• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Diagnosed yesterday.

F

Fifee

Member
Messages
7
After numerous attempts at losing weight and getting myself into shape and failing miserably, I finally received my wake up call yesterday; diagnosed with T2. I had been expecting that result after a BG test carried out at a well woman clinic a couple of weeks ago, so its no real suprise and I'm kinda used to the idea now.

Im not scared of the diabetes, im scared of the complications that can arise with it. I've got a couple of books to read on the subject and as usual they paint a bleak picture of life if you let your BG run rampant. I'll be going to a day class for even more info on the subject, and as they say forewarned is forearmed, cant have enough info as long as its not conflicting!

No other BG tests for a month now and I've not to monitor it on my own which i think is just silly. I would like to be able to know what foods cause the major spikes so I'll most likely buy a monitor and if anyone has a suggestion for a simple one that doesnt cost the earth, I'd be grateful for a pm or just let me know in this thread.

So now is the time to start actually fighting for and taking control of my life ... seems very dramatic to say so but if I dont then hell, its just going to go to waste and isnt life for living? :D
 
Hi Fifee and welcome to the forum :) You can do a lot to try and prevent the risk of complications although these can sometimes happen through no fault of your own. You need to keep your BG levels as low as possible, and you have done the right thing in deciding to test. There will be many posts from members suggesting the best meters to buy, which means those which use the cheapest strips, which unfortunately I can't advise you on, not living in the UK. The day class sounds a very good idea too.

Here is some information which we give to new members which I think you will find useful. Ask as many questions as you need to as there is always someone here to help.

BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED DIABETICS

Diabetes is the general term to describe people who have blood that is sweeter than normal. A number of different types of diabetes exist.

A diagnosis of diabetes tends to be a big shock for most of us. It’s far from the end of the world though and on this forum you’ll find well over 30,000 people who are demonstrating this.

On the forum we have found that with the number of new people being diagnosed with diabetes each day, sometimes the NHS is not being able to give all the advice it would perhaps like to deliver - particularly with regards to people with type 2 diabetes.

The role of carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are a factor in diabetes because they ultimately break down into sugar (glucose) within our blood. We then need enough insulin to either convert the blood sugar into energy for our body, or to store the blood sugar as body fat.

If the amount of carbohydrate we take in is more than our body’s own (or injected) insulin can cope with, then our blood sugar will rise.

The bad news

Research indicates that raised blood sugar levels over a period of years can lead to organ damage, commonly referred to as diabetic complications.

The good news

People on the forum here have shown that there is plenty of opportunity to keep blood sugar levels from going too high. It’s a daily task but it’s within our reach and it’s well worth the effort.

Controlling your carbs

The info below is primarily aimed at people with type 2 diabetes, however, it may also be of benefit for other types of diabetes as well.
There are two approaches to controlling your carbs:

  • Reduce your carbohydrate intake
  • Choose ‘better’ carbohydrates
Reduce your carbohydrates
A large number of people on this forum have chosen to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat as they have found this to be an effective way of improving (lowering) their blood sugar levels.

The carbohydrates which tend to have the most pronounced effect on blood sugar levels tend to be starchy carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and similar root vegetables, flour based products (pastry, cakes, biscuits, battered food etc) and certain fruits.

Choosing better carbohydrates

Another option is to replace ‘white carbohydrates’ (such as white bread, white rice, white flour etc) with whole grain varieties. The idea behind having whole grain varieties is that the carbohydrates get broken down slower than the white varieties –and these are said to have a lower glycaemic index.
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/food/diabetes ... rains.html

The low glycaemic index diet is often favoured by healthcare professionals but some people with diabetes find that low GI does not help their blood sugar enough and may wish to cut out these foods altogether.

Read more on carbohydrates and diabetes

Eating what works for you

Different people respond differently to different types of food. What works for one person may not work so well for another. The best way to see which foods are working for you is to test your blood sugar with a glucose meter.

To be able to see what effect a particular type of food or meal has on your blood sugar is to do a test before the meal and then test after the meal. A test 2 hours after the meal gives a good idea of how your body has reacted to the meal.

The blood sugar ranges recommended by NICE are as follows:

Blood glucose ranges for type 2 diabetes
  • Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 8.5 mmol/l
Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (adults)
  • Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 9 mmol/l
Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (children)
  • Before meals: 4 to 8 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 10 mmol/l
However, those that are able to, may wish to keep blood sugar levels below the NICE after meal targets.

