Hello, I've spent a lot of time going through this forum and have found a lot of useful information on it. I've also been very impressed about how friendly and helpful everyone seems to be.
My question is really around whether I'm diabetic, prediabetic or not. I've not been to the GP yet. When I woke up I got the following blood glucose levels from Freestyle Libre CGM:
- Saturday: 7.7 mmol/L - Diabetes - change my eating from incredibly high carbs to low carb after finding this site
- Sunday: 6.0 mmol/L - Ah, prediabetic - continue low carb
- This morning: 5.2 mmol/L - Normal - so I posted this!
Any thoughts?
About me
I'm a 53 year old male, 78kg, BMI 25.5. I used to exercise a lot between 2005 and 2015 but now exercise much less. I walk the dogs a lot (averaged around 20,000 steps a day between July and October but 15,000 a day now that there is less daylight).
Until Saturday morning, I had a very high carb diet. I love chocolate, cakes, pastries, bread, etc. I mostly drink cherry Pepsi Max as I'm addicted to it (headaches if I stop or drink less of it).
With the exception of the dry mouth bit below, I'm generally healthy but do have a sore back as some of my disks have deteriorated (which I've had MRI etc for) but this is pretty manageable most of the time.
Why I got a free CGM
I'm quite worried about always being thirsty / having a dry mouth. This keeps me awake a lot (and has done so for a couple of years) as I keep having to have a sip of water during the night. I also drink a lot (mostly cherry Pepsi Max as I'm addicted to it) and need to pee a lot. I also need to pee in a rush (e.g. no need now but in a few minutes time there will be a great urge to).
I saw the advert for a free Freestyle Libre CGM after listening to a podcast where someone talked about blood sugar and thought I'd give it a go. I got it at Friday lunch time and it said 5.8 mmol/L. Great. So I took the dogs out for a walk, ate a load of chocolate (2x giant chocolate button bags - over 200g) and saw my blood glucose go up to 7.6mmol/L. A bit later I had a big packet of mango and it went up from 5.6 to 12.8mmol/L and I got quite worried. Within two hours of eating, it had gone down to 6.2mmol/L though.
Saturday and Sunday
When I woke up on Saturday with 7.7 mmol/L (with no food for ten hours before) I was quite worried and spent a lot of time reading the posts on the forum. After quite a while I decided that:
1. I needed to be very serious about sorting myself out.
2. The best way of doing that would be to substantially reduce my carbs and exercise more (walking, weights and CV). I'd also ween myself of cherry Pepsi Max.
3. I was going to start immediately and be the one who says "no, I can't eat that" rather than let things slip.
So I went to Lidl, bought a load of proper food and ate it (eggs, chicken, mixed vegs, nuts, etc). I'd planned around 50g of carbs and 1,600 cals a day. Both days turned out to be around 43g and 1,500 cals (measured with scales and myfitnesspal). I also walked the dogs lots (but with no chocolate).
I was quite pleased when Sunday morning's waking blood glucose was 6.0 (prediabetes range) but completely confused when this morning's was 5.2 mmol/L (normal). I did have a go with a keto stick and it said that I had traces of keytones.
Being completely confused, I signed up here and wrote this rather long post.
Any thoughts please?
My plan is to assume that I have diabetes or am prediabetic (because of always being thirsty) and continue eating low carbs, continue walking a lot, start weights and CV exercise. I don't like GPs and so I've done a deal with my wife that means that I will go in three months' time if things don't look good then. I'm likely to buy some more CGM sensors when the free one runs out and wear them from time-to-time rather than for the whole of the three months.
I'd welcome any thoughts but I'm fully aware that no diagnosis can be given!
Thank you