Naughty for a good month at Christmas

[Pan123]

Hi everyone..

I posted back in sept as being newly diagnosed and wanting to reverse the diabetes and to loose two stones. Unfortunately things have not gone to plan.. because of Covid I had to move away from vulnerable people in September and again in November and again in January. I was also supposed to have a blood test but due to the move this did not happen. During the run up to Christmas until today.. it has been really difficult with temptation everywhere.. but today I decided to go on my slim fast keto diet.. As I have been getting pangs around both my sides so I am worried about my kidneys..

My have daily blood sugar is around.. 6.2 to 9.0.. sometimes having a large difference in a day..

And due to the lockdown I am struggling to do exercise..I am working at home sitting down almost the whole day.. as I am not physically at work .. I used to walk at least 10,000 steps a day..

but my most worrying things is the pangs/ache I am getting on my sides.. kidney/ liver area.. that has creeped me out the most..

I will be doing my blood test at the beginning of next week.

Any advice?

 

[Freema]

Hi everyone..

I posted back in sept as being newly diagnosed and wanting to reverse the diabetes and to loose two stones. Unfortunately things have not gone to plan.. because of Covid I had to move away from vulnerable people in September and again in November and again in January. I was also supposed to have a blood test but due to the move this did not happen. During the run up to Christmas until today.. it has been really difficult with temptation everywhere.. but today I decided to go on my slim fast keto diet.. As I have been getting pangs around both my sides so I am worried about my kidneys..

My have daily blood sugar is around.. 6.2 to 9.0.. sometimes having a large difference in a day..

And due to the lockdown I am struggling to do exercise..I am working at home sitting down almost the whole day.. as I am not physically at work .. I used to walk at least 10,000 steps a day..

but my most worrying things is the pangs/ache I am getting on my sides.. kidney/ liver area.. that has creeped me out the most..

I will be doing my blood test at the beginning of next week.

Any advice?

Good luck with your diet

 

[VashtiB]

Hello,

The symptoms are not wonderful but my advice is to get some medical advice as soon as possible. It may or may not be related to your diabetes but only a medical professional can diagnose.

zin relation to being off the low carb band wagon my advice is to get back on as soon as possible. Start with things that are very low carb- less measuring and eat until you are satisfied. Meat, fish eggs cheese cream-- that sort of thing.

You can worry about the weight loss after your blood sugar levels are under control. You may find you will lose weight anyway but the blood sugar levels for me were my top priority.

Good luck!

 

[Pan123]

Hello,

The symptoms are not wonderful but my advice is to get some medical advice as soon as possible. It may or may not be related to your diabetes but only a medical professional can diagnose.

zin relation to being off the low carb band wagon my advice is to get back on as soon as possible. Start with things that are very low carb- less measuring and eat until you are satisfied. Meat, fish eggs cheese cream-- that sort of thing.

You can worry about the weight loss after your blood sugar levels are under control. You may find you will lose weight anyway but the blood sugar levels for me were my top priority.

Good luck!

Thanks for the advice.. what values should I be looking for to get the blood sugar under control?

 

[JoKalsbeek]

Hi everyone..

I posted back in sept as being newly diagnosed and wanting to reverse the diabetes and to loose two stones. Unfortunately things have not gone to plan.. because of Covid I had to move away from vulnerable people in September and again in November and again in January. I was also supposed to have a blood test but due to the move this did not happen. During the run up to Christmas until today.. it has been really difficult with temptation everywhere.. but today I decided to go on my slim fast keto diet.. As I have been getting pangs around both my sides so I am worried about my kidneys..

My have daily blood sugar is around.. 6.2 to 9.0.. sometimes having a large difference in a day..

And due to the lockdown I am struggling to do exercise..I am working at home sitting down almost the whole day.. as I am not physically at work .. I used to walk at least 10,000 steps a day..

but my most worrying things is the pangs/ache I am getting on my sides.. kidney/ liver area.. that has creeped me out the most..

