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Age, hypo's and stuff....

A

AndySuk

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Location
South East England
Hi Folks

I'm 46, been a diabetic since '71 and you'd think that I'd know pretty much how to cope with everything by now. Recently though I've been having some bad hypo's culminating today in an ambulaceman having to knock my front door down. It's all getting kinda scarey; I live alone, check my bloods, get good excercise and eat ok...heavy on the long-term carb's and easy on the direct sugars. The last three hypo's have happened at night and I've been monitoring bloods even by waking myself up in the middle of the night.

Just wondered if anyone else had had any experiences like this. Has anyone invented a Glucose Pump yet to treat the opposite end of the scale from the Insulin Pump??!!!

Andy
 
That sounds scarey. Have you lost your hypo warning?
this might be a case where reduced carb diet would help.
If you cut your "long acting" carbs ( they actually don't act much more slowly than pure glucose)
and then cut your insulin to match, you are less likely to get bad hypos, because the amount of insulin is less.
If that sounds too different from what you are used to, make sure your last meal at night is Very low GI. that should slow any hypo.
A method to increase hypo sensitivity , is to allow your BGs to run a little higher for a week or two.
 
Hi Andy, well sometimes as we get older our metabolism can change (so I've been informed) which thus sometimes changes our BG's. Maybe take a couple of units lower insulin at night and / or eat light night snack. I think also you can get a hypo watch which you wear in your sleep and it beeps when you get sweaty with a hypo. I've read this on the forum somewhere but at £60 it's not cheap I'm afraid :| I'm not sure if anyone else knows of some sort of alternative alarm or device that can forewarn you of a hypo. There are also different types of insulin available which can slow down or prevent night hypos. I used to get them quite frequently and still do occasionally but am on different insulin now which seems to help. Maybe for the time being keep a daily log of your food, activities, BG levels and insulin dosage to gain a new profile to help you gauge and predict your BG's in the future? You can then discuss with your clinic. If not then possibly consider changing the insulin to prevent the night hypos.
 
Thanks folks...lots of useful info there especially the CGM; I hadn't even heard of that but I must admit that, up until now, diabetes has been part of my life so I cope with it, control it but tend not to do much thinking about it unless it gives me problems.

I appreciate the feedback and thanks for the ideas. I'm up for review on Wednesday so will definitely chat these over with my specialist.

Thanks again

A
 
Dear sarahq
just look at some GI tables, they show roughly how fast a carb containing food gets into the bloodstream as glucose. those foods called "complex carbs" by our dietetic experts, pretty well all come in the High GI category. The difference between white and wholemeal bread for example is marginal. I can't think of any so called "complex carb", starchy foods , which come into the low GI section.
If your complex carb food is a processed or cooked starch, it's in your blood FAST.
 
Hi Hanadr,
Wholemeal bread is medium G.I. White bread is high G.I. The two low ones that I use are 100% stoneground wholemeal, (this has more fibre than wholemeal) and Burgen soya and linseed.
Regards, Catherine.
 
I have tried the Burgen loaf. I had my first slice of cheese on toast for over a year. However if you look at the actual figures the difference between white and wholemeal bread is small. Deciding on the boundary between low, medium and high is arbitrary. I wouldn't risk more than a spoonful of pasta or rice, even though some tables put it at "medium" .
 
I was advised to look at bread in terms of 'bread with bits in'. Wholewheat not wholemeal for example. The wholemeal has 'bits' in as it's not all ground to a fine flour. So it takes longer to digest and so it slows the time all of the carbohydrate ends up as glucose in the blood stream.
Bread with seeds and grains in it has 'bits' so the advice was to eat that type of bread instead of while or plain brown (which used to have caramel to colour it anyway) and wholemeal. I love granary bread, and have eaten it for years, so that's no problem for me.

Also basmati rice is different structurally to brown or long-grain rice it, and take longer to be digested so I was advised to have basmati rice if I was having rice at all. The same amount of glucose ends up in your system, but it arrives at a slower rate so glucose levels don't have such a high peak, and tails of over a longer period of time.

How much a difference that makes I haven't looked in to - but if you are going to eat bread and rice and starchy food you might as well go for something that you like, and may well reduce the hight of the BG peak, and put off the following dip. As I understand it, that's the theory. I'm no expert so you'll have a look at the wealth info from the Australian Universities to get the real info.

I haven't had a good look at this site, but it has a GI database which makes interesting reading :)
 
Hi hanadr,
The principles between low G.I. diet and low carb diet are not the same. I can eat 40gm of pasta with my meal and my spike after 1hr is usually 6.5-7. I eat lean protein and low fat foods plus vegetables, fruit and complex carbohydrates. You cannot combine our two diets into one, I couldn't eat all the fat that you eat and you couldn't eat all the carbohydrates that I eat. They are just not comparable.
Regards, Catherine.
 
