Carbo hydrates/spikes

I did some more digging into A1cs

From here

http://www.diabetes.nhs.uk/communicatio ... management

In England 97% of people registered with diabetes have had
their HbA1c measured in the previous 15 months. 62% of
people with diabetes had a HbA1c measurement of less than
7.5 and a further 28% had a measurement between 7.5
and 10.

Only 16.5% of children under 16 years old who have had their
HbA1c measured had a value of less than 7.5. More than a
quarter (27.8%) had a HbA1c of more than 9.5. Among young
people aged 16 to 24 years old 37.2% had a HbA1c
measurement of 9.5 or more.

Scary stuff! Especially when you realise the "average" will include a lot of newly diagnosed folks who have still not disintegrated too far, and us superior beings who are achieving 5% <G>

Seriously there is a LOT you can do to improve things. This document has been around for many years now

http://www.alt-support-diabetes.org/NewlyDiagnosed.htm

by following that protocol we see many many people making huge improvements not only in BG numbers but lipids and BP too

Very interesting reading especially as I can't get my readings below 6-7 (usually 7) even when I have no carbs at all!!

Hi Sam,

What exactly are you eating when you say you have had no carbs at all? There are carbs in most foods that we eat, just more in some than in others. It would be almost impossible for you to have a no-carb diet.

Hi Dennis, sorry I realised when I said that it was wrong (I am still on the learning curve haha). For example yesterday I had cottage cheese and an apple mixed up with cinnamon and 2 hours later my BS was 7.9 (it was 7 when I got up). I then had raw cabbage, carrot and red pepper with a piece of salmon and some lemon juice on it mixed with mayo and 2 hours later by BS was 7.2. My tea was broccolli, cabbage and carrots with 2 veggie sausage and veggie gravy and 2 hours later it was 7.9 again. It is doing my head in now as if I eat some boiled potato or a bit of pasta it is still around the same mark. Am I being too impatient or should I see an instant result?

Looks from that like your meals aren't putting your BG up by much but you're running with constantly high numbers.

Possibly more work on insulin resistance, which responds to metformin and especially to growing and using muscle, might help. Otherwise just keep tweaking for a while and see if you can't improve things gradually.

Hi Sam,

I get the impression that you are concerned because your BS levels are going up when you eat, but that is what is supposed to happen. Most food has an impact on our blood sugars, even non carb foods such as meat will cause a small rise. After two hours you should expect your BS to be back almost to where it started and a level of 0.9mmol higher after 2 hours is not bad. The 2 hour target is not an exact science. If for example your meal included some fat as well as carbs (e.g. for breakfast cottage cheese and then apple) the effect of the fat is to slow down the rate at which the carbs convert to sugar, which in turn means that after 2 hours your BS was probably still in the process of dropping instead of being back to near where it started from. As Trink said, you also most likely have a degree of insulin resistance and overcoming this can result in a sugnificant reduction in average BS.

Ahhh thank you so much guys. Now you have said that it seems obvious. If I get up and my BS is 7 it's not going to drop to 3 after I have eaten...doh!!!
I am now taking 3 metformin a day so hopefully this will help and I will try to be more patient instead of wanting instant results and I have also upped the walking a bit so this should help (am I right? for the muscle thing).
x

Hi Sam,

Walking is highly recommended because it increases the body's metabolic rate and helps to reduce insulin resistance. If you tend to suffer from dawn phenomenon (higher BS in the morning than you went to bed with) then a 20 minute walk just before bed time is also supposed to help prevent this.

Dennis said:

Hi Sam,

Walking is highly recommended because it increases the body's metabolic rate and helps to reduce insulin resistance. If you tend to suffer from dawn phenomenon (higher BS in the morning than you went to bed with) then a 20 minute walk just before bed time is also supposed to help prevent this.

Click to expand...

Hi Dennis, my poor dogs have no idea what has hit them as they now get dragged around the streets. I am going to up the workouts on the Wii fit as well I think...my poor old body needs all the help it can get..thanks again

Hahahaha!

