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Blood sugar readings and an upset stomach

srobertson06

Well-Known Member
Messages
321
Location
Lincolnshire
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Cycling, Exercise Classes
Hi everyone,

I have spent a week cutting out as much carbs as possible and was delighted when I managed for the first time to get my readings down as low as 6.3 --- still not the magic 5.5 but still an achievement for me, so I felt really bad when I discovered this mornings over night test was 11.6 - I had been good over the weekend still sticking with low carb and avoiding artificial sweeteners - on investigation turns out the upset stomach I had may have been responsible for this high reading, tested 2 hours after a cheese salad and down to 7.3 so feeling happier again.

I post this because for all the newer diagnosed type 2 diabetics I thought this might be useful information.

I am by no means an expert and still consider myself to be fairly new to all this (one year diagnosed), I know they say ill health can affect the sugar levels but I was thinking more of a heavy cold or a virus - not as basic as a bit of an upset stomach to have a dramatic affect on the blood sugar readings.

I brought my own testing kit three months after diagnosis - I have learnt a great deal from testing and for me personally anything wheat based should be a 'NO' but I struggle to go without bread altogether - hoping this will get easier with time.
Anything other than basmati rice is bad news for me as is porridge oats and pasta - so thankfully I seem OK with potatoes!
I know we are all different and we all react differently to the carbs.
I am learning not to be so hard on myself if I give in and have some carbs - it is a long road rather than a short sprint and we all have to find our way.
 
Dr Bernstein always says a full or distended stomach will cause a rise. He calls it the Chinese restaurant effect and says you can eat rocks and still get a rise. When I get bloated I go up regardless of what I ate. I keep my meals small because I bloat easily.
 
I think this is all a bit of a cyclic phenomena. I never expect a good days readings if I was naughty the day before. There seems to be a lag in my case where I need to concentrate on the diet for some days before things slowly improve. One days naughty seems to result in one days misery. A couple of years ago I experimented with tying one on and eating buns to see what would happen. What happened was I got high readings afterwards as though there was a baseline to the graph which had got higher.

Behaving for some days resulted in an improvement of between 0.1 and 0.5mmol each day until I, once again, got down to my good baseline. It seems you can't have a one day splurge and expect good results. You have to have a good day before the next day is even better. About five days was what it needed in my case.
 
I always say one bad meal equals three bad days. Bummer.
 

Hmm, interesting. Have you tried parboiled basmati rice? I read that it's better than plain basmati rice. Not all wheat are the same - the ancient wheat grains like emmer, einkorn, spelt and kamut are better as these have not been genetically modified. Someone I know told me that he's no longer diabetic as result of eating Indian Long Wheat (equivalent of emmer wheat) after hearing from his uncle that it's recommended in the Indian scriptures!! One way to prevent BG spikes is to cool down the cooked foods - potatoes, rice, pasta, etc as this is how resistant starch (RS) gets formed. Foods cooled down in the fridge can be warmed up when needed. This does not degrade the RS already formed during the cooling period. It's the amount of RS that's so valuable to those keeping a close watch on their BG and parboiled basmati rice has the potential to produce lots of RS.
 
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