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Annoying symptom - What can I do about this?

T

tiredgirl91

Well-Known Member
Messages
71
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
Treatment type
Other
I'm literally so tired of going to the bathroom so often.
Today I also drank a lot of sparkling water because I'm just craving it (not "normal" tap water but it has to be sparkling and ice cold out of the fridge). I also crave Coke Zero but I try to limit it to one can a day.
Didn't do anything very strenous apart from light walking and household chores.
But I feel like this is just too much
I'm urinating about 20+ times a day and I get up at night at least 2 times. It also interrupts my sleep. I feel like the only things that I do during the day are drinking and urinating.
How can this be stopped?
 
Antje77 said:
Do you test your blood glucose @tiredgirl91 ?
What are your numbers like and are you on any medication?
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Yes I do, fasting numbers (these days are usually higher than 7 and go up to 10 mmol/l)

Before meal, and 2 hours after first bite. Depending on how much and what I ate, it ranges from 8 to 10.5 mmol/l.

I'm not on medication yet (waiting for my follow-up appointment to discuss this with my doctor)
 
It could be linked to what you’re eating? What are your usual meals like. Do you count how many carbs you’re having a day?
When my mmol/l were in the teens I would wee for Britain! Since I now try and track my carbs, and for me that’s less than 20g a day, (you maybe can have more, everyone is different) I only get up once in the night and apart from coffee I drink 1-2 litres of sparkling water a day.
 

No matter what I eat, this symptom stays. After high carb, moderate or low carb meals.
Just for reference I don't do low carb, I just experiment with some meals here and there.
 
Though those numbers aren’t scarily high they are still on the high side and only a snap shot of a moment in time, you could be running generally higher (or lower but I suspect it could be higher) this could be what’s given you the thirst, I think I’m correct in saying anything above 10 there will be glucose in your urine, your kidneys will be working hard to flush out the sugar and begging for fluids to help them. It’s well known symptom of uncontrolled diabetes and over time can hurt your kidneys.

I know in my early days when I was running in the 9 - 11 I had a raging thirst and couldn’t get my drinks cold enough, filling a large pint glass with ice and sparking water and gulping it down whilst thinking about my next big glass!

You say up you don’t low carb, just the odd meal, the odd low carb meal will not make a dent in your numbers and will not mitigate the higher carb meals, could you try and reduce your carbs overall a bit? Replace any carbs with protein or fats from oils, nuts, avocado, cream, full fat Greek yogurt,
 

Thank you for your reply.
The reason for experimenting with some low carb meals is just to see how I react to them versus the high carb meals, and at the 2 hour mark the numbers are very similar.
For example, I got a reading of 8.7 mmol/l - 2 hours after eating a fatty pork cut with a vegetable salad with feta cheese and olive oil in it

and a reading of 8.5 mmol/l - 2 hours after eating 3 slices of white toast with butter and marmelade plus a glass of milk

(I'm making my meals myself and I know exactly what goes in them)

And I'm still not sure if low carb will do any good to me especially because I'm severely underweight and I'm afraid I will just lose more weight lowering the carbs. It has been the case in the past. I'm losing weight day to day, and I'm afraid to think what will happen if I don't eat carbs anymore.
At my last appointment, my doctor told me that keto would not be suitable for me regarding my situation. They recommended mixed meals and never eating carbs by themselves, always mixing them with protein, fat and fiber. And keeping track of my numbers.
Now I'm waiting for the follow-up appointment. Maybe given the numbers, he will recommend something else, nutrition-wise.
 
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I suspect what is happening to give you the same numbers for both low and higher carb meals is if you have a high carb meal and then a low carb meal you will have a hangover of carbs from the higher carb meal, your body is constantly trying to deal with carbs.

Low carb or keto doesn’t have to mean weight loss, believe me I can and do put weight on if I over eat on fats especially dairy. Can you maybe try for 1 week to have just lower carb meals and see if that reduces your numbers and thirst?

Hope you don’t think I’m criticising you or trying to push you into something you don’t want to do, I’m just hoping that I can find something that will help you
 
The only other thing I can think of, is it may be a UTI.

Weight has nothing to do with going low carb! If you lose a bit of weight, you can eat more low carb! Even overeat as long as it has very low carb.

The low carb, high carb diet, just won't work!
It's the same thing as drinking the high sugar coke, then diet coke. Alternating between both will not help your overall blood glucose levels. Even if it is a day or two!
It will take longer to understand why you are still getting the symptoms. Until you actually stop the high spikes from carbs. You have give it time.
When you take meds, some of them, the chemist will warn you that you have build up the drug till it does have an, similar to anti biotic, if you stop half way or have alcohol, the dosage will not be as effective or not work at all. Your body is not used to low carb, it needs the time to adjust, to do without the higher than normal blood glucose levels, to get used to not having the spikes, which is the important part of T2.
Once you do, some symptoms will be alleviated, some will lessen some you just won't notice!
You have to make your mind up about food. You are carb intolerant, and the spikes are the reasoning behind the symptoms.

Best wishes.
 
