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As I type this, I am coming to the end of my second month here at diabetes.co.uk. 26/05/2019
I came here two months ago with no knowledge of LCHF whatsoever.
To be honest I had very little knowledge of type 2 diabetes… Other than to say… “I knew I had it”
I had literally just come out of hospital, where I had been admitted for a very virulent virus.
Long story short:
On my admission I had elevated BG levels, a blinding headache, a rash covering most of my body, an extremely high blood pressure, shortness of breath, the tremors, dizziness, confusion. In short I felt that I was about to die. I am being deadly serious… (no pun intended).
The first thing the specialist that saw me did, was to stop my metformin and place me on 100units/ml of insulin and 80mg of Glicaside twice a day.
I was placed on a saline drip for 2days and nights as I had very low sodium levels.
At this point I had not eaten at all for 6 days. I had lost a stone in weight!
After armfuls of blood and test after test after test, I was released after 3 days without any knowledge of what had happened to me (All the tests came back negative). Well positive in the sense that practically every condition known to man had been ruled out.
All I knew for certain was that now I was injecting insulin every night, and having to take 2 Glicaside tablets a day.
I still felt very ill and had a month off work recovering.
I drive for a living and cover over a thousand miles a week. I had to inform DVLA that I was now insulin dependent.
WELL! That one word ‘dependant’ did not sit well with me.
From the moment I got home from hospital I spend almost that whole first month here at www.diabetes.co.uk reading up on Type 2 diabetes and what that really entailed.
It took me a very short amount of time to realise that several of the members here enthused about something called ‘LCHF’.
I had a lot of abbreviations to catch up on before I knew what people were talking about.
This one 'LCHF', perhaps more than any other, seemed to make so much sense… and yet, it went against almost everything I had been told about what to eat.
I had had a meeting with a diabetic nurse before I left hospital who talked in depth about ‘diet’. She gave me several leaflets to read up on that would help me understand what things to eat and what to avoid.
Confusion set in...
I was not alone in having this dichotomy. (That’s not a medical condition btw)
So many posters here were having such life changing things happen when they began this elusive, LCHF diet… Which is in fact, anything but elusive.
It was simply a fact that eating fewer carbohydrates and having more fat could change, alter, improve, blood sugar, and reduce insulin dependence. (There was that dreaded word again)
WHAT? Reduce my insulin dependence! Crumbs some even stopped having to have insulin altogether!!
So I had to know more how this happens and then give it a try myself.
I will not here, go in to any details about the science behind a LCHF diet, there is a wealth of information here on this site to digest (pun intended).
My personal story is:
I reduced my insulin from 100mg within the first month by 20%.
I was now in my second month, having to test every 2 hours as I could not drop below 5 on the tester and legally drive. It soon became apparent that my drop in 'carbs' correlated to the need to reduce my insulin and my ‘Glicaside’ to prevent me going ‘HYPO’.
I have posted on my signature how I accomplished this.
Upon my first visit with my diabetic specialist my meter was taken away to download the ‘numbers’
I was testing 8, 9. 10 times a day, every day!
In the twelve years that this ‘specialist’ had been doing his job he exclaimed “I have never seen figures this good” he went on to say “Perhaps only two or three have come close to these numbers in all that time!”
He went on to say
“I do not consider that you need to continue taking insulin and should stop with immediate effect”
Not at all what me and my fantastic wife had expected to hear. WE thought that he would be upset that I had taken it upon myself to reduce my insulin by 30% and tablets by 50% over the last two months.
He went on to further say, I should reduce my Glicaside to 40mg a day and see how things go.
He then said “I do not need to see you again you are discharged”
So, is this a success story?
Well only time will tell, as the real work starts each and every morning from today onwards.
To conclude I would like to say a huge thank you to the mods and everybody who toils away in the background here at this font of knowledge that we all drink from.
Plus remembering all the great members and posters here who have inspired and guided me to this point… Oh! and for putting up with some of my doggerel.
