hi i'm new and don't really know what to do

[janicepage7]

I`ve been diagnosed with diabetes for about two years now. I'm on insulin but can't control my blood sugars I keep going up to the thirties and get minor ketones I'm feeling quite scared about it all

 

[novorapidboi26]

hi, welcome..........

the fact your here is good, looking for help and advice.......

what insulin are you on?

is your clinic team any good?

 

[carraway]

Hi Janice

I'm sure we can offer advice but we will need some more to go on.
Type 1 or 2?
Overweight? Any other meds?
What is your diet
Can you give us some examples and we can put our thinking hats on!

Cara

 

[michaeldavid]

Hi,

You've taken the right first step: you've openly acknowledged to yourself that you have a problem.

Although 30+ is very high, the real problem is in the long term - unless, that is, you take charge and get into the habit of keeping your blood sugars down.

The problem could be your insulin dosages or what you eat. Most likely it's both.

 

[janicepage7]

Hi,

You've taken the right first step: you've openly acknowledged to yourself that you have a problem.

Although 30+ is very high, the real problem is in the long term - unless, that is, you take charge and get into the habit of keeping your blood sugars down.

The problem could be your insulin dosages or what you eat. Most likely it's both.

thanks everybody for answering that's amazing I am a lot overweight trying to eat healthy food I'm on Humalog mixed 50/50 insulin and taking 3 doses of 60 a day

 

[michaeldavid]

I love to eat well too! And I do eat well. But happily I'm not overweight.

Problems with eating, I've noticed, are not uncommonly associated with diabetes - of all kinds.

I certainly had a bit of a problem with eating when I first became diabetic - I was stressed out, and ate very badly for a brief period.

But if you get the management of the diabetes right, then this could help you to get your weight down - if that's what you want.

I hope someone else will correct me if they think I'm wrong, but it strikes me that you might need to speak to the medical professionals about the insulin that you're taking.

 

[carraway]

Hi Janice

Type 1 or 2.

Weight loss will help massively. I speak from experience. Best thing I did. Can you exercise?
You are going to have to spell out a few meals if you want more help.

Cara

 

[janicepage7]

Hi Janice

Type 1 or 2.

Weight loss will help massively. I speak from experience. Best thing I did. Can you exercise?
You are going to have to spell out a few meals if you want more help.

Cara

I seem to be in a vicious circle cos the more insulin I have, makes me put weight on and then the more I eat the more insulin I need etc
To day I've had cereal for breakfast , seafood with salad for lunch and chicken with boiled potatoes and veg for dinner. and taken 3 doses of insulin and still my bg score is 31.5

 

[janicepage7]

I seem to be in a vicious circle cos the more insulin I have, makes me put weight on and then the more I eat the more insulin I need etc
To day I've had cereal for breakfast , seafood with salad for lunch and chicken with boiled potatoes and veg for dinner. and taken 3 doses of insulin and still my bg score is 31.5

ps I can't exercise too much because of pain in joints
pps thanks for replying

 

[Crimsonclient]

ps I can't exercise too much because of pain in joints
pps thanks for replying

Please forgive me if this has been already suggested and I'm not sure what meds your on and type of diabetes, but I'm on Victoza as well as insulin and this helps with the apatite and makes you feel full so in theory you should want to eat less, it may pay to ask doctors or dn about this


Sent from my iPad

 

[janicepage7]

thanks I have tried victoza and byetta but hey took me off them when I went on insulin

 

[Crimsonclient]

Did either work for you?


Sent from my iPad

 

[Daibell]

Hi and welcome. Being overweight you will have insulin resistance which means high insulin units and as you say a bit of a vicious circle. Diet really is the only way forward. Focus on the carbs and see what you can do to reduce them. Set yourself a daily target of, say, 150gm or less and see how you go. This will help both weight loss and blood sugar reduction. Watch out for dressings and sauces as they will all be loaded with sugar. Is the cereal a low-sugar one; so many aren't. In the longer term I would suggest you discuss changing your insulin to a Basal/Bolus regime. With this you can match the insulin to the food by carb-counting which gives better blood sugar control. Having fixed insulin doses as you do currently will always make it more difficult overall

 

[michaeldavid]

Hi Janice,

Your menu is making me feel peckish. And I do eat quite a normal lunch and dinner. (I also prepare these meals for my mother, whose in her nineties.) But these meals I eat are really quite small. And for the sake of my blood sugar, I definitely do not want to eat too many effing potatoes.