Hi Silverand Ebony,
The University of Sydney is an excellent site for you to understand the principles of the G.I. Diet. There is a good questions and answers section. If you can afford it the best book to buy is "The G.I. Diet" by Rick Gallop. (£9.99 in 2003). He also has a website. Once you understand the principles it is plain sailing as there are lists of red, yellow and green foods. Stay with the green foods and you will be O.K. You can occasionally introduce a red or yellow as long as you have plenty of green foods on the same plate. It is like every diet, you have to test.
Hope this helps.
Regards, Catherine.
 
Hi Graham64,
The G.I. diet is not only for diabetics. If you are going to eat a mars bar it is not going to do much for your weight or your diabetes. I can eat custard and ice cream but I dont. You have to use some common sense.
Regards, Catherine.
 
Hi Catherine,
To me the GI diet looks like a minefield, a lot of the low GI foods listed would be completely off limits for me and many others I suspect.

Regards Graham

catherinecherub said:
Hi Graham64,
The G.I. diet is not only for diabetics. If you are going to eat a mars bar it is not going to do much for your weight or your diabetes. I can eat custard and ice cream but I dont. You have to use some common sense.
Regards, Catherine.
Click to expand...
 
Hi Graham, Each to his own. I do not have any problem with it. It gets to be second nature after a while. I have been following it since 2003 on the recommendation of a cardiologist and my diabetic nurse following a heart attack and a diagnosis of diabetes. If I eat out there is always something on the menu that is alright for me .
My overall health is good and my blood test results are fine.
Regards, Catherine.
 
As long as it works for you thats the way to go.
Regards Graham

catherinecherub said:
Hi Graham, Each to his own. I do not have any problem with it. It gets to be second nature after a while. I have been following it since 2003 on the recommendation of a cardiologist and my diabetic nurse following a heart attack and a diagnosis of diabetes. If I eat out there is always something on the menu that is alright for me .
My overall health is good and my blood test results are fine.
Regards, Catherine.
Click to expand...
 
graham64 said:
I've just been looking a the GI tables at: http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/di ... tables.htm
I found that a Mars Bar :twisted: comes in the moderate range :!:
Click to expand...

Thats where common sense (it is the fat that reduces the GI) and the concept of glycaemic load come in.
The Gl of a Mars Bar is about 25, thats high and.
They explain it much better than I could @
http://www.glycemicindex.com/

Its explained in the first FAQ.
I think I'm right in saying that a Mars bar at 68 would be considered high GI by the original authors of the index. Low is below 55, high is above.
 
Hi phoenix,
The problem is which table do you look at, it must be very confusing to a Diabetic following a GI diet.

Regards Graham
 
Hi Graham,
It is not confusing if you use the suggestions I have put forward. There is no U.K. database for low GI foods. Using Bupa, Tesco and other tables are no good. They vary as to the GI values. The USA,Canada and Australia all concur. All the foods in Australia are marked with a GI symbol and that is why the University of Sydney is a good website. I don't know about the USA and Canada as I have only been to Australia. You can have a good, varied diet by using the book I suggested. It is like carb counting, you cannot do it without a carb counting list.
Hope this helps.
Regards, Catherine.
 
Thanks catherine, but low carbing is working that well for me I think I will keep the status quo.
Regards Graham


catherinecherub said:
Hi Graham,
It is not confusing if you use the suggestions I have put forward. There is no U.K. database for low GI foods. Using Bupa, Tesco and other tables are no good. They vary as to the GI values. The USA,Canada and Australia all concur. All the foods in Australia are marked with a GI symbol and that is why the University of Sydney is a good website. I don't know about the USA and Canada as I have only been to Australia. You can have a good, varied diet by using the book I suggested. It is like carb counting, you cannot do it without a carb counting list.
Hope this helps.
Regards, Catherine.
Click to expand...
 
graham64 said:
Hi Catherine,
To me the GI diet looks like a minefield, a lot of the low GI foods listed would be completely off limits for me and many others I suspect.
Click to expand...

My favourite site is Mendosa

http://www.mendosa.com/gi.htm

it works for me up to a point BUT I find most all types of wheat are much higher glycemic than they are supposed to be, and likewise there's not much difference between different kinds of rice.

Probably depends on differing digestive enzymes or something. I treat GI as a baseline to work from and modify by testing to find my specific can and can't do's.
 
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