thought of bacon and egg for breakfast, or scrambled eggs, or a natural yogurt with a few berries added?

If you amend your diet you should see those levels coming down, hopefully.
 
Thanks so much, I can't test any more than 3 x daily, since Doc only gives script for this amount of testing strips and according to Pharmacist, these can't be bought without prescription.
I'm not too keen on eggs, but can eat them occasionally, have no idea about what to eat apart from salad. I also have IBS and most vegs, are trigger foods for me, also some fruits, can only eat 1 or 2 servings of fruit/veg per day.
Seeing Doc this afternoon, so hoping for more advice.
 
@brileo You are fortunate in getting a meter and limited strips on subscription, most T2s don't. If your GP won't prescribe more and you want to test more frequently you could buy an SD Codefree, popular because the strips are about the cheapest around £7 for 50.

My wife had (has) IBS but she has found from doing LCHF with me (she's not diabetic) that her system is nowhere near as sensitive now. It might be worth considering a little experimentation when you reduce the carbs to see if you can tolerate more.
 
brileo said:
Thanks so much, I can't test any more than 3 x daily, since Doc only gives script for this amount of testing strips and according to Pharmacist, these can't be bought without prescription.
I'm not too keen on eggs, but can eat them occasionally, have no idea about what to eat apart from salad. I also have IBS and most vegs, are trigger foods for me, also some fruits, can only eat 1 or 2 servings of fruit/veg per day.
Seeing Doc this afternoon, so hoping for more advice.
Click to expand...

If you can't persuade your doc to give you more strips, and if you don't buy your own meter as @sanguine suggested, then I suggest you concentrate on one meal at a time. Test before and 2 hours after breakfast one day, then next day the same for lunch, then next day dinner. You can still build up a meaningful record and food diary that way.
 
Hi. Yes, don't have fruit smoothies
brileo said:
Thanks so much, I can't test any more than 3 x daily, since Doc only gives script for this amount of testing strips and according to Pharmacist, these can't be bought without prescription.
I'm not too keen on eggs, but can eat them occasionally, have no idea about what to eat apart from salad. I also have IBS and most vegs, are trigger foods for me, also some fruits, can only eat 1 or 2 servings of fruit/veg per day.
Seeing Doc this afternoon, so hoping for more advice.
Click to expand...
Hi. Yes, don't have fruit smoothies as they are the worst form of carb to have. You don't need a prescription to buy test strips. They are cheaper on the web but find a supplier who doesn't charge you VAT as a diabetic.
 
berrygemma said:
Hi everyone.
I am 31 years old, I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant at 25, taking insulin and metformin. It went away but I was diagnosed again about 3 months ago with type 2 and moved quickly from diet control to metformin twice daily.
In the last 48 hours my readings have spiked 4 times to over 19.5 and I am feeling pretty worried.
I follow a low carb diet and haven't eaten anything unusual and don"t feel unwell.
Any advice about what to do with such unstable readings would be great. Thankyou x
Click to expand...
Hi. It's always possible that you may be a Late onset T1 and not T2. If you continue to have high blood sugar despite low-carbing and assuming you are not overweight then do ask for the two tests for LADA.
 
Thanks so much for all of your suggestions, I will try them all, just seen Doc A1C is down from 95 to 83, so we are heading in the right direction, she seems to think that the spike yesterday may be due to some sort of infection.
 
Yes, good news you are heading in the right direction. Infection is certainly one of the reasons for higher numbers.
 
All I would say is, who suggested taking it at breakfast, the leaflet and my docs instructions on the perscription was with food and evening meal.
 
Back
Top