I will be doing my blood test at the beginning of next week.

Any advice?

Hi @Pan123 ,

Trust me, you're not the only one who struggles over the holidays. Especially this past year's, what with both temptation and comfort-eating with thanks to covid-misery in the mix. So good on you for getting back to a diet, though I wonder, why SlimFast? Seems like a very expensive way to get into ketosis. Overly processed foods like SlimFast shakes, bars and what have you, with artificial sweeteners (which are poisonous to your gut bacteria, and you don't want to kill those off. Strangely enough they're not mentioned by name, just "artificial flavours", on the English language website... In the Dutch one they are legally required to name them, and then they're right there. Not with a ten-foot pole, thanks!) seems a lot less tasty than some eggs with bacon, cheese etc.... Real food, with proper nutrition, not straight out of a factory, would be a lot better. https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog-entry/the-nutritional-thingy.2330/ might help some.

As for the pain near your kidneys and liver area, you might want to speak to your GP. Could be anything. Your kidneys could be not too happy with medication or having to urinate very frequently, it could be not your kidneys but irritable bowel, especially if you've been having artificial sugar a lot... Liver could be non alcoholic fatty liver disease (which a low carb diet would likely fix), or.... There's so very much going on in those area's, there's no telling what it may be. Which also means it could well be something that's easily fixed! Hence, the get-thee-to-the-GP. I know this isn't the greatest time to try and get an appointment, but I think some blood draws, urine sample and palpating may be in order. And check the leaflet from whatever medication you're on, as some can hurt kidneys.

You don't have to get out of the house to move about. Just look up some youtube video's with morning gymnastics for instance. I have a bursitis right now that my therapist gave me some exercises for. He wanted me to go for walks, which isn't going to happen right now, so... He gave me some alternatives to do at home, in the area a size of a postage stamp. Seeks and you shall find something that'll fit your situation.

In any case, take the bull by the horns and go for it!
Jo

 

[Pan123]

Thanks for your advice..

Hi @Pan123 ,

Trust me, you're not the only one who struggles over the holidays. Especially this past year's, what with both temptation and comfort-eating with thanks to covid-misery in the mix. So good on you for getting back to a diet, though I wonder, why SlimFast? Seems like a very expensive way to get into ketosis. Overly processed foods like SlimFast shakes, bars and what have you, with artificial sweeteners (which are poisonous to your gut bacteria, and you don't want to kill those off. Strangely enough they're not mentioned by name, just "artificial flavours", on the English language website... In the Dutch one they are legally required to name them, and then they're right there. Not with a ten-foot pole, thanks!) seems a lot less tasty than some eggs with bacon, cheese etc.... Real food, with proper nutrition, not straight out of a factory, would be a lot better. https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog-entry/the-nutritional-thingy.2330/ might help some.

As for the pain near your kidneys and liver area, you might want to speak to your GP. Could be anything. Your kidneys could be not too happy with medication or having to urinate very frequently, it could be not your kidneys but irritable bowel, especially if you've been having artificial sugar a lot... Liver could be non alcoholic fatty liver disease (which a low carb diet would likely fix), or.... There's so very much going on in those area's, there's no telling what it may be. Which also means it could well be something that's easily fixed! Hence, the get-thee-to-the-GP. I know this isn't the greatest time to try and get an appointment, but I think some blood draws, urine sample and palpating may be in order. And check the leaflet from whatever medication you're on, as some can hurt kidneys.

You don't have to get out of the house to move about. Just look up some youtube video's with morning gymnastics for instance. I have a bursitis right now that my therapist gave me some exercises for. He wanted me to go for walks, which isn't going to happen right now, so... He gave me some alternatives to do at home, in the area a size of a postage stamp. Seeks and you shall find something that'll fit your situation.

