Newbie T2

[BurningFuse]

Hello, wonderful people. What an amazing site this is! The advice here is fantastic, and the encouragement that you give is wonderful. Thank you.

Here's my story: scheduling medical appointments is always a challenge for me due to an unrelenting work-diary, and so one on 17th July was squeezed between a business trip to the USA and another stint away from home running a training course. I'm fortunate to have a busy job that I really enjoy, but working for a global company comes with the side-effect of a lot of overseas travel, which meant it had been several weeks before I could see the DN at my local surgery following a "routine" blood test, taken due to recurring migraines.

I suspected a pre-diabetes warning may be due, as the appointment was with a "diabetic nurse", but that morning I was told that I have T2. She said that the diagnosis was a one-way trip.

My HbA1c is 61, HDL cholesterol of 1.23, LDL cholesterol of 3.73.
High-ish BP: 150/90. I'm 5'6" and 15st. I have an underactive thryoid (treated with thyroxine).
I'm told my liver, kidneys and feet are ok. I'm told I have a good heart, in every sense of the word!
All of my grandparents had diabetes, all died over 20 years ago.

I'm knocking on the door of 40, have a "cuddly" build, and whilst I have a lifestyle that's busy and often involves 18 hour days, most of what I do, both at work and outside of work, is relatively sedentary and I've never seen the inside of a gym! When home I love to cook: my signature dishes centre around rice, pasta, roasts, sweet-sauces, but my more regular meals consist of airport food, buffet lunches, and client-dinners.

I am a chocoholic. On the plus side I do love many vegetables too...


I'd assumed my constant tiredness was due to workload or swapping time-zones every few weeks, that more intimate challenges were due to exhaustion, and that recurring ear infections were due to generally being worn-out and physically run-down! However, with the benefit of hindsight and google, it seems that perhaps these were all early warning signs?

I'm now somewhat confused: the DN has asked for a repeat of the blood pressure test, this coming week, and said some vague suggestions of ramapril, statins, and the possibility of tablets (I'm guessing metformin) but no plan or prescription was put in place at that time. Is that to be expected?

I've been asked to take another full blood test in October.
I've been advised to control my diet (which will be a challenge with a total of 6 weeks in the USA coming up between now and Christmas!), but no suggestion of test equipment was made. I feel somewhat "in limbo" as I don't know whether my immediate actions will have the necessary effect:

My very wonderful wife discovered and devoured the "8-week Blood Sugar Diet" book, and we've been experimenting with some delicious new recipes, along with reduced portion sizes. I've cut out white rice, regular pasta, chocolate (apart from 70% + cocoa versions, which I hope is OK as I prefer it dark), chips, potatoes, bread, sugary cereals etc. I've discovered delicious cauliflower fauxtatoe, and have found partial snack-satisfaction through nuts.


I was hugely encouraged to read the wonderful advice which you've given so many people in this forum. Thank you all so much! I noted specifically the thread by @RFSMarch as it sounds like, although we have very different jobs, we have similar travel and work-food situations, particularly to the land of the high-fructose-corn-syrup!

I still have so much to learn and am very glad to have found this forum, thank you.


Should I wait until October's result and the next DN appointment before investing in a test-meter?
I'm a professional gadget-nut, and so would love to hear your advice on the "high tech" way of living with T2, in terms of apps, gadgets etc.

I'm also keen to hear what y'all eat for lunches when you are at work: my office in London is surrounded by Pret, Eat, Wagamama, and similar places, which are the go-to quick stops when we're not providing a buffet-lunch to visiting customers. Can you recommend anything there please? Unfortunately, I'm allergic to egg, and don't like fish or mushrooms, which I appreciate limits my options.

Also, what do you say about your diet to kind people who invite you round to dinner parties?

Thank you for your help and advice.

P.S. @daisy1 is clearly a saint!

 

[Resurgam]

I am just planning for a week's work which will be quite intensive so I have bought some protein rolls from Lidl - they are under 10 gm of carbs, and will take one with some salad and meat - they freeze well and act as an automatic chiller.

 

[BurningFuse]

Thank you, @Resurgam , they look delicious.

 

[Mike d]

Should I wait until October's result and the next DN appointment before investing in a test-meter?

Absolute NO to that ... get one and now. You have goals to attain

 

[luceeloo]

Hi,

I now get a meter and supplies on prescription as I'm insulin dependent, but this wasn't always the case for me. I used to have an nhs prescribed meter, and 1 box of test strips every 3 months. But, as you will find out, you'll want to be testing as much as you can during the early days to find out exactly what your body is doing.
It can't harm to have a meter now - there's a couple of different options. My favourite one for self-funding is the Codefree Meter from Amazon (type codefree into Amazon, and be careful to go for the mmol/L version ). It's cheap and cheerful and gets the job done, and the testing sticks are extremely cheap in comparison to the major branded ones. It means that you can buy a load and really get into the nitty gritty of testing.

