Can someone just explain somethings to me please a

[Christafur]

I was diagnosed in May Hbac1 was 90, last test was 56. I been super good (I surprised myself) yesterday I came off plan a bit had mash and a bread roll, my bloods this morning was 5.6, I was expecting them to be much higher, does your body adjust to allow a bit more carbs or is it because of the medication? I really want to come off the meds, I’m not saying I’m cured but my carb intake is going up slightly and my bloods are responding well.

 

[ianf0ster]

Hi @Christafur
You didn't give enough information to enable an explanation. But some here are factors to be aware of :
1. BG meters are legally only required to be accurate to +- 15%. So that 5.6 could in actuality been a fair bit higher.
2. If you have lost visceral fat then you insulin resistance may have improved and if from around you pancreas then you may be able to producing more insulin than before.
3. Progress toward remission isn't always in a straight line and a single meal means little in the wider scheme of things.


When did you have the mash and bread roll and when did you test your BG level?

To understand how well (or badly) your body has reacted to carbohydrates in a meal it is best to take a BG reading just before eating and then again 2 hrs later. This is because for a non-diabetics it's around the 2hr mark when their BG has dropped back to what it was before eating. As Type 2 Diabetics, we aim for the rise from the pre-meal to the post-meal to be 2.0 mmol or less.

There is also a complication that many of us suffer from Dawn Phenomenon where our liver decides to be helpful and releases some glucose into our bloodstream to give us enough energy to go hunt/gather our breakfast. Medication such as Metformin may reduce this, but for me and many others controlling by diet alone, our morning fasting BG may well be quite high ( 6.5 to 7.5 for me usually) and may even keep increasing a little until we eat something.

 

[KennyA]

I was diagnosed in May Hbac1 was 90, last test was 56. I been super good (I surprised myself) yesterday I came off plan a bit had mash and a bread roll, my bloods this morning was 5.6, I was expecting them to be much higher, does your body adjust to allow a bit more carbs or is it because of the medication? I really want to come off the meds, I’m not saying I’m cured but my carb intake is going up slightly and my bloods are responding well.

Hard to say. The information you have from a single fingerprick test, with a possible error of 15%, is that you had some carbs on day one and your BG wasn't particularly high on the morning of day two.

You don't really have any good information about what the mash and roll did to your BGs because you don't report testing around the food. Was that because you expected the result to be high? Because you don't have the information I think the statement "my bloods are responding well" might well be mistaken.

My other question would be why, after such a successful result, in reducing your A1c from 90 to 56, you seem prepared to take the risk of sabotaging your own success?

 

[ajbod]

With doing low carb, your insulin resistance will have improved slightly, I've found that the VERY occasional higher carb meal is reasonably well handled. BUT i know that if this becomes too frequent, everything will go south rapidly and return to where i was at diagnosis, if not worse. Think of it as dodging a bullet, if your lucky you will get away with it occasionally, but the prognosis is not good if you keep pushing your luck.