In any case, take the bull by the horns and go for it!
Jo

Thanks for your reply .. it’s just that I bought it as my weight loss had plateaued so I thought it would be a good idea to stop the pains I have been having in my sides.. as temptation was too much in my way.

I have done as you said and looked up exercise on
You tube and will be doing some every day.

I would like to be in remission or reversal .. could you explain to me your journey of how you have achieved this?

Thanks for the advice again..

 

[JoKalsbeek]

Thanks for your advice..



Thanks for your reply .. it’s just that I bought it as my weight loss had plateaued so I thought it would be a good idea to stop the pains I have been having in my sides.. as temptation was too much in my way.

I have done as you said and looked up exercise on
You tube and will be doing some every day.

I would like to be in remission or reversal .. could you explain to me your journey of how you have achieved this?

Thanks for the advice again..

Hi again,



If you want to change your diet to fix what's wrong with your sides, and you think keto'd be a solution, then the best way forward, should you ask me that is, is to just do keto. You could try shakes as meal replacements and whatnot to get you started, but after a rather traumatic experience with dead gut bacteria, (the sweetener in my tea and the stuff in my diet coke's killed everything off, and years later I'm still not quite healed. the bacteria are fine, my intestines are still.... Not thrilled with me.), I'd just want to caution you. If you have ANY bowel trouble at all, get that stuff off of your menu and get some sauerkraut, kimchi or bacteria supplements in you. Now, having said that, my journey was a very, very messy one, as the gut fiasco hints at, haha. But seriously, in the beginning, I was getting so much conflicting information, I just tried it all and let my meter show me the way. Going low carb seemed to work best, so I kept lowering those in increments. Started at something like 85 grams a day, which was still too much, then halved that to about 40, then halved that... And went keto. Which worked fine for me, but I did plateau eventually. Which isn't surprising, because I don't get out much and don't walk anywhere near as much as I should, and I have a couple of other conditions working against me. (Hashimoto's, PCOS and what have you.) Still, I stopped weighing myself when I was 102 kilo's, and I was well beyond that but was too afraid of the scales to get back on, over 4 years ago. Now I'm 78-something, which for my hight is slightly overweight, no longer morbidly obese. (Obese to a point where I had sleep apnea, an extremely fatty liver and couldn't tie my shoes without getting out of breath because my gut squashed my lungs when I tried.). Currently I'm doing carnivore, as going as low carb as possible is helping other conditions of mine, so I'm at 10 grams a day or under. Blood sugars usually hover between 4 and 5-something. So while I wrote the Nutritional Thingy as a bit of a lor carb guideline, my journey certainly wasn't without the odd stumble. Especially in the beginning I made a lot of mistakes, or rather, went with the wrong kind of information. Eating to my meter helped me find what worked for me.



Mind you... My diet did help with my non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which was painful. But that was on ONE side only. You're talking about both sides being unhappy. Knowing kidneys don't like certain medication, like metformin in some cases, you really do want to go through the leaflets of the medications you use. If you're on diuretics for instance, they're not a good combination with metformin. Just as an example. Check for contraindications, lactic acidosis (which can cause abdominal pain) and whatnot. I realise you might be a bit like me in wanting to just get things sorted by yourself, and not call in outside help, but I really do think seeing a GP is in order. If something really is going wrong with your kidneys, you want to know soon and get help. Same with anything else that could be going awry.



The forum keeps giving me an error message so i'd better post this before it vanishes. But really... Get someone to look at you. Preferably in person.

