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Another year on

J

Jogon

Member
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10
Another year on and still with the type 2.
I use an at home monitor, mmol is the reading, it’s averaging at 8.5 and has not
changed much in the last year, it was 8.4 for a while
I have resisted all medication for it so far, I’m early 60’s male, non smoker/drinker
I’ve gone from 17st6 to now 16st1 or thereabouts.
I walk my dogs 30mins every day.
I recently had an ecg, it’s given that I have LBBB and this may have been caused
by a MI (Heart attack?) although it could have been there a long time. Just waiting
on a chest clinic appointment (urgent) All but 1 of the other readings in the ecg
were normal and good.
My bad cholesterol was 3.8 and they say it needs to be 1.8 or lower, all other blood
readings were good/normal
My blood pressure is usually Normal or optimal, sometimes it reports hypotension
but average is 115 over 78 or this morning it was 118/82
I take indapimide for salt reduction and I take Candesartan for my BP

I dont eat late these day, I used to, I have no idea why but if i take my blood mid
morning before having anything to eat or drink it’s usually the high side of 9.0
and yet as I eat and the take the test a couple of hours later the reading can sometimes
be 7.1 or therabouts, no idea how that works.

I cut out sugar in drinks almost a year ago, I now use Sugarly and not a lot at that.
I stopped eating chocolate full stop a year ago.
I went from full fat milk to semi-skimmed
I drink little hot drinks, I drink a fair amount of water.
I’ve reduced the cakes/pastries by 70%
I reduced the amount of crisps maybe 3 bags a week at most.
I have reduced my bread intake at the same time as alternating between brown/white when I do
I have never been a fan of fast food, and don’t ever bother with take-away my family do.
I have butter over margarine (but again not a lot)
I eat only eat white meat, never red
I eat white fish/rice quite a bit
Any fried food is via an air-fryer, but again not a lot.
I eat fruit once a day pear/banana and apple mainly
I was prescribed, metformin and atorvastin, I’ve have until now resisted taking them as I thought
by lifestyle changes i could get the type 2 under control, I have no idea if my average 8.5mmol is
good or bad but assume it’s not good.

So given the ecg etc and the need to reduce my bad cholesterol I’m thinking now is perhaps
the time to consider taking it but will it help things I have no idea.
 
Last edited:
What was the result of your Hba1c blood test.? That's the one that gives 3 month average
 
Jogon said:
Another year on and still with the type 2.

I cut out sugar in drinks almost a year ago, I now use Sugarly and not a lot at that.
I stopped eating chocolate full stop a year ago.
I went from full fat milk to semi-skimmed
I drink little hot drinks, I drink a fair amount of water.
I’ve reduced the cakes/pastries by 70%
I reduced the amount of crisps maybe 3 bags a week at most.
I have reduced my bread intake at the same time as alternating between brown/white when I do
I have never been a fan of fast food, and don’t ever bother with take-away my family do.
I have butter over margarine (but again not a lot)
I eat only eat white meat, never red
I eat white fish/rice quite a bit
Any fried food is via an air-fryer, but again not a lot.
I eat fruit once a day pear/banana and apple mainly
I was prescribed, metformin and atorvastin, I’ve have until now resisted taking them as I thought
by lifestyle changes i could get the type 2 under control, I have no idea if my average 8.5mmol is
good or bad but assume it’s not good.

So given the ecg etc and the need to reduce my bad cholesterol I’m thinking now is perhaps
the time to consider taking it but will it help things I have no idea.
Click to expand...
I do add a sweetener to hot lemon when I make it, but tea and coffee are not sweetened.
I eat high cocoa chocolate, as they have much less sugar than 'ordinary' bars.
I put double cream in my coffee
No cake/pastry/crisps/bread which is not seriously low carb/fast food.
Yes to butter, and to all meat and fish, eggs, cheese and dairy.
No rice.
Chicken thighs are done in the air fryer, Tefal Actifry so an old one, but I fry in olive or coconut oil and in butter or lard.
I only eat berries year round, apricots and plums in season, though I do try to restrict the amount.
No pears/bananas and this year only a couple of apples as my trees had scarcely any fruit.
I was prescribed Atorvastatin and Metformin. I was wretchedly unwell for about a month, then binned them.
I got my after eating glucose down to under 8 and got better after that.
My cholesterol has gone down since diagnosis, but not down to silly numbers.
The diabetes nurse is very happy with my situation - I saw her earlier today.
 