Growing muscle (via weightlifting type exertions) increases the volume of the muscle and hence the volume of glucose they can uptake.

Walking and similar use of the muscles, particularly the large muscles, actually serves to uptake the glucose and also leaves the glucose transporters primed ready for action near the cells' surface. How you balance these two types of exercise is up to you. I've always been a skinny ******* and can double my strength without looking any more muscular so I concentrate on using what I've got.

I've forgotten some of the words I wanted to remember. I think I drank too much wine to make walking round the block in the dark a good plan. can I borrow your dogs tomorrow? <G>

Trinkwasser said:

Hahahaha!

Growing muscle (via weightlifting type exertions) increases the volume of the muscle and hence the volume of glucose they can uptake.

Walking and similar use of the muscles, particularly the large muscles, actually serves to uptake the glucose and also leaves the glucose transporters primed ready for action near the cells' surface. How you balance these two types of exercise is up to you. I've always been a skinny ******* and can double my strength without looking any more muscular so I concentrate on using what I've got.

I've forgotten some of the words I wanted to remember. I think I drank too much wine to make walking round the block in the dark a good plan. can I borrow your dogs tomorrow? <G>

Click to expand...

Cheers for that...feel free to come and get my dogs...they are only little [shi-tsus] but my God they can pull you round at a great rate of knots
I have also been known to dance around while teaching my class after lunch...they think I have been at the wine, but I tell them I am burning my glucose...they just think I am mad but nothing new there :lol:

Hi! all ,Sugarless Sue I sent a PM to you ,but I did not intend to any advise would help the oatmeal thing is confusing.
Ive never been on a dicussion forum before ,It looks like a good place to get helpful advise.
Im diagnosed type 2 about 6 months.
Been on 4 Diamicron & 4 Glucoflage .
Now Im diagnosed LADA Latent Diabetes and started injecting insulin on friday
HB1C of 9 in november & 8 in january
My readings in the mornings are between 10 & 11 mmol for months .The only time I get a reading below 7 is after 3 miles jog or vigourous exercise.
Sometimes I get readings as high as 18 ,2 or 3 hours after eating
its a struggle to get good readings.
Typical day
breakfast : porridge & orange juce
11 am : 2 slices of wholegrain brown bread on butter maybe cheese & tomato.
Lunch : 3 Slices of Wholemeal brown 2 slices of ham .letttuce & tomato
Dinner 6pm :Fillet steak 8oz or a breast of chicken ,Broccolli & brown rice & can of Tomatoes ,peppers .
A few apples or banannas during the day.
Ive only had a handful of Hypos in 6 months .
does anything look obvious, I was 12 to 12.5 stone for last 10 years now Im less than 10 stone.
regards Pat50

Joined: Today, 7:29 pm

Hi Pat50.
Welcome.

Here is a link to some good information all about LADA. Have a good read and then come back here for more info if you need.

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes_lada.html

Try not to ask too many questions at once if you want to get quick answers.
Hope this helps.
Ken.

pat50 said:

Sometimes I get readings as high as 18 ,2 or 3 hours after eating
its a struggle to get good readings.

Click to expand...

Hello,

I was very interested to see Sue's comment about porridge / oats; the exact same thing happened to me. I would eat porridge thinking I was being very healthy and at lunch my blood sugars would be absolutely fine, but I thought I'd check just after eating the porridge and they were through the roof; 16 - 18 and the like. Really bad response to that stuff, presented as it is as some sort of wonder food, also my wife who is Scottish is very disappointed that I won't join her for the national dish...

From the look of your diet; you should drop the porridge, and especially the orange juice and the bananas; fruit is unfortunately not our friend. Orange juice raises my blood sugar faster than coke a cola.

Why not read the Dr. Bernstein book as well (available on Amazon and the like)?

You are eating a lot of carbohydrate and that is all turning into sugar at varying rates; it's so much easier without it.

