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Anyone like me?

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flippert

Member
Messages
10
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
i was diagnosed a week ago with an Hba1c of 9. However, I am not the usual type 2 candidate. Im slim and very athletic being a triathlete. Everything I have read urges me to loose weight but this is not an option for me. I was put on metformin but came off that quickly as my bloods hover around the 4-5 mark, often dipping to 3.1, with or without exercise. None of bloods have been high.
Is there anyone in a similar situation to me or have any advice for me? I've not really changed my diet either, well stopped eating sugary snacks and only having a glass of wine with a meal.
Any guidance or support greatly received as feeling quite lost about it all. Thank you.
 
Yes and is a real pain! I ran when diagnosed as pre diabetic and my blood sugar rose when I ran. Had to give up running through constant injuries, now just walk 5 miles a day. My bmi is 19 and I find it hard to maintain this without raising my blood.
So I feel your frustration!
And we are not alone I think there a quite a few who are in a similar position despite the media saying otherwise.
I sometimes wish I was fat on diagnosis because then I could 'cure' myself by losing weight!
 
Thank you so much for replying. It is good to know I am not alone. It is very frustrating. That's interesting what you say about bloods going up when running. I'll see what happens when I do longer stints, but with a broken toe and a half marathon around the corner... I'm limited! Maybe a long bike tomorrow.
 

May I ask when you are testing to conclude your "bloods hover around the 4-5 mark.....", and when they dropped to 3.1, was that before eating, after exercising, or whatever? and finally, how did you feel at the time you measured 3.1?

I'm just trying to build a bit of a picture.
 
I test before meals and 2-3 hours after meals. The 3.1 was before lunch and I felt fine I had run earlier in the morning. I'd taken metformin the day before and that morning. I felt low at 3.7 earlier in the week. Yesterday they didn't go above 5.3.
 
flippert said:
I test before meals and 2-3 hours after meals. The 3.1 was before lunch and I felt fine I had run earlier in the morning. I'd taken metformin the day before and that morning. I felt low at 3.7 earlier in the week. Yesterday they didn't go above 5.3.
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The 3.1 could have been the result of your exercising earlier in the morning.

As a matter of interest, how often have you seen 3s, and generally, how did you feel when you were in the 3s?

You state you've given up sugary snacks. What exactly does that mean? Were you eating sugary snacks every now and then, or every afternoon or all the time?

Again, just trying to get more of a picture.

(These days, my bloods run in the low regions, so it's not altogether unheard of. )
 
Jo123 said:
I sometimes wish I was fat on diagnosis because then I could 'cure' myself by losing weight!
Click to expand...

That is one heck of an inaccurate assumption.

Not my intention to derail, but i can't let that pass on a support forum for diabetics where significant numbers of type 2s are not diabetic because they are fat (chicken, egg), have extreme difficulty losing weight, and whose type 2 is not 'cured' by weight loss.
 
@flippert

Have you been training using carb loading?
That may go a long way to explain your high HbA1c with lower levels the rest of the time.

But i agree with @AndBreathe, the timing of blood glucose testing is critical in spotting the highs.
 

No judgement in my statement, just stating how I feel, as I said. And as this is a forum for support can I not say how I honestly feel.

With my blood sugars rising despite strict low carbing I would truly love to be able to try the newcastle diet, at the moment I am pretty hacked off with doing my best and getting worsening results. And it might not work I realize that.
 
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Have you ever been tested for a fatty liver?
Sometimes even slim people can lower weight further, to below their personal fat threshold, by reducing fat further (they can have fatty organs even though very little surface fat.

I believe it may be possible to raise the pft by muscle gain too.

But these dont always appeal!

And have they done C peptide tests to confirm you arent T2?

Sorry if you have discussed this elsewhere, but i don't remember seeing it.
 
Hi flippert. Me too (thin T2, but not athletic). But my BS range is 5-7. I'm sure there is a balance which will suit you and this is the place to find it. Stick around.
 
And me, sort of.....

Definitely not athletic anymore, but the Doc actually said to me when I first went to him with a few problems "That sounds like you have diabetes, but you are clearly not obese, so its unlikely yo be type 2..."

I think my HbA1c was about 11.5 at the time, but metformin and LCHF rapidly reduced it to around 5.5 where its been for the last year.

I have seen the occasional 3.7 and several 4 point somethings but never had a hypo problem, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.
 
Thank you all, I will try to answer all the questions. I'm only on day 10 having been diagnosed. Sugary snacks were chocolate or cake. I also often had non ish sugary snacks along side like homemade power balls or granola bars, nuts and seeds.

In terms of carb loading, no. The races I do are short enough that I shouldn't need to do this if I train accurately before hand and have a proper taper week.

How I feel when I have 3s, sometimes wobbly, faint, or whoosy, I have recorded five 3s over the last 9 days.
My GP doesn't understand it either and I'm waiting for a hospital appointment and further tests.
My uncle who is a Dr has said it is all 'weird' and doesn't understand my results and bs levels.
Thank you again, it's really helpful talking to people.
 
I had some similarities during my diagnosis, as I am normal weight, do regular exercise and had normal fasting BC levels, and passed a glucose challenge test. Maybe things will be clearer in the future. One thing I did, though, was to really take exercise and nutrition seriously during the diagnosis process, so the HbA1C might have been worse than my (slightly later) on-the-spot measures.

Edit: One way to check this is to do another HbA1c after a short time. Mine starting going down right away.
 
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Flippert, have you looked through the Exercise and Sport section? Or thought about posting there? I'm not sporty any more so I don't know how the diabetic body responds to extreme exercise.
 
flippert said:
i was diagnosed a week ago with an Hba1c of 9. However, I am not the usual type 2 candidate. Im slim and very athletic being a triathlete.
Click to expand...

How do you fuel your body for athletic training and performance? Carbs or Fat? I'm no expert, just what I've learned on my recent journey of discovery about Ketogenic Diet / Lifestyle. I was amazed to learn how many pro marathon atheletes are now choosing a Ketogenic Diet because it gives them a distinctive edge when competing. So they're fit and healthy and in peak performance on a LCHF (Low Carb High Fat diet). They're not doing it to loose weight, they adjust the ratios of Protein and Fat so they don't loose weight.
Here is a very long 3hr (in three parts) lecture I came across by Dr Stephen Phinney - Optimising Weight and Health with an LCHF Diet where he talks about what I mention above. (you'll need to open and view in YouTube to get links to the other three parts)

 
First of all I think you must reexamine your Hba1c. Second see the possibility not to be type 2. Any way if you haven't any other symptoms could be something passed away, but under control . Good luck, I am not a doctor but I am type 1 for 43 years
 
 
ioanna sevaslidi said:
First of all I think you must reexamine your Hba1c. Second see the possibility not to be type 2. Any way if you haven't any other symptoms could be something passed away, but under control . Good luck, I am not a doctor but I am type 1 for 43 years
Click to expand...
Yes, they retested my hba1c. The Dr mentioned about some red blood cells having a longer half life but the hospital would need to investigate this. Who knows...
 
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