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Type 2 Confused about T2

A

AL100

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I was diagnosed with T2 about 6 months ago with an A1c test result of 7.1 blood pressure 148/80. Threed months on and 3 stone lighter my A1c has dropped to 5.9 and blood pressure to 113/63. The Dr has said I will be tested on a yearly basis. I have been told I do
n't need to test byour blood sugar levels . I'm not on any medication just diet and exercise . Doespecially this sound correct or should I buy a blood sugar meter
 
Hi, I'm new to diabetes but, like yourself, am managing it with diet and exercise alone. My nurse said I didn't need to use a blood sugar meter (my score was 49) and I'm actually relieved, makes it feel a little bit less like an illness. So in answer to your question, I suspect it's standard.
 
I was being told that I coud eat carbs and be OK - just 'eatwell' - which I thought did not make sense. I had an old meter which once belonged to my mother in law, so I got some new supplies and tested - carbs make my blood glucose go up into the teens and stay there overnight. I tested various foods, cut out most of them, and now I get low readings after meals. If I had not tested I might have gone on pushing my readings high day after day.
I did get a new meter with cheaper strips, as I really need to test if I am not sure how many grapes I can eat - it really helps my willpower if I know just how good or bad the numbers are.
 
@AL100 and @catephoenix You are both new to diabetes and, I presume new to low carb and extra exercise. At this stage, I would definitely recommend buying and using a blood sugar meter. It's your response to particular meals and foodstuffs which is important and should be tested, until you are really confident that you know how you will react to different things and what you must absolutely avoid.
After nearly four years of non-diabetic readings and no meds, my husband only tests very occasionally, just out of curiosity. We now know exactly what he does and does not eat, but until you reach this stage, you could be going way off, without any idea that you could be harming yourself. Even if you think your diet is fine, if you get a raised result in 12 months time, it won't tell you what is causing it. Annual blood sugar tests are more for the doctor's tick box (getting paid) scheme than for your information.
As for feeling as if you have an illness if you test, my husband suddenly felt more well than he had for years, a new man, as a result of testing and finding out where the problems lay.
Sally
 
Most of us would recommend buying a meter. You may not need to test very often, but it can help with food choices and if you are one of the exceptions who have slow onset T1 then that would be spotted early on. No need to be obsessive about it.
 
The problem with not testing is that you won't know how different foods affect you.
When i was first diagnosed my Diabetes Nurse put me on metformin and told me to eat a healthy diet with low GI carbs with every meal, (which was exact what i was eating before I was diagnosed anyway). The next time I saw her was because i was feeling awful - she tested my blood and it was up in the mid teens. She prescribed some sitigliptin but still didn't give me a monitor - but said I had to be stricter with my diet.

Moving on a couple of years and I was really REALLY ill - I had just about every diabetes symptom AND I was keeping to the diet - so the nurse tested my blood again, this time it was up in the low 30s. The nurse put me on insulin injections five times a day and gave me a monitor - no mention of any change in my diet. I plodded on for a few years - I put on a stone for every year I was injecting insulin and I was constantly hungry. I looked and felt ill and old. Then one day after accidentally injecting myself with a high dose of the fast acting insulin I was at the end of my tether. I knew that if i ate more carbs i would have to inject more because i could see on my monitor how carbs were affecting my blood. So it seemed to me that the logical thing to do was to stop eating carbs as much as possible and it was like a miracle to watch the changes in my blood on my monitor.

Thats when I found this forum and learned how to use my meter as a tool to test my bloods reactions to different foods. Because of this I no longer need insulin and I've lost that 5st that I put on while I was injecting it. Best of all, I feel like I got my life back.

My own personal view is that if I had had a monitor from first being diagnosed and had used it to see how I react to different foods then i wouldn't have had all those years of misery.
 
@sally and james Thank you for your advice. At the moment food is a little confusing so I may give the glucose testing a try. Worried I'll obsess about the numbers because I always obsess - had to take the battery out of the bathroom scales as I was getting weighed twice a day
 
catephoenix said:
Worried I'll obsess about the numbers
Click to expand...
Don't worry about obsessing. Many of history's greatest achievements are due to somebody obsessing. I obsessed about my husbands number and it resulted in a record turn around in his health. The trick is doing something about the numbers, not just getting into a tizz about them. For this reason, you keep a food diary.
Sally
 
Did the scales come and find you ????

