A surprising place to find success

[Bluetit1802]

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

I doubt it is healthy for anyone on the planet, including the orangutangs in the forests when they lose their homes as we farm all the palm oil.

 

[Oldvatr]

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.

Edit to add update: I have since negotiated a resumation of my bgl monitoring since, as I use it to determine whether to have soup or pudding/ Doctor has agreed.

 

[Oldvatr]

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?

Slight update. Are you sitting down? Today I was a naughty boy again. At lunch I tried the ice cream that is diabetic friendly (I describe this concoction later on in this thread) but it contains 25g of added sugar and not much else. Then I had another Danish Pastry at the cafe, On returning to the ward after a bit of a walk I had my bgl tested. It was 10.2 mmol.l which is higher than usual but not through the roof. So I will avoid their diabetic ice cream from now on. Also their diabetic friendly custard (22 g added sugar) and their Muller yoghurts (unknown but suspect not friendly like the others)

 

[Bluetit1802]

Slight update. Are you sitting down? Today I was a naughty boy again. At lunch I tried the ice cream that is diabetic friendly (I describe this concoction later on in this thread) but it contains 25g of added sugar and not much else. Then I had another Danish Pastry at the cafe, On returning to the ward after a bit of a walk I had my bgl tested. It was 10.2 mmol.l which is higher than usual but not through the roof. So I will avoid their diabetic ice cream from now on. Also their diabetic friendly custard (22 g added sugar) and their Muller yoghurts (unknown but suspect not friendly like the others)

I think you need to get your buddies to bring you in some Greek yogurt or some tasty low carb stuff. The nurses will keep it in their fridge if you ask.

 

[Oldvatr]

I think you need to get your buddies to bring you in some Greek yogurt or some tasty low carb stuff. The nurses will keep it in their fridge if you ask.

WHEN ???? I stop being a naughty boy, then I should not need a Berlin Airlift or a drone drop by Amazon to get back in control. It should occur naturally. If not it seems that the GLP-1 argonists are a good bet for me. I expect the Met to go back up to 2gram soon, but maybe not since they did measure lactic acid at 1 g in A&E

 

[LooperCat]

Slight update. Are you sitting down? Today I was a naughty boy again. At lunch I tried the ice cream that is diabetic friendly (I describe this concoction later on in this thread) but it contains 25g of added sugar and not much else. Then I had another Danish Pastry at the cafe, On returning to the ward after a bit of a walk I had my bgl tested. It was 10.2 mmol.l which is higher than usual but not through the roof. So I will avoid their diabetic ice cream from now on. Also their diabetic friendly custard (22 g added sugar) and their Muller yoghurts (unknown but suspect not friendly like the others)

I believe a Muller Light is around 14g carbs, mostly sugar... sorry to hear of your current predicament, I hope you get decent food,and the right treatment pdq x

 

[Oldvatr]

I believe a Muller Light is around 14g carbs, mostly sugar... sorry to hear of your current predicament, I hope you get decent food,and the right treatment pdq x

The choice is Fruit Corner or crunch, which are higher added sugars. (18 g / 28g per pot) Better than the ikky cream, but I do not eat yoghurts by choice.

 

[Oldvatr]

Every cloud has a silver lining. Great work. Get well soon.

True. I got lots of cuddles from the nurses, but not recommended as a chat up strategy.......

 

[Daphne917]

@Oldvatr sorry to hear of your long stay in hospital. Do they do sugar free jelly or could someone bring some in for you as they can be kept in your bedside cabinet.

 

[Oldvatr]

@Oldvatr sorry to hear of your long stay in hospital. Do they do sugar free jelly or could someone bring some in for you as they can be kept in your bedside cabinet.

Thank you. Yes they do offer sugar free jelly pots, but I rarely have pudding anyway, and jelly is not a choice I would normally make, It is the potato and pasta and rice and cheese sauces and pastry that are a greater risk at the moment for me. Thankfully as I posted above, I find I am more carb tolerant this month, but my weight is creeping up and I suspect I will tip back into T2D if I am not careful. But until my operation, I am under doctors orders not to lose any weight.

 

[Oldvatr]

Edit to add update: I have since negotiated a resumation of my bgl monitoring since, as I use it to determine whether to have soup or pudding/ Doctor has agreed.

Update on update. Nursing staff have refused to implement doctor's instruction. I get no tests now because doctor has noted me as non diabetic.

