27/male/type 2 newly diagnosed

Metformin is a very innocuous drug, as long as your GI system can handle it. It will not make you lose weight (unless your GI system can't handle it), although it may make it easier to lose weight if you want to.

Losing weight may, or may not, allow you to live a "normal" life - if, by normal, you mean that you don't have to watch what you eat. I've lost 72 lbs, and can now tolerate ~25 grams of carbs in one sitting, rather than the 20 I could tolerate at diagnosis. For reference, on special occasions, I can now eat about 2/3 of one slice of homemade whole grain bread.

But - whether you can live a "normal" life after losing weight will not have anything to do with whether you choose to take Metformin in the mean time. It is not a drug your body gets "dependent" on, in the sense of taking over body functions that you won't be able to restart once you stop Metformin. It assists your body to work closer to the way it should. Your body may, or may not, be able to return to working normally without meds (the general wisdom around here is that once broken, it can't be fixed - I'm trying to buck that trend (<<link)). But - if you don't recover a normal glucose metablism, it wasn't the Metformin that broke your system. It was already broken & the Metformin just made it seem like it was working normally for a while.

Just an FYI:

Grain anything (whole or not) is often a bad idea for people with diabetes. With diabetes your body cannot handle carbs well. All grains are carbs and, at least for some people, less easily handled than other carbs. You'll need to test to see how well you tolerate them. My personal tolerance level would not accept 120 (6.7) as a 2-hour post eating. 1-hour, yes. But at 2 hours you've already come down from a peak of (just a guess) between 150 (8.3) and 180 (10). I don't let my BG go above 140 (7.8) at any time (well, that's my goal, and in the past 11.5 months or so I've failed around a dozen times).

(It's also polite to convert blood glucose from US units to the UK units by dividing your BG readings by 18 - the numbers I've put in parentheses. I'm from the US & it takes a bit of getting used to, but I try to be friendly to the local folks who let me play in their forum )

High readings in the morning. Do a forum search on dawn phenomenon, there is lots of information. High levels at bedtime is more likely to do with food choices. Check your sugars at first bite, 1 hour, and 2 hours. That will give you a starting point, your peak (more or less) and where you end up at 2 hours should be close to where you started ideally but will depend on what you ate. This will tell you if the food you ate is suitable for you. If you see a rise of more than about 2 mmol/l or 40 points in the US system, you need to reduce or eliminate that food. Some serious research into low carb would be warranted. There are also a series of videos by Proffessor Tim Noakes that @Indy51 has been posting that are the best plain english info I have ever seen and well worth the time to watch them. They are in a series of short segments that are easily watched and digested even by a very busy person. Hope this helps.

They're friendly - but I have seen a few corrections to those of us who use US units (probably because they aren't the units most often quoted here).

I check first thing in the morning (nearly always higher than any other time unrelated to food). It's the liver doing what it is supposed to do to give you the energy to get out of bed - give you a sugar boost. Unfortunately, we're starting at a higher #, so it pumps it even higher.

I'm higher at night - but that is mostly because I work very late, and often eat within an hour of bedtime so my BG hasn't dropped yet.

The formal reccommendation from the ADA (and I think most diabetic organizations are similar) is that you should test 2 hours after eating and make sure yoru BG is below 10. I think that's a recipe for losing fingers, toes, developing neuropathy, and needing a kidney transplant. So I test frequently enough to make sure my BG doesn't go above 7.8, if I can help it.

I only test a few times a day now, since I know what I can eat and what I can't - and a lot of my current testing is because I'm trying for remission via the Newcastle/Blood Sugar Diet and I'm trying to document the progress. (A very low calorie diet that put all of the first group of subjects in remission, although its second study, with longer term diabetics, was not as successful.)

When I was starting out I tested 10 or more times a day. I'd test before I put anything in my mouth (to see where I started), then at 1 hour, 2 hours and sometimes 3 hours after my first bite. (I test hourly until it starts to decline.) I also tracked every bite of food I ate from October 2 (my diagnosis) through sometime in April on myfitnesspal.org - so I could look back and see how much of what kind of food elevated my blood glucose.

Once I test a food a few times, I know how I react to it. I can easily have a very large salad with around 20 net carbs and peak at 7. I rarely test after salads any more. On the other hand, I have to be a lot more careful with grains. I've had a grand total of about 3 slices of bread since last October (spread over 4-5 meals) - and every time, even though I've carefully weighed out the amount that contains around 20 net carbs, I hit between 7.2 and7.8. I've had foods with as few as 10 grams of carbs spike me above 7.8 (a dried strawberry & lentil soup)

I miss bread.

There are people from all over the world on this forum and all are welcome. Most countries use mmol/l including the UK, most of Europe, Canada, and Australia. Also most of the Asian countries but I might be wrong on that. No one will be unfriendly if you use the US system but most people wont really know what those numbers mean unless they take the time to convert them. Please continue to ask questions, these really are a lovely bunch of folks. Welcome to the forum @ozzierojas212 from Canada

A great site that primarily uses US BG measurements is Blood Sugar 101:
http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/18217337.php

The Tim Noakes videos can be found at:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/prof-tim-noakes.102885/

A rough conversion is to multiply the measurements by 18 to give the US equivalent.

Hello and Welcome to the forum....losing weight I did over a 4 year period...did it controll the diabetes NO... so placed on insulin andput weight back on ...where to go next ...??

@ozzierojas212

Hello and welcome to the forum Here is the information we give to new members and I hope you will find it useful. Ask as many questions as you need to and someone will be able to help.


BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED DIABETICS

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 210,000 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.

Hi. I must admit to being surprised that at 299lbs you don't want to lose weight? Anyone with excess weight i.e. a BMI higher than the top end will probably have insulin resistance and that will contribute to T2 and make blood sugar control difficult. Metformin is a very safe drug and not addictive. It doesn't affect weight but does reduce appetite a bit and reduces the liver's output of glucose (glycogen). I would ignore the recommended level of 2000 calories. The food industry make all these numbers up and then push them onto the public. Being diabetic you need to think more about the carbs than the calories but both matter if you need to reduce weight and blood sugar. For food you can still have enough protein and fat to keep you happy. BTW always good to see contributions from around the world as we can all learn from what other countries are doing.