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Diagnosed last Friday

monicandave

Newbie
Messages
4
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Other
Hi all,


The week before last, I had an appointment with the consultant that I see for Long Covid. He mentioned that my blood sugar was up on my last blood test and that I should get another to confirm/refute diabetes. I got a repeat blood test done last week. On Friday, the consultant called to confirm the test confirmed diabetes. He said to contact my GP on Monday and to ask to be referred to the Remission programme. I didn't think to ask about what readings either test had been. After contacting my GP, I now have an appointment with the diabetic nurse on the 21st of June. That's a whole month away. That makes me feel concerned, not knowing anything.

On the NHS App, I tried to find my test results. It didn't have the two recent ones, but I found one from last August that was HbA1c = 41. I had a blood test when I was in the US in November and that result was 86 mg/dl = 4.773 mmol/l. Then today, I had a letter from the consultant that said my latest result was 59. It just feels like one moment my blood sugars were fine and then suddenly I'm told that I have diabetes. No warning of pre-diabetes.

So, I ordered a glucose monitor that came today. At about 10:30, with just a cup of coffee, my first reading was 9.4. I think that's high, but what do I know? Since the confirmation on Friday, I have been conscious of what I've been eating. Trying for low carb, but is that right? What else am I supposed to do until I see the diabetic nurse? I just feel lost.

Sorry if this is rambling. I'm not much of a forum poster. I'm more of a lurker.
Thanks for any insight you may have.
- Monica
 
Welcome Monica
First thing is , don't panic.
So what happens over time is that we get resistant to our insulin, we still make it, our pancreas works fine but our cells stop responding to insulin as well as they should.
When we eat carbohydrates they get digested and release glucose into our blood. Rising blood sugar is the signal for our pancreas to release some insulin. The insulin takes up that glucose and delivers it to our cells to be used as energy. Unfortunately because our cells resist the insulin most of that glucose remains in our blood.
Medication can help our insulin to be a little more effective or remove some of the sugar from our blood, but every drug comes with possible side effects.
Not eating high carb meals should prevent your blood sugar from rising so high and could possibly mean that you can be diet controlled.
Have a look at the link for the nutritional thingy at the bottom of this post
 
Hi @monicandave, welcome to the forum.

I was left feeling exactly the same as you feel following the diagnosis. No real advice, just "try to eat normally" and "more advice will be given in your diabetes training". Like you, I didn't want to wait and it ended up being 3 months until I could get on the diabetes training sessions.

Have a look around the forum, there are multiple ways to approach diabetes management. I went the low carb route and have had a great deal of success in lowering my hba1c with it. It can be difficult at first, but this forum was crucial in my success with it and there's some great advice and wonderful people here. I was a lurker too for a month after diagnosis, I don't really do forums or social media either, but if you've got any questions then don't worry about asking!

Quick question, which might be relevant to the advice we can give, are you on any medication for T2 diabetes as yet?
 
Monica,
Welcome to the forum rite now you will be thinking so many things, first thing is first don't blame yourself in anyway and just take a minute to breathe and know there are many people who will be here to help and answer any questions you may have.


1c results are an average of the last three months, but heavily impacted by the last 3-4 weeks, my wife a healthy non diabetic came back from out last Holiday and did a 1c test and was diabetic 57, 4 weeks later 31, with no changes to her usual diet. Holiday was just carbs with carbs and some alcohol and carbs and more carbs ha!


There are many options with regards to diet, I follow the Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) and monitor my bloods daily 2/3 times a day for a fortnight every 6 weeks.

I run the guideline that anything I eat that takes my BS over 7.8(140 ) is no longer an eating option.

Exercise and Weight can also help in reducing BS.

Any meds yet as @Paul_ has asked.

The fact you have jumped up and down between tests shows your body is still doing it's part to combat blood sugars
 
MrPeaky said:
Exercise and Weight can also help in reducing BS.
Click to expand...
I can't exercise much at the moment because of the fatigue from Long Covid. I do what I can when I feel better, but just lately, I am feeling very puny. Hopefully the change in eating will help with the weight.
 
monicandave said:
I can't exercise much at the moment because of the fatigue from Long Covid. I do what I can when I feel better, but just lately, I am feeling very puny. Hopefully the change in eating will help with the weight.
Click to expand...
Covid has a way of messing with blood sugars. We had rather an influx of new members when it steamrolled the world. If I were to take a guess, I'd say it accelerated things for people who are genetically predisposed to get T2 anyway. But that's just conjecture.

You can't outrun a bad diet, which is good news... No need to get active, which I know with LC is like asking you to sprout wrings and fly around the room. (My husband was pretty bad with it, for about a year and a half. He's doing much better, back to work and everything. While he's not 100% himself, with 80% of his old self there, we're super grateful. So don't lose hope, it can get better!!!!). Basically just focus on the low carb thing, and that should help with the blood sugars. Your HbA1c isn't dramatically bad, we've had members come down from decidedly higher than that, and back into the normal range. And you've already gotten yourself a meter, which is a good move. Oh, and high blood sugars? Those feed into fatigue too. So that's one thing that might get a bit better.

https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html might help some with the diet. And if cooking is too much, and you have fast food sometimes, just have burgers without the buns, kebab meat without pita bread or whatever.... Stick with the meat and greens.

You'll be okay. hang in there, we're rooting for you!
Jo
 
Hi @monicandave welcome to the forum. First thing is don't panic.
Don't worry that your appointment is a month away, managing diabetes
will be a long term project, and not a 100 m dash.
With an HbA1c of 59 you have a good chance of getting this under control,
even if long covid must be difficult to deal with on its own.
Note that many here, including myself, were diagnosed with a HbA1c > 100.

Until your meeting with the nurse you can ask yourself if you have any diabetes symptons,
such as always thirsty, need to pee all the time, tingly feet, blurry eye sight,
unexpected weight loss (ok, this might be difficult to distinguish from long covid).

As you mentioned yourself measuring is good, but don't overinterpret.
You need to repeat measurements, e.g. same time after getting up, before and 2h after eating,
so that you can observe patterns in how your body reacts to different foods.
Keep a log of your measurements.

There might be some low hanging fruit, e.g. I stopped cold turkey with fizzy drinks,
which removed the thirst. Going low carb can help, but this can mean lots,
so consider reducing carbs in steps. Important, unless you want to lose weight,
you need to increase fats and proteins accordingly in your diet. Fatty food has the advantage
that it satiates more and makes you less hungry than sugary stuff.
For this reason, I've banned any low fat food from my diet.

Best wishes on your journey
 
Even cow milk in.coffee can spike blood sugars. It happens with me . i take almond milk for making coffee or drink black coffee. The same used to hapoen to my mom.also. Huge spike after drinking cow milk coffee.
 
saky said:
Even cow milk in.coffee can spike blood sugars. It happens with me . i take almond milk for making coffee or drink black coffee. The same used to hapoen to my mom.also. Huge spike after drinking cow milk coffee.
Click to expand...
I don't drink tea or coffee personally, but @KennyA discusses the effects of a latte on his BG readings here - https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/th...al-blood-glucose-readings.196810/post-2682192

We all have unique levels of insulin resistance, so one person's BG reaction may differ to another's though.

When I rarely need milk, I use almond milk too. However, lactose free milk is a good option too at around half the carbs of whole milk, plus it's indistinguishable from the real thing in my opinion.
 
Thanks everyone. I'm feeling a bit better about things. I did low carb and intermittent fasting a few years ago. I've managed to get back to that easier than I thought I would.

Enjoy the last of the Bank Holiday.
 
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