A surprising place to find success

I have in the past been a poster in this thread sharing my success with LC diets and gaining control of my bgl while reducing my T2D oral meds as well. I have done this for at least 4 years now, and my last HbA1c was 42, and my GP noted me as being non-diabetic. I just considered I was In Control, and have never claimed to have remission or reversal.

This last point came home to me last month when I had a blue light trip to A&E with breathing difficulties. Seems I had had two heart attacks and both my kidneys had failed. The breathing problem gave me a huge adrenalin rush, which prevented my high level of insulin from storing any of my sky high glucose, and my kidneys were not filtering it out for excretion either. So I was in a perfect storm. They gave me insulin drip which did absolutely nada, proving I was producing my own insulin in extremis. So I had to wait till I calmed down and regained my breathing. Cutting to the pith of this story I did survive, and have recovered all my functions now, but I remain in hospital awaiting bypass surgery.

That is my intro, but the success that follows is even more surprising. My sugars were in places where the meter just says HI or KETONES and refuses to give any hint of what it measured. While recuperating on the ward, I was fed hospital food. ER, YES, ER High Carb starchy with pasta or potato and pudddings with custard. Full frontal, and the nurses stood over me spoon feeding me to make sure I got the right nutrients. I could not avoid, amd what is more sinister they stopped all my diabetic meds completely. Then admonished me for not being in control of my diabetes. I managed to switch to salads and get some control going, but still high.

Then they put me on a diuretic and this made me lose half a stone in weight. I saw my glucose levels drop steadily, until I was getting fasting levels below 6 mmol/l every morning. Then I experimented and started eating the normal meals with pasta and potato, and amazingly my bgl stayed below 9 mmol/l I am still off my gliclazide, but they have restarted my Metformin. An HbA1c they took last week was 46, and yesterday the consultant declared me officially In Remision. They have also stopped monitoring my bgl apart from one random reading a day at the nurses whim.

I had my birthday two days ago, and I started with 2 slices of toast with marmalade in the morning, had 2 triple choc fudge slices for cofee after normal lunch, went to the hospital cafe and had 2 danish pastries and a large cheese twist pastry. then had pasta bake for supper and then did a 2 hr post prandial. My fasting fbg had been 5.4 and my post prandial was 7.4 and my next day fbg was 5.2. So I agree to being in Remission, but accept I can still be diabetic T2D.

I will have to control my weight, and return to an LC diet after my op.But the last 4 years of LC lifestyle has certainly paid dividends now, and I am much more carb tolerant now than I have been for many years.

AloeSvea said:

@Oldvatr - what a trip indeed! Pleased to hear you are on the mend, and the big Op a good treatment option. And many happy returns too.

And, and, what a carb trip! Reading it put my head in a spin, and I had to read it a couple of times to get what you are saying, re the carb tolerance - marvellous! (I also need to control my carb-envy! . And being fed by nurses envy!)

I am puzzled by talk of remission, or 'Remission' with a big R (I'm containing my envy here too ), when on medication - shouldn't Remission be med-free? ie it is actually your own bod doing the carb metabolising work on its own, and not aided and abetted by pharmaceuticals? Correcting processes and hormone thingies gone amiss... even if it is 'only' metformin... (I'd have a gorgeous HBA1c if I was taking metformin, but it wouldn't be my liver turning off that glucose making switch on its own) Just saying...

Other than that - can't wait to hear the next instalment! Keep 'em coming, Oldvatr - otherwise we will miss you too too much!

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You are right to point out that I am on a reduced dose of Metformin. The jury is still trying to get a formal definition of remission, and that is the sticking point at the moment. I am on Metformin only for the cardiovascular protection it offers. I know from experimenting that I only benefit by less than 1 mmol/l for each gram of Met I take, so it has very limited effect for me anyway, and one that I could easily compensate for with diet. I did get one fbg of 4.2 one morning while I was totally off all diabetic meds a week or so ago, and that was after a 13 mmol/l bedtime reading, so my body does seem to be processing glucose on its own quite well.