Most of my eating is done relatively slowly, throughout the rest of the day.

So I eat all day! And I enjoy doing that. Yet I weigh around ten stone.

From first thing until late afternoon, I slowly munch rye read. This fills me up; and - crucially - it also tends to moderate my blood sugar. (It seems to prevent my blood sugar yo-yoing.) So hypos become very much less likely to occur than if I only ate stuff like wheat bread - even wholemeal wheat bread - and potatoes.

I also test my blood sugar quite a lot. For I only take fast-acting insulin: I do not take a so-called 'basal' insulin. And because of this, I sleep securely at night knowing that I won't have a hypo. For by bedtime, the effect of the insulin I took earlier is all but exhausted.

I suspect that the insulin you take is a mixture of both fast-acting and slow-acting insulins. I would find this to make the management of my condition far more complicated - and more dangerous - than it need be.

 

[janicepage7]

I've been to doctors today they were going to put me on a new tablet that make you lose sugar through your urine and therefore brings your bg levels lower however, I had to have a bloodtest first to check my kidney function to go onto new tablet the liver function needed to be at least 60% mine was 58% so can't go on tablet very disappointed and feeling quite low

 

[michaeldavid]

Janice,

We're all a bit obsessive here. No-one could willingly spend hours gazing at the screen, and sometimes typing stuff, without being a bit obsessed. (Though 'word association game X' and 'make a sentence from 5 letters' are not things I could ever get obsessed about myself.)

Moreover, I believe that all diabetics are obsessed with food. Many would take exception to that statement. But of course, not everyone who's obsessed with something realises that he or she is obsessed, or is readily willing to realise it.

I am certainly obsessed with food. And I follow my own homegrown diabetes regimen - jabs, food, testing - fairly obsessively. (Nb. I did write 'fairly' obsessively; I am ABSOLUTELY obsessed only with something like finding the right words.)

Irrespective of your diabetes, I think you recognise that you have a problem with food and with weight. And if I'm right about that, then surely you should be telling your GP that that is your main problem. Because the problem with the diabetes will never be properly sorted without addressing that main problem.

But with the right help, which may need to be professional medical help, I promise you that you might use the control of your diabetes to help you maintain a healthy diet and a healthy weight.

 

[chris9996]

I've been to doctors today they were going to put me on a new tablet that make you lose sugar through your urine and therefore brings your bg levels lower however, I had to have a bloodtest first to check my kidney function to go onto new tablet the liver function needed to be at least 60% mine was 58% so can't go on tablet very disappointed and feeling quite low

Hi Janice, Sorry to hear that you are not to go on the new tablet, but at least you can still work on your food.

It was only after coming to this site that I realised that carbs were something I should have been curtailing. I have tried most diets but could never sustain them. From what I have read on here "low carb" eating has huge results. You don't need to obsess, but if you think its for you, get hold of a carb counting book (or even just check out google for specific results) and try to bring your carbs down that will assist both the blood glucose and the weight results. Then the more you see control working, the more you will want to make it better.

There is a lot of information on here about Low Carbing, recipes too and lots of people who do it, (see beachbags post today) so I am sure you will get a lot of help if you ask.

Hope it works for you, take care
Chris X

 

[Scandichic]

Hi Janice,
I too weigh loads but have been gradually bringing my weight down by low carving. I am not on insulin but there are plenty here who do. I keep a food diary and I weigh myself weekly. I know it's even harder to lose whilst you're on insulin but why not give it a go? For my evening meal I have a piece of fish, hollandaise sauce and lots of green veggies. Breakfast is usually 1 sausage and 1 poached egg with fried mushrooms and a handful of spinach leaves. Lunch is normally a full fat plain Greek yoghurt with a handful of blue berries and my snack is a piece of cheese or a handful of nuts.