If you really want to get gadgetty and have some cash to spare, check out the Freestyle Libre. It's a sensor that you wear on your upper arm and you use a handheld scanner to read your blood plasma levels. Each patch lasts 2 weeks, but gives you the benefit of continuous blood glucose levels. It's costly.

As far as food goes, salads with meat are a good idea - at places like PRET, try to go for the ones that come with their own pot of dressing... and then dump the dressing (which is usually sugar laden) and add liberal amounts of full fat mayo. I know that pret does an Avocado and super greens vegetable pot which I've had before, but I AM a carnivore, and it did lack meat!
One of my favourite type of places to get food is the smaller "greasy spoon" type cafes, because they'll usually prepare to your requirements. (on a Friday morning at work I get a fried egg, two pieces of bacon, grilled tomato served in a polystyrene burger box... basically a breakfast sandwich without the bread).
At some places you do have to think outside the box.. but you'll get used to figuring out what's good and what's not.

I do tend to prepare my own lunch, and it usually is a green salad with some sort of fish or meat. I like to break bits of feta or wensleydale into it to give it some flavour. I punctuate my day in the office with snacks, and I keep a stash of low carb "fast snacks" at hand. For me, these are pretty much pork crunch (glorified scratchings), mini babybel cheeses, little packets of nuts, and greek yoghurt.
I also have to have something to look forward to - it used to be dark chocolate in the early years, but now it's really good coffee.

I'm not going to pretend that it's easy to low carb. I fell off the wagon for a good year, gained weight, lost control of my blood sugar, and I'm back here now as I find this forum makes accountability easier.
Anyway, I've waffled enough... Welcome!

 

[BurningFuse]

Should I wait until October's result and the next DN appointment before investing in a test-meter?

Absolute NO to that ... get one and now. You have goals to attain

Thank you for your advice @Mike D - I'll get one ASAP!

 

[BurningFuse]

It can't harm to have a meter now - there's a couple of different options.

As far as food goes, salads with meat are a good idea - at places like PRET, try to go for the ones that come with their own pot of dressing... and then dump the dressing (which is usually sugar laden)

I do tend to prepare my own lunch, and it usually is a green salad with some sort of fish or meat. I like to break bits of feta or wensleydale into it to give it some flavour. I punctuate my day in the office with snacks, and I keep a stash of low carb "fast snacks" at hand. For me, these are pretty much pork crunch (glorified scratchings), mini babybel cheeses, little packets of nuts, and greek yoghurt.
I also have to have something to look forward to - it used to be dark chocolate in the early years, but now it's really good coffee.

Welcome!

Thank you for the welcome, and for all the advice @luceeloo it's greatly appreciated. I'm a carnivore too, and love cheese!
Thank you also for the snack ideas - I'm glad to hear that a dark chocolate treat is OK too!

 

[Mike d]

@BurningFuse ... you need to lower your sugars and lose some weight (walking much more but at a slow pace) and monitor your progress, reassess and eat well. Pity you don't like fish as it's great for most people

Sounds tough (and it is) but control is everything and I'm not into soft love ... long way to go but you'll be good with the advice you get here. We all got here thru one way or another, then the fight begins. Relapses not recommended, finish lines are

.... and do a readup on statins. Online.

 

[Rachox]

I have a Code Free, I got the starter set from Amazon, around £12, however it only comes with a few, I think ten test strips and lancets. I order the strips and lancets from Home Health now:

https://homehealth-uk.com

There are discount codes if you buy in bulk and don’t forget to check the box that you have diabetes so you can buy VAT free.

5 packs 264086

10 packs 975833

There are several apps you can use for recording blood sugars, I use Glucose Companion, there's a free version to give it a try, but it's only about £3.99 if you want to get rid of the annoying ads. It creates graphs for you to see your progress and you can record your weight too. I record my meals and carb counts on an Excel spreadsheet. It's fun number crunching especially when you see the advice from all these lovely people working.
EDIT I forgot to mention Pret have useful labels on their shelf edges with nutritional info on, including the carb count.

 

[pleinster]

Hi @BurningFuse - looks like you are up for it. Good luck. As for your question - "what do you say about your diet to kind people who invite you round to dinner parties?", I have the perfect solution which required very little effort from me; I am passively anti-social and quite horrible because I got totally fed up being nice to no avail a few years ago...so I never get invited to dinner parties. Easy as low carb pie.

 

[leslie10152]

Hello, wonderful people. What an amazing site this is! The advice here is fantastic, and the encouragement that you give is wonderful. Thank you.

