Hello everyone,
This is my first post here despite lurking (and learning) for the past 6 months since being diagnosed as pre-diabetic in March. I had envisaged posting soon with my own success story: I'm hopeful that the imminent fasting tests will show a significant improvement, probably taking me out of pre-diabetic levels. However my first post has now turned out to be a plea for advice for my father.
Dad is in his early eighties and has been T2 for 30 years (as was his mother...). He's been on insulin for some years now and he admits that he guesses at his doses much of the time. He's had several mini strokes in the past few years and has had several severe hypos, often at night. The strokes have certainly left him less able cognitively than before, and possibly more impulsive.
This afternoon we had a lovely chat about how well I've been doing: I've gone very low carb and feel incredibly well on it and my blood sugar readings are now both low and stable, but that's another story. However an hour or two later I got an excited call from my mother who said Dad was 'too frightened' to tell me that he'd signed up to a low-carb diet programme (I think it's naturalketosis.co.uk) so she was passing on the news instead. I spoke to Dad who was not frightened to tell me at all, but had wanted to wait until he had more to tell me when the first package arrived and he'd got started.
My concern is that to start low-carbing overnight might be too great a leap and may lead to difficulties and complications that Dad won't be able to manage but I don't want to curb his enthusiasm. When we'd been chatting earlier today I was very clear to him that I would be wary of suggesting he follow my path given that he's on insulin and I'm not, and suggested that since he was so enthusiastic, he might try making small changes such as having eggs for breakfast rather than cereal and monitoring the effects on just one meal. (His current diet is not good.) Instead he's gone the whole hog!
Am I right to be concerned? Advice would be appreciated :?
This is my first post here despite lurking (and learning) for the past 6 months since being diagnosed as pre-diabetic in March. I had envisaged posting soon with my own success story: I'm hopeful that the imminent fasting tests will show a significant improvement, probably taking me out of pre-diabetic levels. However my first post has now turned out to be a plea for advice for my father.
Dad is in his early eighties and has been T2 for 30 years (as was his mother...). He's been on insulin for some years now and he admits that he guesses at his doses much of the time. He's had several mini strokes in the past few years and has had several severe hypos, often at night. The strokes have certainly left him less able cognitively than before, and possibly more impulsive.
This afternoon we had a lovely chat about how well I've been doing: I've gone very low carb and feel incredibly well on it and my blood sugar readings are now both low and stable, but that's another story. However an hour or two later I got an excited call from my mother who said Dad was 'too frightened' to tell me that he'd signed up to a low-carb diet programme (I think it's naturalketosis.co.uk) so she was passing on the news instead. I spoke to Dad who was not frightened to tell me at all, but had wanted to wait until he had more to tell me when the first package arrived and he'd got started.
My concern is that to start low-carbing overnight might be too great a leap and may lead to difficulties and complications that Dad won't be able to manage but I don't want to curb his enthusiasm. When we'd been chatting earlier today I was very clear to him that I would be wary of suggesting he follow my path given that he's on insulin and I'm not, and suggested that since he was so enthusiastic, he might try making small changes such as having eggs for breakfast rather than cereal and monitoring the effects on just one meal. (His current diet is not good.) Instead he's gone the whole hog!
Am I right to be concerned? Advice would be appreciated :?
