Apologies if this is silly. Was diagnosed a few months ago with a test at 51. Now very tired but did catch a virus five weeks ago. Recently started blood testing. Morning bloods without eating or drinking after waking have been 7.2 and 7.4, now 6.2 this morning after giving up all carbs including milk. I previously reduced them and ate wholemeal. Now stopped that. But have eaten one pear this morning and its now 8.2. I’ll avoid fruit in future unless i’m walking about.
I can‘t find guidance as to the blood sugar readings that causes fatigue? Is it a long burn thing? If you keep it below 7 each morning are you generally ok?
If you reduce your readings does the fatigue go away in a day or two, immediately, or take week?
Sorry if this has been asked many time before.
and thank you.
it doesn't really work like that (welcome to the forums, btw).
The classic T2 "diabetes fatigue" happens because while you're eating plenty, your system is insulin resistant and so the energy from food (in the form of glucose) is not reaching your muscle cells. High levels of insulin which the body produces in an effort to get energy into cells promote both hunger and fat storage and glucose hangs around in the bloodstream longer than it should and at greater concentrations. It's not that high blood glucose causes fatigue, but that fatigue and high blood glucose are both symptoms of the same thing - insulin resistance.
High blood glucose over time also causes progressive damage to capillaries and nerves.
So the long game for many T2s is to reduce insulin resistance by taking as much load off the insulin system as possible - and the best way to do this is by reducing the carbs in the diet. testing before you eat and at the +2hr mark will show you how your system coped with what you ate. If there were carbs in it, BG levels will rise. The real issue is how quickly they come down, so you're looking to be within 2mmol/l of the initial reading, and not above 7.8mmol/l. If not, there were too many carbs in what you ate for your body to deal with.
In the short term, reducing carb intake will generally fairly quickly begin to reduce blood glucose coming from food. How quickly depends on you, where you started from, how much reduction in carb you can cope with, that sort of thing. As your liver also adds glucose to your blood, and has probably got used to high levels, it will be doing its best to keep you topped up. It does learn to adapt to life at lower levels, but it can take a while.
I was diagnosed with an A1c of 50. I went very low-carb from the off - I had a lot of unpleasant diabetic symptoms and I wanted rid of them - and cut my carb intake to around 20g/day ). I had a low-normal HbA1c of 36 four months later. So it can be done fairly quickly - my symptoms cleared up at the same time (including fatigue) and haven't returned.
I'm still diabetic and always will be, but I'm controlling my blood glucose levels and avoiding further damage from that quarter. Have a look at the "Success Stories" part of the forum. many people have made huge reductions from much higher levels.
best of luck. keep asking questions if there's anything you're unsure of.