Hugs,

Jo

 

[Pan123]

Hi again,



If you want to change your diet to fix what's wrong with your sides, and you think keto'd be a solution, then the best way forward, should you ask me that is, is to just do keto. You could try shakes as meal replacements and whatnot to get you started, but after a rather traumatic experience with dead gut bacteria, (the sweetener in my tea and the stuff in my diet coke's killed everything off, and years later I'm still not quite healed. the bacteria are fine, my intestines are still.... Not thrilled with me.), I'd just want to caution you. If you have ANY bowel trouble at all, get that stuff off of your menu and get some sauerkraut, kimchi or bacteria supplements in you. Now, having said that, my journey was a very, very messy one, as the gut fiasco hints at, haha. But seriously, in the beginning, I was getting so much conflicting information, I just tried it all and let my meter show me the way. Going low carb seemed to work best, so I kept lowering those in increments. Started at something like 85 grams a day, which was still too much, then halved that to about 40, then halved that... And went keto. Which worked fine for me, but I did plateau eventually. Which isn't surprising, because I don't get out much and don't walk anywhere near as much as I should, and I have a couple of other conditions working against me. (Hashimoto's, PCOS and what have you.) Still, I stopped weighing myself when I was 102 kilo's, and I was well beyond that but was too afraid of the scales to get back on, over 4 years ago. Now I'm 78-something, which for my hight is slightly overweight, no longer morbidly obese. (Obese to a point where I had sleep apnea, an extremely fatty liver and couldn't tie my shoes without getting out of breath because my gut squashed my lungs when I tried.). Currently I'm doing carnivore, as going as low carb as possible is helping other conditions of mine, so I'm at 10 grams a day or under. Blood sugars usually hover between 4 and 5-something. So while I wrote the Nutritional Thingy as a bit of a lor carb guideline, my journey certainly wasn't without the odd stumble. Especially in the beginning I made a lot of mistakes, or rather, went with the wrong kind of information. Eating to my meter helped me find what worked for me.



Mind you... My diet did help with my non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which was painful. But that was on ONE side only. You're talking about both sides being unhappy. Knowing kidneys don't like certain medication, like metformin in some cases, you really do want to go through the leaflets of the medications you use. If you're on diuretics for instance, they're not a good combination with metformin. Just as an example. Check for contraindications, lactic acidosis (which can cause abdominal pain) and whatnot. I realise you might be a bit like me in wanting to just get things sorted by yourself, and not call in outside help, but I really do think seeing a GP is in order. If something really is going wrong with your kidneys, you want to know soon and get help. Same with anything else that could be going awry.



The forum keeps giving me an error message so i'd better post this before it vanishes. But really... Get someone to look at you. Preferably in person.

Hugs,

Jo

Wow thanks for telling me about your journey but how long did it take you to be in remission.. I am trying to do it as fast as possible .. I am in a similar position to you I weight 105kg and have lost 2 stones.. now 89kg.. I also have PCOS and being Asian .. diabetes runs in the family. I have only told one family member as I cannot tell my parents .. they will be too worried about it and especially with Covid even more so..

As for the pains I did my low carb diet today and did not feel anything.. fingers crossed it’s just me eating more carbs.. and hopefully it will improve. I am due a blood test next week so hopefully I will find out soon.

as for the metformin I am supposed to take it 2 times a day.. when I was working and went to work I decided to take it once every other day as I did 10,000 steps a day. Now that I am in lock down and because I cheated almost for the last month .. I do feel like I would take it twice a day but my goal is to no longer be on medication at all..

Again please tell me how long it took you to go I to remission? I know everyone is different but I would like to get an idea.in terms of what I must do .. first thing is to be on a low carb diet and to loose at least 2-3 stones.. to remove any visceral fat from my stomach.. it is probably the reason why I want to go on this shake diet.. anyway I have bought it so I will finish it .. hopefully it will provide me with more motivation..

Thanks for your help.

pan123

 

[JoKalsbeek]

Wow thanks for telling me about your journey but how long did it take you to be in remission.. I am trying to do it as fast as possible .. I am in a similar position to you I weight 105kg and have lost 2 stones.. now 89kg.. I also have PCOS and being Asian .. diabetes runs in the family. I have only told one family member as I cannot tell my parents .. they will be too worried about it and especially with Covid even more so..