But as I said in my previous post, I accept the doctors verdict in light of my present status but still consider myself to be in control and liable to spike at any time. I do not look on the remission status as being a cure at all, just another stepping stone that allows me to be less anal about my treatment and diet. I am carb tolerant again. The downside is that I now have to self fund my test strips.

DCUKMod said:

You know how to push the envelope @Oldvatr !

I'd be fascinated if they'd run another A1c in a couple of weeks to see how this interim excursion has impacted (or not), but I guess that's no entirely likely.

Are you in klink until your bypass is done? Any ideas when that might be?

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I remain confined to barracks for the duration, and the waiting list is about 2 months.

I may get another HbA1c before I go, but there is a strict 3 month rule applied in our area due to the lab being private and working to contract.

The guy in the bed opposite me had his first triple at age 42, and then a quadruple some 20 years ago. He is 82 and says he has not had problems until a possible timing problem needing pacemaker reared its head recently. He has family history of heart probs, whereas I have none in mine, so mine is self inflicted not genetic

Bluetit1802 said:

Blimey @Oldvatr surely they won't keep you incarcerated for 2 months? If your current condition were classed as serious enough to keep you in surely I would have thought they would have whipped you in by now.

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The current waiting time for someone as an inpatient is 2 months. Electing to go as an outpatient stretches it out beyond 6 months and they cannot take the risk given the problems I had earlier. As an irony of fate, our central heating boiler furred up completely just before I came in here, and I was in the process of getting quotes for a new boiler system. Apparently the rules stipulate I can only be discharged to a heated home during this pre spring period.

In answer to @DCUKMod the 3 month limit has been in place for several years now, and my GP once tried to thwart the system, and my blood sample went straight into the bin. It is not a hospital rule, even though the bloods lab is in the hospital grounds, it is definitely privatised, and I know one of the technicians in the lab and his dad was a drinking buddy of mine.

Oldvatr said:

You are right to point out that I am on a reduced dose of Metformin. The jury is still trying to get a formal definition of remission, and that is the sticking point at the moment. I am on Metformin only for the cardiovascular protection it offers. I know from experimenting that I only benefit by less than 1 mmol/l for each gram of Met I take, so it has very limited effect for me anyway, and one that I could easily compensate for with diet. I did get one fbg of 4.2 one morning while I was totally off all diabetic meds a week or so ago, and that was after a 13 mmol/l bedtime reading, so my body does seem to be processing glucose on its own quite well.

But as I said in my previous post, I accept the doctors verdict in light of my present status but still consider myself to be in control and liable to spike at any time. I do not look on the remission status as being a cure at all, just another stepping stone that allows me to be less anal about my treatment and diet. I am carb tolerant again. The downside is that I now have to self fund my test strips.

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Update: My consultant stopped the ward from taking bgl measurements in light of my sudden carb tolerance, but I have discussed this with the ward doctor, and pointed out that I was not able to determine what my sugars were doing, and more importantly, whether I could risk a pudding or a soup at mealtime. She has re instated the testing regime following my request.

I was offered an ice cream today. It is apparently suitable for both vegetarian and diabetics and is claiming to be low sugar.
It has an impressive ingredients list. Water / sugar / palm oil / whey powder / emulsifiers / stabilisers / carregeenan and locust bean extract. None of the emulsifiers or stabilisers seemed to have a connection with natural sources, and seemed to be the offspring of a testube.

But it has 22.1g Carbs of which 22.1g is sugars per 100g, and the tub holds 120g of icecream. So much for Low Sugar and Diabetic Friendly.

Bluetit1802 said:

How on earth have they the nerve to call that muck ice-cream? Where is the cream for one thing.

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My bgl after it has jumped to 10.1 so it is not healthy for me.

Correction. It was 10.2 not 10.1