- Messages
- 818
- Type of diabetes
- Gestational
- Treatment type
- Insulin
My A1c was 5.0% but I had a fasting blood glucose of 5.8 on one lab test. (5.1 and 4.7 on two other tests this past year). No diagnosis. I decided to get a meter and check for myself.
I found that my fasting are were usually around 5 on waking up but rose sometimes over 5.5 after an hour or so still fasting. (I definitely have a dawn phenomenon going on)
I tested after meals to see how high my blood sugar went. Most of the time it didn’t go past 7.8 with lots of carbs - potatoes,sweet potato, oatmeal, beans, etc. (I generally did’t eat much in refined carbs except whole grain bread) I got some surprises that trouble me - two readings up to 9.4 at an hour and two others over 7.8 at one hour but below 7.8 two hours. Those I ate more carbs than normal as a test. Spikes like that aren’t healthy and I want to avoid them.
Since reducing carbs, my fasting are usually in the 4s and were trending down, but the trend down seems to have stalled.
I may have insulin resistance or a weak pancreas. My doctor refused to order a fasting insulin or c-peptide. I am relatively thin and have a small waist. If someone told you that I am diabetic, looking at me you would guess type1 rather than type2.
There is this big grey pre-diabetic area between healthy and diabetic. Healthy with fasting under 4.8 and post-prandial always under 6.7. “Normal” with fasting under 5.6 and post-prandial under 7.8. Pre-diabetic is over normal up to 6.9 fasting on 11.1 peak.
I have definite signs of pre-diabetes but I don’t have extra weight to lose. Actually gaining back some muscle I have lost would probably help if the issue is insulin resistance rather than lack of insulin. Eating low carb is giving me consistently normal, even close to healthy, blood sugars. Not as low as I would like though.
I certainly would like to eat more carbs without my blood sugar reacting unfavorably. I now always have in the back of my mind - what will that do to my blood sugar?
It's good you are being proactive about not letting things get worse. I was just wondering what age you are?
Have you ever done an oral glucose tolerance test?
and what prompted you to have the A1c done?
What was your diet like in the lead up to that test? (Were you like me and eating one too many sweet things or was it carbs in general? Or were you already low carbing when you had the A1c?)
I'm thinking if you can eat a bunch of legumes, root vegetables and oat meal and not spike past 7.8 mmol, you must have enough insulin still to keep the numbers in check. But without a fasting insulin or, is it C- Peptide, it's hard to know whether you are on the hyperinsulinemic early side or on the other side of the curve when your pancreas is burning out. If you are still young, it's more likely to be on the good side of the curve I imagine. That's the side of the curve I'm assuming I'm on.
Do you work out to try to build muscle? I know (not from my own experience of exercising but from hearing others' stories) that building muscle mass must help with insulin resistance as you create new muscle cells and have somewhere for the insulin to put the sugar (if I understand it correctly). (You know this already anyway. Your posts seems to show you've read a lot.) How you go about putting on weight on any diet that restricts either carbs or fats though I am not sure. From the stories of body builders trying to bulk up, I believe they eat tonnes of calories often in carb form, don't they? Kind hard when you are trying to stop your blood sugar from spiking, but maybe you have to look long term vs short term gain.
Are you under stress do you think? Do you tend to be a worrier? I think that is one of my biggest problems and you can't underestimate how that affects your health and metabolism. So when it's not just all about the food, you have to think of ways to get on and enjoy life, laugh when you can, because that will help your blood sugars stabilize as much as anything I think.
If you know you have certain safe foods on low carb, cut yourself some slack and eat just those for a few days without measuring your blood sugar and go back to doing something else you enjoy. (That's the advice I am giving myself at the moment anyway as I try to find work out videos I can do while at home with my kids and baby.)
If you are prediabetic, you probably don't have to watch things quite so closely if you find it's creating more stress. Again, that's what I think my problem is at the moment. Being stuck in the house with my kids (we've all had a virus for the past few weeks and it's miserable weather outside, not to mention it's just too hard to go anywhere with a 4 month old, a 3yo and a not quite 5yo. But that's another story... ha ha) it's easy to obsess. For me it is t least