Dillinger

Hi Pat, there is lots of advice out there so you have to choose what you feel is best for you, but I have to agree with Dilliger [again from personal experience] I cannot tolerate more than a couple of bits of fruit a day and definitely not fruit juice or bananas. I have also found that any form of bread also rises my levels. i can tolerate a small amount of rice or pasta but I can't eat it like I used to. You maight think about reducing carbs as I know that has helped me hugely. I was diagnosed in January and my level was 18. I have been following a low carb diet and it took a while but I am now getting readings between 5 and 6 after meals.
Good luck with it.
Sam

Hi,
Very interested in what you said about spikes. I used to have porrage and fruit every morning and my BG was spiking a lot from 7 up to 9 and even 13.2 on one occasion. I then started low carbing. I eat approximately 24 carbs per day i.e. breakfast, 2 rashers bacon, 2 small mushrooms and an egg a 4 gm carb cracker and butter.I eat lots of salad with 2-3oz meat fish etc and home made maho. My reading are now mostly in the 5's with the occacional 6.1. So I think I will stick to the Bernstein way of eating as I am feeling great as well.
Type 2 diag. October 2008.
HbA1c 6.4
BMI 23.6.
No meds. PS I am 66 and could have had diabetes for several years am not overweight so did not suspect it.

Ah yes, spikes, spikes spikes.

One of my few pet hates. Just when you begin to believe and hope you can avoid a high blood sugar, WHAP! comes the spike. They seem to come at any time after any type of carbohydrate has been consumed, even if your BM chart and your routine is sound. Although I don't have a rapid decent like those of the other posts; I need lots of insulin to get back to normal, and then continue with the routine as if nothing had happened :? . I have pondered many times trying to come up with an explanation, but sometimes it's just not possible. Although I can explain that its just one of those things we have to do deal with.

The morning time can be when the body it as its most dormant, therefore any kind of simple carbohydrate, such as orange juice or fruit can send blood glucose readings to the moon. Injecting in the thigh can also delay the the activity of the insulin; the abdomen is much more reactive.

In my view, the only way to deal with the prevention of spikes is to get very suspicious about avoiding a high BM reading for more than a week, and therefore cut back on carbs :lol:

Now Im diagnosed LADA Latent Diabetes and started injecting insulin on friday
HB1C of 9 in november & 8 in january
My readings in the mornings are between 10 & 11 mmol for months .The only time I get a reading below 7 is after 3 miles jog or vigourous exercise

Click to expand...

Hi Pat,
Your new diagnosis explains your high blood sugars over the last few months. Your own insulin production will have been going down and the oral drugs to increase insulin production would not have been effective if you had little to produce.
Bascically LADA is a slower developing form of Type 1 diabetes.
Here are 2 more references that may help
http://www.locallada.swan.ac.uk/faq.html [url=http://www.diabetesmonitor.com/lada.htm]http://www.diabetesmonitor.com/lada.htm[/url]

You may very well find that your Blood sugar levels change dramatically now you are using insulin.
Hopefully you will have been put onto whats called a basal/bolus insulin regime ( a once or twice daily background insulin + a variable dose fast insulin for food) . Alternatively you may have been put onto a twice daily 'mixed' insulin regime. This is less flexible and to a certain extent you have to eat, to match the peak in the insulin. A third possibility is that you have been started on either a background insulin or a rapid one for meals and that you will add the other type of insulin later.

How people advice you should take your insulin regime into account. Since you have only been using insulin for a week, I really don't think you should make too many changes to your diet for a while. (though I do tend to agree that orange juice is very 'fast',some people use it for hypos, a whole fruit iis slower ). Reducing your carbohydrates without knowing how to adjust doses could very easily result in too much insulin and a hypo .Hopefully you will have been given some advice on adjusting your insulin but If you are continuing to get high readings,(or low ones) then you should contact you nurse of doc for that advice.

I have LADA and like you run. I manage very well on a 'mediterranean' type diet but crucially I learned gradually how food/exercise and insulin affected my body. I used a basal bolus regime (now a pump) and like many people with LADA have been able to maintain a low Hb A1c.
I hope that you been provided with plenty of testing strips.