@tiredgirl91 if you are getting these symptoms no matter what you eat and your numbers are not in the teens (although a little higher than ideal), are you sure the symptoms are related to diabetes?
It is easy to blame everything on diabetes but, unfortunately, it does not stop us getting other illnesses. I recommend visiting your GP and explaining these symptoms as they are likely to be affecting your life. Your GP should be able to do some testing to discount other conditions if necessary,
 

All other illnesess have been ruled out at my last check up.

@Lamont D mentioned an UTI, but that has been ruled out as well.

Not diabetes, but prediabetes. However, I'm not sure if prediabetics can get the same symptoms as diabetics do. Or if my condition has already progressed.
I'm a complete layman when it comes to medical stuff, but I'm suspecting Type 1,5.

Why I'm suspecting this?
Well, for one thing, my fasting numbers are increasing on a daily basis. I can see the upward trend.
And I have low-ish insulin levels as well.

To be honest, I can't wait for my appointment. And I hope that I'm wrong about my assumption of LADA.
 

No problem really, I can handle criticism well, even if you do criticize me I won't take it personally. We are all here to share experiences and to help others
The thing is, I feel extremely hungry for starchy foods. When I try to eat fattier foods or low carb, I find that I can't eat enough calories to sustain myself and my goal should be to gain a few kilos at least.
 
That’s carbs for you! It’s a vicious cycle of feeding the hunger with high carb foods which sends us on a roller coaster of our liver trying to feed the insulin that your pancreas is pumping out, but In T2/prediabetes our mechanism for using the insulin is broken so feeding that craving is what pushes our blood sugar up.

How many calories do you think you need to gain weight? Maybe we could help you with some suggestions of what you could eat?
 

To be honest, I don't know. For a while I thought that the amount I am eating right now would allow me to (at least) maintain my weight, but in the last few weeks I am consistently losing. And I do eat regularly, decent sized meals and high calorie food such as rice, baked beans, baked potatoes, bread, red meat, full fat dairy and some fish (but not too often, I don't like it as much as I like red meat).
 
Maybe seeing your GP about your weight loss if you feel it’s unexplained. As to eating to gain weight but keep your BS down, carbs have 4 calories per gram, protein also 4, fats have 9 calories per gram. If I were you I’d drop the rice, pasta, baked beans, potatoes, bread etc

Foods that are low in carbs but are higher in fats, red meat, bacon, chicken thighs with skin on, pork, high meat sausages and burgers, any cheaper fattier cuts of meat, oily fish like salmon, mackerel, above ground veg and salad, eggs, butter, cheese, double cream, few berries, a few nuts - be careful with peanuts and cashews as they aren’t really nuts, macadamia nuts are the highest in fats - also the most expensive though lol, full fat Greek yoghurt like Fage, avocados, mayonnaise, any good oil such as avocado, extra virgin olive oil, walnut oil

Use oils & mayo to dress salads and veg will give you extra calories to satisfy your hunger. Make sauces for your protein with cream or yogurt, cheese, butter. If you like chocolate a couple of squares of high cocoa chocolate such Lindt 85%. If you have a sweet tooth and like baking Google keto or low carb desserts/cakes there are hundreds and hundreds of recipes that will be very calorific as they usually use nut flours like almond flour but have little to no carbs.


I really do think you will see a big difference in you numbers if you cut out all those processed carbs and don’t fear the fats.
 

Thank you for your elaborate reply! I really appreciate that you took the time to write it and to try and help me.
My follow-up appointment is next week so I hope that I will get some explanation why all this is happening.

Now, to be clear, I don't fear the fats, but honestly I find most of them unappetizing. Some of them I'm okay with and as I said, I include them in my meals every day (red meat, full fat dairy, some fish/seafood, scrambled eggs and omelettes)
but most of them almost give me gag reflex..... for example most deli meats, bacon, sausages, chicken thighs especially the skin... Nuts and seeds I'm also not a big fan of them.

I don't know. I feel like I cannot win
 
I hope you can find something that can help you, you will win once you get sorted, let us know how you get on at the GP
 
lovinglife said:
I hope you can find something that can help you, you will win once you get sorted, let us know how you get on at the GP
Click to expand...

Of course I will let you know, I'm already a bit anxious about the appointment and all the questions I have to ask.
Thank you once again for all your suggestions and support
 
Have they checked to see if you’re type 1? My friend was treated for type 2 kept loosing weight and then was hospitalised. It was a nurse that asked if she’d been checked for type 1 and bingo! She was in her 50s Just a thought. Hope you get it sorted
 
tiredgirl91 said:
However, I'm not sure if prediabetics can get the same symptoms as diabetics do.
Click to expand...
Don't get hung up on the ">48 is diabetes" figure. >48 mmol/mol was chosen (relatively recently) as a figure that medics world-wide would all accept for a diagnosis of "T2 diabetes". It was supposed to be a back-stop, but instead it's become (in the UK anyway) the gateway. No T2 diagnosis unless your BG is >48. They picked 48 because "diabetic retinopathy is relatively rare beneath that figure" (Bilous and Donnelly, Handbook of Diabetes).

I had a fair number of symptoms while my BG was still in the mid 40s and I am far from alone. I tend to think that if you have the symptoms, you probably have the disease.
 
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