Here's my story: scheduling medical appointments is always a challenge for me due to an unrelenting work-diary, and so one on 17th July was squeezed between a business trip to the USA and another stint away from home running a training course. I'm fortunate to have a busy job that I really enjoy, but working for a global company comes with the side-effect of a lot of overseas travel, which meant it had been several weeks before I could see the DN at my local surgery following a "routine" blood test, taken due to recurring migraines.

I suspected a pre-diabetes warning may be due, as the appointment was with a "diabetic nurse", but that morning I was told that I have T2. She said that the diagnosis was a one-way trip.

My HbA1c is 61, HDL cholesterol of 1.23, LDL cholesterol of 3.73.
High-ish BP: 150/90. I'm 5'6" and 15st. I have an underactive thryoid (treated with thyroxine).
I'm told my liver, kidneys and feet are ok. I'm told I have a good heart, in every sense of the word!
All of my grandparents had diabetes, all died over 20 years ago.

I'm knocking on the door of 40, have a "cuddly" build, and whilst I have a lifestyle that's busy and often involves 18 hour days, most of what I do, both at work and outside of work, is relatively sedentary and I've never seen the inside of a gym! When home I love to cook: my signature dishes centre around rice, pasta, roasts, sweet-sauces, but my more regular meals consist of airport food, buffet lunches, and client-dinners.

I am a chocoholic. On the plus side I do love many vegetables too...


I'd assumed my constant tiredness was due to workload or swapping time-zones every few weeks, that more intimate challenges were due to exhaustion, and that recurring ear infections were due to generally being worn-out and physically run-down! However, with the benefit of hindsight and google, it seems that perhaps these were all early warning signs?

I'm now somewhat confused: the DN has asked for a repeat of the blood pressure test, this coming week, and said some vague suggestions of ramapril, statins, and the possibility of tablets (I'm guessing metformin) but no plan or prescription was put in place at that time. Is that to be expected?

I've been asked to take another full blood test in October.
I've been advised to control my diet (which will be a challenge with a total of 6 weeks in the USA coming up between now and Christmas!), but no suggestion of test equipment was made. I feel somewhat "in limbo" as I don't know whether my immediate actions will have the necessary effect:

My very wonderful wife discovered and devoured the "8-week Blood Sugar Diet" book, and we've been experimenting with some delicious new recipes, along with reduced portion sizes. I've cut out white rice, regular pasta, chocolate (apart from 70% + cocoa versions, which I hope is OK as I prefer it dark), chips, potatoes, bread, sugary cereals etc. I've discovered delicious cauliflower fauxtatoe, and have found partial snack-satisfaction through nuts.


I was hugely encouraged to read the wonderful advice which you've given so many people in this forum. Thank you all so much! I noted specifically the thread by @RFSMarch as it sounds like, although we have very different jobs, we have similar travel and work-food situations, particularly to the land of the high-fructose-corn-syrup!

I still have so much to learn and am very glad to have found this forum, thank you.


Should I wait until October's result and the next DN appointment before investing in a test-meter?
I'm a professional gadget-nut, and so would love to hear your advice on the "high tech" way of living with T2, in terms of apps, gadgets etc.

I'm also keen to hear what y'all eat for lunches when you are at work: my office in London is surrounded by Pret, Eat, Wagamama, and similar places, which are the go-to quick stops when we're not providing a buffet-lunch to visiting customers. Can you recommend anything there please? Unfortunately, I'm allergic to egg, and don't like fish or mushrooms, which I appreciate limits my options.

Also, what do you say about your diet to kind people who invite you round to dinner parties?

Thank you for your help and advice.

P.S. @daisy1 is clearly a saint!

Welcome to the forum @BurningFuse. I know the problems of the busy schedule. As a rule, it is advisable to stay hydrated, especially during stressful periods as this helps to maintain glucose levels as well as keep the digestive process active. For meals at work I pre-prepare everything so I know what I am having. Prepacked meals and fast foods can push you out if the zone, so be wary. Fruits, vegetables (steamed), lean meats and low carb bread (be careful as some may not be as lo carb as is advertised). Keep tabs on your day to day bgl's and keep active. Good luck!!

 

[kokhongw]

As a gadget nut...at some point you may find the Freestyle Libre Flash Glucose monitor to be invaluable, though rather expensive.

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog-entry/freestyle-libre-glimp-s-glimp-samsung-note-2.1507/

 

[daisy1]

@BurningFuse

Hello and welcome to the Forum As mentioned above, here is the Basic Information we give to new members and I hope you will find this useful to you. Ask as many questions as you want and someone will be able to help.


BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEW MEMBERS

Diabetes is the general term to describe people who have blood that is sweeter than normal. A number of different types of diabetes exist.

A diagnosis of diabetes tends to be a big shock for most of us. It’s far from the end of the world though and on this forum you'll find well over 245,000 people who are demonstrating this.

On the forum we have found that with the number of new people being diagnosed with diabetes each day, sometimes the NHS is not being able to give all the advice it would perhaps like to deliver - particularly with regards to people with type 2 diabetes.

The role of carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are a factor in diabetes because they ultimately break down into sugar (glucose) within our blood. We then need enough insulin to either convert the blood sugar into energy for our body, or to store the blood sugar as body fat.

If the amount of carbohydrate we take in is more than our body’s own (or injected) insulin can cope with, then our blood sugar will rise.

The bad news

Research indicates that raised blood sugar levels over a period of years can lead to organ damage, commonly referred to as diabetic complications.

The good news

People on the forum here have shown that there is plenty of opportunity to keep blood sugar levels from going too high. It’s a daily task but it’s within our reach and it’s well worth the effort.

Controlling your carbs

The info below is primarily aimed at people with type 2 diabetes, however, it may also be of benefit for other types of diabetes as well.

There are two approaches to controlling your carbs:

• Reduce your carbohydrate intake
• Choose ‘better’ carbohydrates

Reduce your carbohydrates

A large number of people on this forum have chosen to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat as they have found this to be an effective way of improving (lowering) their blood sugar levels.

The carbohydrates which tend to have the most pronounced effect on blood sugar levels tend to be starchy carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and similar root vegetables, flour based products (pastry, cakes, biscuits, battered food etc) and certain fruits.

Choosing better carbohydrates

The low glycaemic index diet is often favoured by healthcare professionals but some people with diabetes find that low GI does not help their blood sugar enough and may wish to cut out these foods altogether.

Read more on carbohydrates and diabetes.

Over 145,000 people have taken part in the Low Carb Program - a free 10 week structured education course that is helping people lose weight and reduce medication dependency by explaining the science behind carbs, insulin and GI.

Eating what works for you

Different people respond differently to different types of food. What works for one person may not work so well for another. The best way to see which foods are working for you is to test your blood sugar with a glucose meter.

To be able to see what effect a particular type of food or meal has on your blood sugar is to do a test before the meal and then test after the meal. A test 2 hours after the meal gives a good idea of how your body has reacted to the meal.

The blood sugar ranges recommended by NICE are as follows:

Blood glucose ranges for type 2 diabetes

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 8.5 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (adults)

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 9 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (children)

• Before meals: 4 to 8 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 10 mmol/l

However, those that are able to, may wish to keep blood sugar levels below the NICE after meal targets.

Access to blood glucose test strips

The NICE guidelines suggest that people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should be offered:

• structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review
• self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education

Therefore both structured education and self-monitoring of blood glucose should be offered to people with type 2 diabetes. Read more on getting access to blood glucose testing supplies.

You may also be interested to read questions to ask at a diabetic clinic.

Note: This post has been edited from Sue/Ken's post to include up to date information.

Take part in Diabetes.co.uk digital education programs and improve your understanding. They're all free.

• Low Carb Program - it's made front-page news of the New Scientist and The Times. Developed with 20,000 people with type 2 diabetes; 96% of people who take part recommend it... find out why
• Hypo Program - improve your understanding of hypos. There's a version for people with diabetes, parents/guardians of children with type 1, children with type 1 diabetes, teachers and HCPs.

 

[KathyCP]

Hi Burningfuse, it's really important to sift what health professionals say to you (i should know, i used to be one). one thing is certain: T2 IS NOT A ONE-WAY TRIP!!!! my hba1c was 104 when i was diagnosed 3 and a half years ago, and i was told that i'd need to be on medication for the rest of my life, as there was nothing significant i could change in my lifestyle. but i changed my diet, first no sugar/natural sweet stuff, then no dried fruit or carbs, and established a daily exercise regime i could stick to (dancing in my living room in 10 minute bursts 3 times a day) - this last april my hba1c was 36, so technically i no longer have T2. so definitely a return trip for me so far .... but it has meant a fairly radical change to my diet, and i've also got much more careful about my life-work balance - i used to work 12-15 hour days, often with deadlines to meet, and i've managed to stop doing that, so i've been lucky there.

 

[BurningFuse]

T2 IS NOT A ONE-WAY TRIP!!!! my hba1c was 104 when i was diagnosed 3 and a half years ago, and i was told that i'd need to be on medication for the rest of my life <snip>
this last april my hba1c was 36, so technically i no longer have T2.

Wow - congratulations, that's very encouraging and inspiring to read, and well done. Thank you @KathyCP