 

[Daphne917]

Thank you. Yes they do offer sugar free jelly pots, but I rarely have pudding anyway, and jelly is not a choice I would normally make, It is the potato and pasta and rice and cheese sauces and pastry that are a greater risk at the moment for me. Thankfully as I posted above, I find I am more carb tolerant this month, but my weight is creeping up and I suspect I will tip back into T2D if I am not careful. But until my operation, I am under doctors orders not to lose any weight.

I have been fairly lucky with my hospital stays (albeit short ones) in that they do salads and a good selection of meals with a lot of vegetables which meant I could find something low carbish. However I’m like you and can tolerate more carbs than many diabetics but not sure how I would fare over a long period - the longest I have been without worrying too much about carbs was on my 11 day cruise last November but my hba1c in December had reduced from 37 to 36 so it can’t have done too much damage.

 

[DawnOfTheZed]

Update on update. Nursing staff have refused to implement doctor's instruction. I get no tests now because doctor has noted me as non diabetic.

Sorry to read this - very disappointing for you. Perhaps you have to get the doc to do the test forms for you, and perhaps change your status back to well controlled diet only NIDDM (non insulin dependent diabetes melites (spl?)) if you want to have annual eye and foot exams?

 

[Oldvatr]

Sorry to read this - very disappointing for you. Perhaps you have to get the doc to do the test forms for you, and perhaps change your status back to well controlled diet only NIDDM (non insulin dependent diabetes melites (spl?)) if you want to have annual eye and foot exams?

In hospital I have a Consultant (Sir!) who has Ward round on Mondays, but this Monday he is away. The problem here is that the ward is staffed mainly with contract staff, supply staff, Care Assistants, and ancilliaries, and these have not had the specialist training required to handle sharps and blood procedures. I have my meters on the ward, but have been forbidden from using them since I too present a sharps and biohazard, and have not had the NHS training (see above).

Hopefully my call to exit to the heart centre will be this coming week, and my op will go ahead. I did see my Consultant in a social sense yesterday, and he said he is not worried about my diabetes short term so long as I do not lose weight and continue to eat a wholesome diet (e.g. Eatwell). Get through the op, then worry about coping with life again.

But then again, being in remission gives me a certain safety buffer before I get out of control, and that is protecting me while on Eatwell. I will go with the Consultant, and argue the toss when I see my GP. If I don't see GP then it becomes academic, eh? That was one thing we discussed, my consultant and I, and that was that there is a 2% risk of serious complication (blood clot stroke etc) and he said its only 2%. I said it may be 2% for him, but to those who get it then it becomes 100%. We laughed at that. If I go quiet on the boards for more than a week or so, then the 2% won.

 

[DawnOfTheZed]

Hope it goes well and you're not silent on the boards.

 

[Oldvatr]

Hope it goes well and you're not silent on the boards.

The hospital I am intending to go for the operation and recovery has a ban on laptops and tablets. My phone is an old farties phone, and has no wifi action. I will be cut off until I complete this stage in life and return home again. Then I hope to still be capable of signing back in here, but there are complications lurking. As a double stroke survivor already, I do not think the next one will be kind to me. I only have half a brain cell left as things stand.....

 

[DawnOfTheZed]

Time for a new phone? If not then I hope we get to hear good news about your stay in hospital from someone on the forum you're willing to txt?

 

[Oldvatr]

Time for a new phone? If not then I hope we get to hear good news about your stay in hospital from someone on the forum.

Where I am going they have a production line going with its own intensive and high dependancy care wards, then the rehab ward. They do these ops every day so I feel I will be in good hands. My daughter was going to use my credit card to buy a smart phone so I can control the central heating with it when it has been installed. It replaces a very furred up clogged boiler that struggled vainly this winter. Seems to be a bad year for clogged plumbing, No sign of a phone yet, and my birthday was last month so she is doing a May on me and kicking the can down the road. The bookies could take bets on which will happen first - my op, or phone. or Brexit. Think the timescales are similar. And I do so HATE Heparin injections!!!!!!!

 

[Bluetit1802]

And I do so HATE Heparin injections!!!!!!!

I thought these heparin injections were a prelude to Warfarin rather than a permanent medication. Or that is what I was told when they gave me two of them and were then stopped by the consultant neurologist as not needed, and neither was Warfarin.

 

[DawnOfTheZed]

The hospital sounds good. You may need to treat yourself re the phone? Though you at least won't have to worry about a new (expensive?) phone on the ward if you don't treat yourself till you come out.

Not sure about Hep or W. I recall a lady who lived to 80s who had a heart condition. She outlived 3 specialists (ie they looked after her until they retired 3 times) so such things do happen. She always spoke about having to take her 'rat poison'.