Prediabetes alarmed by weight loss

Hi @murray09

Do you test your blood sugar yourself at home? If so, what readings do you get?

Perhaps you could give us an idea of what you eat each day?

Hi again @murray09

When you wake with the raging thirst do you test your blood sugar? Have you continued to lose weight?

Good times to test to get an idea what might be going on are first thing in the morning, before each meal, two hours after each meal (eg if you start lunch at 12.30pm then test at 2.30pm) and last thing at night. That will give you a picture of what's happening. The after meal tests are particularly useful as they can show if particular foods 'suit' your body. You may find you need to cut down your carbs if you get high readings two hours after eating.

I'm going to tag @daisy1 for you as she has some basic information.

murray09 said:

Thank you. No i haven't tested for a while as it was deemed unnecessary, the conclusion being "it's something you'll have to live with." Which I am prepared to do but I still want to search all avenues of possibility. My weight loss has more or less levelled out now. Thanks for responding, I agree re-starting the testing of my blood sugar at particular times may narrow it down, but will this have any bearing on my body's resistance or inabilty to process glucose

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I'm not a medical professional so I can only offer my own experience. But personally in your situation I'd definitely want to test at home to see what was going on. The symptoms you described - raging thirst and frequency - can be due to high blood sugar. You won't know if that's the case unless you undertake some systematic testing to see what's happening to your blood sugar during the day.

Testing in and of itself won't help insulin resistance, but it will show you how your body deals with certain foods, particularly carbohydrates. Just as an example, if you were to eat cereal and toast for breakfast, then tested two hours later and found your blood sugar was high, you may then choose to reduce the carbs in your breakfast in order to get that post-meal blood sugar lower. Keeping one's blood sugars in the normal range can reduce the risk of health problems now or in the future.

Many people here in a similar situation do reduce the carbs they eat. In very simple terms, carbs are turned to glucose by the body. In a non-diabetic person, the body then uses insulin as a key to let the glucose into the body's cells so it can be used as energy. If you have insulin resistance, that 'key' doesn't work properly so the glucose can't get into your cells and stays in your blood, causing higher than desired blood sugar. High blood sugar can cause immediate problems eg raging thirst, and also problems in the future as it gradually damages the body. Sorry if you know all that already.

If you're able to do some testing over the course of a day, eating your normal meals and testing at the times I've suggested (common times used by others on this forum and elsewhere), you could then post your results here and get feedback from others in your situation

@murray09

Hello and welcome to the forum As mentioned above, here is the information we give to new members and I hope you will find it useful, in addition to the excellent advice further up this thread. Ask more questions and someone will be able to help.


BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEW MEMBERS

Diabetes is the general term to describe people who have blood that is sweeter than normal. A number of different types of diabetes exist.

A diagnosis of diabetes tends to be a big shock for most of us. It’s far from the end of the world though and on this forum you’ll find over 150,000 people who are demonstrating this.

On the forum we have found that with the number of new people being diagnosed with diabetes each day, sometimes the NHS is not being able to give all the advice it would perhaps like to deliver - particularly with regards to people with type 2 diabetes.

The role of carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are a factor in diabetes because they ultimately break down into sugar (glucose) within our blood. We then need enough insulin to either convert the blood sugar into energy for our body, or to store the blood sugar as body fat.

If the amount of carbohydrate we take in is more than our body’s own (or injected) insulin can cope with, then our blood sugar will rise.

The bad news

Research indicates that raised blood sugar levels over a period of years can lead to organ damage, commonly referred to as diabetic complications.

The good news

People on the forum here have shown that there is plenty of opportunity to keep blood sugar levels from going too high. It’s a daily task but it’s within our reach and it’s well worth the effort.

Controlling your carbs

The info below is primarily aimed at people with type 2 diabetes, however, it may also be of benefit for other types of diabetes as well.
There are two approaches to controlling your carbs:

• Reduce your carbohydrate intake
• Choose ‘better’ carbohydrates

Reduce your carbohydrates

A large number of people on this forum have chosen to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat as they have found this to be an effective way of improving (lowering) their blood sugar levels.

The carbohydrates which tend to have the most pronounced effect on blood sugar levels tend to be starchy carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and similar root vegetables, flour based products (pastry, cakes, biscuits, battered food etc) and certain fruits.

Choosing better carbohydrates

Another option is to replace ‘white carbohydrates’ (such as white bread, white rice, white flour etc) with whole grain varieties. The idea behind having whole grain varieties is that the carbohydrates get broken down slower than the white varieties –and these are said to have a lower glycaemic index.
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/food/diabetes-and-whole-grains.html

The low glycaemic index diet is often favoured by healthcare professionals but some people with diabetes find that low GI does not help their blood sugar enough and may wish to cut out these foods altogether.

Read more on carbohydrates and diabetes

LOW CARB PROGRAM:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/low carb program


Eating what works for you

Different people respond differently to different types of food. What works for one person may not work so well for another. The best way to see which foods are working for you is to test your blood sugar with a glucose meter.

To be able to see what effect a particular type of food or meal has on your blood sugar is to do a test before the meal and then test after the meal. A test 2 hours after the meal gives a good idea of how your body has reacted to the meal.

The blood sugar ranges recommended by NICE are as follows:

Blood glucose ranges for type 2 diabetes

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 8.5 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (adults)

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 9 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (children)

• Before meals: 4 to 8 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 10 mmol/l

However, those that are able to, may wish to keep blood sugar levels below the NICE after meal targets.

Access to blood glucose test strips

The NICE guidelines suggest that people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should be offered:

• structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review
• self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education

Therefore both structured education and self-monitoring of blood glucose should be offered to people with type 2 diabetes. Read more on getting access to bloodglucose testing supplies.

You may also be interested to read questions to ask at a diabetic clinic

Note: This post has been edited from Sue/Ken's post to include up to date information.

Hi @murray09

I just wanted to mention that on my last appt, I questioned being diagnosed as type 1 as i am in my 30's. My nurse told me that she had a patient who was recently diagnosed with type 1 at 60 years old, so there's no age restrictions for T1D.

If this were the case, you'd likely be looking at not making enough insulin, as opposed to insulin resistance, and may need to be put on insulin.

Hi and welcome. My anecdotal experience is that

1. You must test. Without testing you cannot know what's happening to your blood sugar. You can buy a Code Free monitor, strips and lancets from Amazon - cheapest without prescription

2. Pretty good diet but knock the oats and banana on the head, loads of sugar and will spike you especially first thing

3. Get your fat uptake up... It won't make you fat but could help to halt your weight drop. Olive oil, avocados, nuts, seeds, butter, cream etc

Hope this helps!


Diagnosed 13/4/16: T2, no meds, HbA1c 53, FBG 12.6, Trigs 3.6, HDL .75, LDL 4.0, BP 169/95, 13st 8lbs, waist 34" (2012 - 17st 7lbs, w 42").

6/6/16: FBG AV 4.6, Trigs 1.5, HDL 2.0, LDL 3.0, BP 112/68, BPM 66, 11st 11lbs, waist 30".

Regime: 20g LCHF, run 1 mile daily, weekly fasting.