Po
I came here two months ago with no knowledge of LCHF whatsoever.
To be honest I had very little knowledge of type 2 diabetes… Other than to say… “I knew I had it”
I had literally just come out of hospital, where I had been admitted for a very virulent virus.
Long story short:
On my admission I had elevated BG levels, a blinding headache, a rash covering most of my body, an extremely high blood pressure, shortness of breath, the tremors, dizziness, confusion. In short I felt that I was about to die. I am being deadly serious… (no pun intended).
The first thing the specialist that saw me did, was to stop my metformin and place me on 100units/ml of insulin and 80mg of Glicaside twice a day.
I was placed on a saline drip for 2days and nights as I had very low sodium levels.
At this point I had not eaten at all for 6 days. I had lost a stone in weight!
After armfuls of blood and test after test after test, I was released after 3 days without any knowledge of what had happened to me (All the tests came back negative). Well positive in the sense that practically every condition known to man had been ruled out.
All I knew for certain was that now I was injecting insulin every night, and having to take 2 Glicaside tablets a day.
I still felt very ill and had a month off work recovering.
I drive for a living and cover over a thousand miles a week. I had to inform DVLA that I was now insulin dependent.
WELL! That one word ‘dependant’ did not sit well with me.
From the moment I got home from hospital I spend almost that whole first month here at www.diabetes.co.uk reading up on Type 2 diabetes and what that really entailed.
It took me a very short amount of time to realise that several of the members here enthused about something called ‘LCHF’.
I had a lot of abbreviations to catch up on before I knew what people were talking about.
This one 'LCHF', perhaps more than any other, seemed to make so much sense… and yet, it went against almost everything I had been told about what to eat.
I had had a meeting with a diabetic nurse before I left hospital who talked in depth about ‘diet’. She gave me several leaflets to read up on that would help me understand what things to eat and what to avoid.
Confusion set in...
I was not alone in having this dichotomy. (That’s not a medical condition btw)
So many posters here were having such life changing things happen when they began this elusive, LCHF diet… Which is in fact, anything but elusive.
It was simply a fact that eating fewer carbohydrates and having more fat could change, alter, improve, blood sugar, and reduce insulin dependence. (There was that dreaded word again)
WHAT? Reduce my insulin dependence! Crumbs some even stopped having to have insulin altogether!!
So I had to know more how this happens and then give it a try myself.
I will not here, go in to any details about the science behind a LCHF diet, there is a wealth of information here on this site to digest (pun intended).
My personal story is:
I reduced my insulin from 100mg within the first month by 20%.
I was now in my second month, having to test every 2 hours as I could not drop below 5 on the tester and legally drive. It soon became apparent that my drop in 'carbs' correlated to the need to reduce my insulin and my ‘Glicaside’ to prevent me going ‘HYPO’.
I have posted on my signature how I accomplished this.
Upon my first visit with my diabetic specialist my meter was taken away to download the ‘numbers’
I was testing 8, 9. 10 times a day, every day!
In the twelve years that this ‘specialist’ had been doing his job he exclaimed “I have never seen figures this good” he went on to say “Perhaps only two or three have come close to these numbers in all that time!”
He went on to say
“I do not consider that you need to continue taking insulin and should stop with immediate effect”
Not at all what me and my fantastic wife had expected to hear. WE thought that he would be upset that I had taken it upon myself to reduce my insulin by 30% and tablets by 50% over the last two months.
He went on to further say, I should reduce my Glicaside to 40mg a day and see how things go.
He then said “I do not need to see you again you are discharged”
So, is this a success story?
Well only time will tell, as the real work starts each and every morning from today onwards.
To conclude I would like to say a huge thank you to the mods and everybody who toils away in the background here at this font of knowledge that we all drink from.
Plus remembering all the great members and posters here who have inspired and guided me to this point… Oh! and for putting up with some of my doggerel.
Po
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