You are definitely going in the right direction, and are doing well.
Assuming you are asking us for input (and I apologise if you weren't) I'd say you still have plenty of wiggle room here to amend your diet, so that might be worth trying, and also, as a dog owner for many years (sadly no longer) another half-hour walk a day would make them so happy, and be good for you as well.
 
Jogon said:
I’m not sure, I may have the [HbA1c] reading somewhere, if I find it out I’ll post it here.
Click to expand...
It's likely your diabetes diagnosis was made on the basis of a blood test for HbA1c. I'd keep a record of the result(s) because it's a useful benchmark going forward.

If your HbA1c numbers are not available online, I'd give your GP practice a bell. A receptionist should be able to read the results to you over the phone.

Cardiologists seldom treat left bundle branch block LBBB] unless you have an underlying heart condition.
 
Thank you all for your input, all very much appreciated and helpful.

In regards to the LBBB, it’s a bit of an annoyoance as in I have had high blood pressure for a number
of year, 7 years ago I had a heart check including fluid pumped into me and chucked in a MRI tube
to see where and what was going on, it came back that I had a congenital defect and a narrowing of
a particular place…apparently this is a common(ish) defect. I also had to shuffle around with a monitor
on me for 24hours….After all of this I was signed off and told i’d be recalled in 5 years for another check
up (this was the chest clinic).
Well things came along such as Covid and it was obviously forgot about, so a few months ago and after
some minimal chest pain I asked my doc to see if he could look up when the test was and to perhaps
get the 5year (now 7 years) check-up sorted out. A month later (2 weeks ago) I ad an ecg at the doc
clinic and this showed up the LBBB, all other results on the ecg except for the delay signal were normal
with the delay being the lbbb indicator.
A week later I get a call of my gp to tell me there had been some changes in the ecg (lbbb) and after they had
consulted online with whomever that I was advised to go to casualty for another ecg as it was ‘possible' I had
had an MI (heart attack) and they would take it from there, 5 hours of waiting in casualty and still no ecg and
Docs not being available I came home. I visited my gp 48hrs ago and asked if he could find the results of my
2016/17 heart check and previous ecg ….he was unable to locate them, but has now sent a note to the chest
clinic to get me a further checkup-ecg and starting the process again….
I kind of feel like in limbo and a unsure of how I can speed things up…
In the meantime I continue to take aspirin every evening 2x 75mg and I have no chest pains at all for a few months
and even when i did it felt more muscular than chest.
I’m going to try and log onto my gp surgery for my records and see if I can’t pull up the hbac1 results from the
plethora of blood tests i’ve had over the past few months (some of which I had to have taken again as they had
gone missing.
 
How very frustrating for you - I hope you get answers soon, and that they are the ones you'd hoped for.
 
Well done on the weight loss. And the diet and lifestyle changes!

I'd rather not take meds either. But if you've been prescribed Metformin, that's worth thinking about. It may have benefits other than just the blood glucose.

www.health.harvard.edu

Is metformin a wonder drug? - Harvard Health

Metformin, a medicine prescribed to treat type 2 diabetes, also has cardiovascular benefits and is used off-label to treat other conditions. Interest is growing in its potential to help lowe...
www.health.harvard.edu www.health.harvard.edu
 
Guilty said:
Well done on the weight loss. And the diet and lifestyle changes!

I'd rather not take meds either. But if you've been prescribed Metformin, that's worth thinking about. It may have benefits other than just the blood glucose.

www.health.harvard.edu

Is metformin a wonder drug? - Harvard Health

Metformin, a medicine prescribed to treat type 2 diabetes, also has cardiovascular benefits and is used off-label to treat other conditions. Interest is growing in its potential to help lowe...
www.health.harvard.edu www.health.harvard.edu
Click to expand...

This is really interesting, thanks for sharing
 
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