Confused why numbers are so high

Hi,

Can you give us a rough brake down regarding the dietary changes?

sean401 said:

Dietary changes were modest. I replaced a high carb cereal with one with low carbs for breakfast, now having sandwiches with turkey or ham for lunch and typically chicken for dinner. Sometimes beef. Usually no carb with dinner unless I just have a microwave diet dinner which typically has balanced small portions. Also eating nuts and flaxseed for healthy fats.

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Hi,

OK. You are having a lower carb content cereal for breakfast? Would that be with milk?? Lactose can affect BGs.
Bread, maybe also an issue..

Do you have access to a BG meter.? This can help you understand how certain foods affect blood sugar levels on a daily basis.
(Even hourly.)

sean401 said:

I had spoken to a dietician and made changes she suggested but my blood glucose according to my meter is still pretty high all day. Typically 13 two hours after a meal with little or no carbs and 15 if there were carbs after the meal.

Are my numbers really unusual for a new diabetic

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That's great you have a BG meter.

It appears you & the dietitian maybe focusing more on weightloss side of stuff rather than the BG managment? (Which in fairness may help improving insulin sensitivity.)
Are you able to let us know the nutritional value on the packaging of the "diet diner?"

Let's just say you have some diabetic numbers happening.

I'll tag in a few T2s to say hi & possibly give you some ideas on how they do it. @JoKalsbeek @Goonergal @Rachox @bulkbiker
From memory, some of these guys have successfully managed weight too..

Hello and welcome to the site.

It is great that you have a meter- it is the tool that will help you deal with diabetes.

just reading what you have eaten it seems a lot more carbs than my body will tolerate but we are different so the only way to find out what your body can tolerate is to test.

My suggestion is that you keep a log of what you eat and the resulting blood sugar levels. You may want to try a couple of days of really low arbs- thinking under 50 grams or so and see what your levels do.

Good luck and let us know how it goes. I also suggest reading around the forum and in particular the link below.

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog-entry/the-nutritional-thingy.2330/

Welcome.

sean401 said:

I am overweight (BMI 38) and My H1c was slowly rising and crossed the line to 6.6 in January when I got my diagnosis. After talking to my doctor we decided I would try to lower it by working on diet.

fast forward to 2 weeks ago and my fasting glucose at the blood clinic was 9.3 and my Hba1c was 8.6.

I am not on medications and I am talking to my doctor about numbers in a couple of days. Lately in the morning my fasting glucose will be 10.2 or so on the meter. I have cut down my carbohydrates and am not eating a lot of sugar or anything.

Are these normal for a newly diagnosed type 1? I am worried that my pancreas has been damaged somehow and isn’t working. My grandfather died of pancreatic cancer so that is always a worry.

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Hi @sean401,

From the sound of it, your diet is still high in carbs. Bread, cereal, etc would give me higher numbers than you're quoting (bread'd see me hit 20+, easily). And instant diet meals are usually focussed on less fat rather than fewer carbs. So that means there's lots of ground to gain yet! For one thing, read the nutritional info on what you're having. All carbs, not just "of which sugars", and calculate how much you're having in a day. You might be surprised. Have a read here and see what improvements you can make: https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog-entry/the-nutritional-thingy.2330/

Good luck!
Jo

I don't think that there are any low carb cereals - some might be lower than others, but they are all high, simply by their nature.
There are a few low carb breads you can buy - but ordinary bread is high in carbs.
Diet meals, again, small amounts of high carb foods are still going to pack a hefty blood glucose spike. Have you checked the carbs quoted on the information panel? The meal might be low sugar, but not low carb.
It is not at all unusual to get a bit of a shock when checking on the amount of carbs in foods which are touted as healthy, or even diet and finding out that it the reason for high blood glucose levels.

Hi @sean401 and welcome

I don’t think your numbers are unusually high for someone newly diagnosed with type 2. My A1C was 12% (108 in the mmols more usually used in the UK). I didn’t have a meter at first but found it very helpful once I did get one, so great that you have that.

As you can see from my signature I’ve both lost a lot of weight and brought my blood sugars into the non diabetic range using diet and exercise - although the eating part of that is most important. The key has been substantial reduction in carbs - I totally ditched bread, rice, pasta, potatoes and anything cereal related and focused as far as possible on simple, real foods with as few ingredients as possible so meat, fish, eggs, dairy and above ground vegetables.

There’s a great website called dietdoctor.com which has recipes, meal plans and great information about the nutritional content of food. Also have a look in the low carb section of this forum.

Those number do need to come down further but you are taking the right approach. NHS dieticians are notorious for giving poor advice to us for diabetes management so follow the advice on this forum if in doubt. Don't worry too much about the type of fat as you can argue against the danger of saturated fats. Eggs and bacon can make a good breakfast. Yes, keep the carbs down. Has the GP offered Metformin? It can help a bit. BTW fasting BS aren't that much use due to the overnight liver dump the readings after 2 hours following a meal can be more useful.