What I would suggest is to log everything carefully, jot down your meals, the time of meals,the carb content of the meal(weigh starchy carbs and use a carb counting book) and your insulin dose, pre meal and 2 hours post meal readings. Also note down exercise and glucose levels before, during and after. (sounds a lot but if you keep your log book by you it isn't too arduous). Its a good idea to keep to a fairly regular pattern of meals to start with (just like the type you describe).
When I was diagnosed, I ate the same amount of carbs every breakfast, the same amount every lunch and the same amount every dinner ( I was prescribed the amounts by the hospital.) It was very depressing because I thought I would have to do that forever but now I am able to be far more flexible because but it taught me a lot about the amount of insulin to use and which carbs might produce problems.
.
Hope I haven't said too much and confused you!

Hello All. A "first time" user here - though have been Type II for about 10 years - genetic, my father & all his brothers, his father and all his brothers etc. All pancreas degradations are different - and at different stages. So effects/symptoms/solutions will be different for each person, though there are of course general rules to apply. My experience is that many GPs know very little about diabetes treatment - Practice Nurses usually know more.

Oats/porridge have traditionally been recommended for diabetes - but like a previous comment, as regards BSLs (only) they don't only create a spike, they can keep levels high for a long time. Mind you, I know diabetics who swear by a bowl every morning.

I would say that basically use an Atkins diet - but sensibly. Keep off carbs - esp bread, pasta, root veg (inc. carrots). Keep off anything containing an "ose". (Why does cream have less lactose than milk???) Alcohol in my case can lower BSLs. A glass of red wine (search for own-brands like co-op where they detail the sugar content) will increase BSL, but 3 glasses should lower it. (Drink sensibly!) At tot of a spirit before sleeping helps many people to have a lower BSL in the morning. Some hunter-gatherer males will have high BSLs in the morning whatever they do, as the body prepares to leap out of bed and go hunting.

Starting out on Gliclozide I could eat fruit. With Metformin I can't (but do). I've always asked doctors if they can correlate the risks between eating fruit & having higher levels - and abstaining from fruit & having lower levels. They say there's been no research. Shame!

In my case if I have kippers for breakfast, bacon and scrambled eggs for lunch, fish or steak + salad for dinner I can halve my drug input (Metformin & Gliclozide). Add broad beans, carrots etc to any of these meals & whoomph, up the BSLs go. Add mowing the lawn, DIY, walking - whatever, it can all help loads.

BMI is all. Fat around the liver will get turned to glucose (ish). I'm tall 6 ft 2, not skinny, not fat. But if I go a few pounds over a certain weight - the metformin just stops working. It's important to keep the Metformin medication to as little as possible - there are reports about it allegedly causing, or making erectile dysfunction worse, and due to it's effects on the colon can cause food allergies eventually.

About once a year, against all advice, I come off all drugs for a couple of weeks and have a VERY strict diet. After being used to the drugs, not using them really shows what to avoid. This won't work for every Type II. But it also helps shed those extra few pounds that have slowly added themselves. And my feeling is that it gives the liver a little bit of a rest.

To save the NHS going totally bust, I test BSLs constantly for a week, then have a month off.

Each person has a digestive system that works in different ways. Mine seems quite slow, so I don't test till 4 hrs after a meal.

Keep away from meusli with Chilean flame raisins, even if no added sugars.

Don't have Diabetic sweets - some have just as much sugar, some use fructose, some are full of polyols & will give you the trots and unpleasant-smelling wind. I have the odd square of 85% chocolate - Lindt/Sainsburys etc. Yum!

My treat is a vanlla ice-cream followed by a brisk walk up a beach. A REAL treat!

Sorry to ramble - not scientific, just from experience.

Good luck to us all. Type II isn't too bad - willpower, protein & excercise! Everything I've said may be total unscientific rubbish. But it works for me.

Good luck!

Hi Geoff,
Welcome on board, a great first posting you seem to have got your diabetes under control your input will be most welcome

Regards
Graham