Don't bother with the acupuncture and herbal meds. The most powerful thing you can do is go low carb, and that's natural enough.
As for Holland & Barrett, I'm a regular of theirs too... A friend here pointed me towards their Purition, which has helped my gut health to no end, and doesn't spike me.
Aaaaanyway, I only just got caught up reading here, and lots to touch on. I'm kind of numbers blind myself, and completely freaked, like you did... And it did feel like having one foot in the grave when I got diagnosed too. Yet here I am, 7 years later, and the diabetes is the only thing I've got well and truly sussed... I fell off the wagon when my mom passed in March, and got back on. With, admittedly, a few hiccups. But I'm working on the blood sugars again and seem to be quite back to good, far as that's concerned. Proof that it can be done, right? A little trick, should you go for testing after all: You've got Type TWO. And the two is all you really need to remember. Test before a meal and TWO hours after the first bite, and you want to see a rise of no more than TWO mmol/l. If you see that, you're all good and your over-all numbers'll go steadily down. Not a whole lot to remember when you boil it down to that, all the rest about HbA1c's and such you can forget for now. None of it matters at the mo.
So a few of the things you're dealing with: You've got a history of depression and an all-or-nothing attitude. Any diagnosis of a chronic illness will throw you for a grief-loop, and you've already had a couple of blows as it was. So everything you're feeling, work through it and don't kick yourself for feeling any of it, okay? Your emotions are
valid, just know you can get a grip on the diabetes if you want to.
Knowing something might not make it immediately
feel like it is so, but you'll feel better eventually as you go, I promise. Also, high blood sugars can affect your mood... My depression (clinical, up to suicidal) and moodswings were hell on me when I was high all the time, so that could well improve as your blood sugars go down. So there's some hope there, hold on to it! And the all-or-nothing personality type'll actually help you, here. It makes it SO much easier to adhere to a diet!!!
You're not fond of the idea of finger pricking, so... How would you feel about a CGM? A continuous glucose monitor is a patch on your arm or thigh for instance, with a little microfilament inserted into your skin. You can scan it for a reading. No blood, no needles. A patch stays on for 2 weeks, and might give you some insight. Usually used by people who are T1 or a variant thereof, but also by T2's who are on insulin or just want to figure out what their bloods are doing without constantly pricking. You'd have to self-fund, but that'd the case with whatever you use for a meter, a regular one or a CGM. And yeah, I tested my little heart out when I was first diagnosed, but once you know which foods do what to your levels, there's no need to test anywhere near as often. These days I only do it when I'm ill (recently during a jaw infection for instance, or during C19 infections), or when I eat something I'm not sure of. So it's not a forever-and-ever thing, really. If testing really is a no-go for you, with a CGM or a regular meter, then just err on the side of caution and go as low carb as you can. I get the feeling you're a very "natural" person, and one of the most important things about food.... The less processed it is, the less likely it is to have added hidden sugars. So if you have foods that look like they're, you know,
food, they're usually pretty good. No need to jump through expensive hoops with all sorts of substitutes that are hard to find. Just eat the real stuff and you're halfway there. Above ground veg and leafy greens, meats, fish, poultry, dairy (full fat cream and yog, hard cheeses), eggs, most nuts, olives etc... All of that is pretty low carb. No grain, corn, cereals, rice or pasta, no more bread, most fruit is off the menu bar berries and such.... There are substitutes, but for me it's easier to just go without bread than to go for the low carb versions (the bulk of the Dutch ones taste like soggy newspaper anyway). I'm pretty okay with low carb wraps, if I can find them, but at a euro per "sheet", it's not a regular item on my menu... If you don't or can't count the carbs, just go for the lowest you can find and stick with those. And you have a whole forum at your disposal... If you want to know something, ask. Take a pic of the nutritional info, give us a brand name, give us anything to go on, and we can tell you whether something's fitting for a low carb diet or no. We're here. Make use of us!
I don't know if any of this helps, but... You're going to be absolutely fine. Really. Just breathe and find a way to make all this work for you. You're certainly not the only one who doesn't want to do any pricking. And there are so many people who are number-blind, so many people who have issues with certain foods (like allergies or personal preferences). Sometimes you just need help to find what works for you. So just throw anything you want to know about out there.
Good luck!
Jo