No problem with being 'obsessive' BUT don't get hung up over any one particular reading. Check before you eat, and 2 hours afterwards. Take a note and a food diary. I suggest you eat as you have been for a week or two, then start varying the meal by replacing say potatoes with more green veg. Then compare the rise to the meal with the spuds.
Trends are important, not individual readings
HTH
 
Hi @catephoenix and welcome to the forum. After I was diagnosed I bought some scales and was weighing myself 5-6 times a day for the first six months!
I didn't want to buy a meter at first but realised after my 3 month retest that I would have no idea how my bs levels were until my next HbA1c test in 12 months. so bought one which has encouraged me to stick with controlling what I eat.
 
Ha! They chase me in my sleep.
 
5-6 times!
 

yes don´t listen to those telling you not to buy a meter yourself, most that do not measure their blood glucose regularly do end up in a worse condition over time with lots of adding conditions...

do buy a meter and in the beginning measure your morning numbers regulary, you are still in the pre-diabetic area and could probably by going lower in carbs enter the true NON-diabetic level and Thus maybe never become ill in any way connected to diabetes...when you have learned to choose the better kinds of foods of low carb style, then later maybe you will only have to measure maybe once a week, but don´t ever stop totally measuring your blood glucose..
it is also of high importance to avoid high spiking in connection to meals and if possible keep the spikes under 8mmol after a meal, depending of which kind of foods you´ll have to measure either like 1 hour after the meal or 1.5 hour after or 2 hour after....

this forum is great for all kinds of informations and for also supporting people that need some comforting and telling their stories
 
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Without my meter i wouldn't know that for me:
- Snickers raise my blood glucose much less than Mars Bars (yeah, i know, neither are ideal, but isn't it better to know which to pick in an emergency?)
- that milk in tea and coffee was spiking my blood glucose waaaay higher than i expected.
- that i can't tolerate apples and pears, but satsumas, cherries and kiwi fruit are ok in 'moderation'.
- that sweet potatoes are just as bad as potatoes
- that pork pies don't spike me if i keep the portions under control
- which choice to make if i am stuck in a cafe with everyone else eating and the menu is full of carbs
- that Peanut 9bars have almost no effect on my blood glucose
- that Low Carb baking is awesome and i can eat as much as I like (it may make me fat, but it won't raise my blood glucose!)
- that cheese is the perfect snack!
 
I am very new myself just 4 weeks I have been using a food app nutracheck to track what I am eating and how many carbs i am eating a day. I tested before and after meals for 2 days and now only check if I have something really different to eat. Having the app and the meter is really help ping me and my bloods are coming down they also help me know I am going in the right direction and doing everything I can to control it.
Hope this helps
Kirsty
 
Hi,
I was diagnosed with prediabetes a few months before you. I live in Cyprus and because my regular doctor has been so unsympathetic about trying diet and exercise and just wants to put me on drugs all the time, I have been going it alone with this for about 9 months.
I was fortunate to be able to see a visiting British diabetes specialist about 1 month in who told me about this site and about the diet.doctor.com site which both advocate the LCHF diet.
She told me that testing your blood glucose levels was absolutely key to keeping control of them in the beginning. It really helps to know exactly what foods you can tolerate and what sends your readings up. For this reason I bought a blood glucose monitor and test regularly. It really gives you an incentive to eat well for your own body. Different people can tolerate different foods and so a blanket approach, as given by medical health guides, really doesn't fit all. For example I can tolerate oats but brown rice will send my glucose soaring. If I ate to the advice of the Eatwell guide I would be staying in those high numbers most of the time.
There is lots of advice on this site and many others on how to test, when and how often. I started by testing my fasting glucose in the morning and then before and after meals, exercise, stressful events, etc and before bed and have been amazed by how this can vary according to what I eat and what I do. Once you have a range of foods that you know are OK, you can start to test your tolerance to others that you particularly want to re-incorporate into your diet. My rule of thumb is to try to keep my numbers lower than 7.0mmol/L (126mg/dl) 2hrs after eating but this is just a personal preference and I am at the prediabetic stage. You may get other advice from your medical team or other more experienced members here.
I should point out that weight was never really an issue for me and so losing the little weight I could afford to on LCHF didn't do much for my numbers. Cutting out all the sugar and starch obviously helped a lot, but the turning point was incorporating regular exercise into my day. I can see a drop of 1.7mmol/L (30mg/dl) or more just by taking a brisk walk for 30 minutes. It's a great way to get the levels back down when food testing gives rise (LOL!) to high glucose levels.
I hope this helps. And good luck.
 
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