As for the pains I did my low carb diet today and did not feel anything.. fingers crossed it’s just me eating more carbs.. and hopefully it will improve. I am due a blood test next week so hopefully I will find out soon.

as for the metformin I am supposed to take it 2 times a day.. when I was working and went to work I decided to take it once every other day as I did 10,000 steps a day. Now that I am in lock down and because I cheated almost for the last month .. I do feel like I would take it twice a day but my goal is to no longer be on medication at all..

Again please tell me how long it took you to go I to remission? I know everyone is different but I would like to get an idea.in terms of what I must do .. first thing is to be on a low carb diet and to loose at least 2-3 stones.. to remove any visceral fat from my stomach.. it is probably the reason why I want to go on this shake diet.. anyway I have bought it so I will finish it .. hopefully it will provide me with more motivation..

Thanks for your help.

pan123

Remission is a debatable term, as a lot of docs don't use it officially. To me personally, I feel I achieved it when I was without medication and in the normal range for 2 years. But that normal range, and being without medication? That was done in a couple of months. Mind you, in those months I was still trying to figure out what worked, so it could've been quicker, if I'd known what I was doing. You already know how to low carb, so... A month maybe, before you get your levels back to where they should be? Maybe sooner? Mind you, it would be too short for a HbA1c to be low enough to get your Gp to say you can stop taking metformin, as it's a three month average, but... You could be there quite quick. When you're comfortable enough with it to call it remission is really up to you.

As for the shakes, use them to kick-start the process by all means, others have done the same with the Newcastle Diet. But if you get problems with your gastro-intestinal tract, pause the shakes for a bit and see whether you recover with some fermented food or bacteria capsules. Just a little failsafe.

You'll be okay. Hang in there.
Jo

 

[ianf0ster]

Record for remission (unconfirmed remission , not one where you need to stay below 42 for 1yr) is around 2 months.
For many/most doing serious Low Carb then 3 to 4 months is possible.
See my figures in my signature, but note:
1. I was never more than slightly overweight - which some people say make s it harder.
2. I went very Low Carb bordering on Keto 20gms to 40gms Carbs per day, straight away.
3. Did nothing to try an lose weight, due to higher fat and Protein (to make up for reduction in carbs), my total calories almost certainly increased for at least the first 2 months (until completely Fat adapted and stomach shrunk due to higher nutrient density of food in new ay of eating)..

 

[Pan123]

Record for remission (unconfirmed remission , not one where you need to stay below 42 for 1yr) is around 2 months.
For many/most doing serious Low Carb then 3 to 4 months is possible.
See my figures in my signature, but note:
1. I was never more than slightly overweight - which some people say make s it harder.
2. I went very Low Carb bordering on Keto 20gms to 40gms Carbs per day, straight away.
3. Did nothing to try an lose weight, due to higher fat and Protein (to make up for reduction in carbs), my total calories almost certainly increased for at least the first 2 months (until completely Fat adapted and stomach shrunk due to higher nutrient density of food in new ay of eating)..

Thank for your reply.. I realised that remission is that you are off medication for at least a year.. but I believe my diabetes is due to my very fat stomach... I am trying to lose weight to get to remission but if it does not happen, then it does not happen but I will try to get there. I am going partly on a keto diet to loose weight and maintain my carbs.. as I was naughty over Christmas.. hopefully this will help me with motivation..

 

[Pan123]

Hi everyone,

just an update.. I had my HbA1c test and as mentioned before when I was first diagnosed I was 105 mmol/mol back in September and now.. five months later I am within normal ranges of 41mmol/mol. I am so happy but I know this is just one reading .. and I have worked hard to get here now will try to loose weight to get into remission. I thought it would be higher as I am using the mySugr app and it estimated I should be in 45mmol/mol or higher.. mainly as I was naughty during Xmas and the run up to Xmas.. but so happy will try to continue although feeling pessimistic because of the lockdown as I can no longer get my steps in .. I would usually walk 10,000 steps a day now i lockdown less than 1000.. but will try and do more exercise.