Access to blood glucose test strips
The NICE guidelines suggest that people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should be offered:

  • structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review
  • self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education

Therefore both structured education and self-monitoring of blood glucose should be offered to people with type 2 diabetes. Read more on getting access to blood glucose testing supplies.

You may also be interested to read questions to ask at a diabetic clinic

Note: This post has been edited from Sue/Ken's post to include up to date information.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please sign our e-petition for free testing for all type 2's; here's the link:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/petition/

Do get your friends and colleagues to sign as well.
Click to expand...
 
Hello Fifee and welcome to the forum.

There is no need to worry about letting your BG's run rampant and you can minimise the worry of getting any complications. You can do this a number of ways but what many of us would recommend first is trying to get control using diet and a minimum amount of drugs (usually Metformin) only.

A good place to start if you want to try this is cut down on carbohydrates especially the starchy ones rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, pastry and cereals. Cutting drastically or better still stopping completely anything sweet with a high sugar content is taken for granted. Sugar is just a refined form of carbohydrate.

You may find the advice I've given you will conflict with later advice you may get from your NHS dietitian or nurse (in the same way as she already advised you against testing) but you will have to believe that the vast majority of people on this forum believe that cutting carbohydrates is the key the only real debate we have is by how much. If you were Swedish or in one of the more enlightened countries this advice would be told to you on diagnosis however the NHS still relies on diet info that is now nearly 40 years old and is very out of date.

Try halving all of the starchy carbohydrates you currently eat. That's bound to make you hungry so replace what you drop with meat, cheese, eggs, fish and especially vegetables. Try to eat vegetables that grow above ground rather than below although many of us find carrots to be ok. If you like fruit then a small amounts are fine and the ones ending with "berry" are the best. Things like yoghurt should be fine in moderation as well.

On the half you have left try the following

Change white rice to brown basmati rice
Change white bread to wholemeal or better Burgen soya bread
Change white pasta to brown or green or the tri colour stuff

Never eat mashed potatoes it's the one form of potatoes that nearly all diabetic have real problems with. Believe it or not the best potatoes for diabetics are roast ones.

I was diagnosed just 11 weeks ago with extremely high blood sugar levels and by following the great advice I found on this forum I now have my blood sugar levels back to nearly being in a non diabetic range at all times of the day. Cutting carbohydrates is not a cure but will allow you to get control of things and will certainly make you feel a lot better.

I must be truthful and say doing this has been hard work but it gets easier everyday. Also I must be truthful and warn you that cutting your carbs by half may not be enough as many of us on here have found. I still get to eat some of the things I've warned you about but in no where near the quantities I used to. Saying that 11 weeks down the line I hardly miss them now.

I see you are already thinking about testing. The meter that is cheapest but is getting good reviews by forum members is called an SD CODEFREE. The cheapest place to buy it is on the health.co.uk shop on eBay where you can pick it up with a case a spikey thing and 60 test strips for around £18. People are buying that model because buying test strips for it are far cheaper than any other model currently £4.99 per 50 strips. If you can afford to I'd buy as many test strips as you can on the initial order as you'l save on P&P later on. Make sure you buy a UK mmol/l model and not the US mg/dl version or you'll get really confused by the numbers that come up!

Take care and keep asking as many questions as you need to.
 
Hello Fifee,

Xyzzy's advice is, as ever, excellent. It's a sad fact that many diabetes nurses are, to put it politely, out of date with their knowledge.
Complications are not inevitable if you get to grips with the condition now. The benefit is that if you reduce the bad carbs and monitor your progress, then you'll feel far better as a result.
 
Thanks for the welcome and the info, its greatly appreciated!

All the rice, bread and pasta in my diet is "brown" already so I dont have a huge change. But I love bread, I could it bread all day every day if I had my own way so thats going to be the greatest change and challenge for me, along with not eating crisps and pizza. Potatoes I wont miss as I dont really like them unless slathered with cream and garlic :lol:

The nurse has suggested a diet and exercise course for 3 months and Im more keen on that idea as I dont want to take any more damned tablets and if things arent working by the end of that time, well we'll see what happens then. I have a huge amount of weight to shift too so Im hoping this course of action will help both my weight and BG.

Thanks for the info regarding the meter, I'll keep it in mind. Im a member of Costco so im off there tomorrow to see if they have a meter and strips, and if the strips can be bought in bulk.

Once again thanks.
 
Back
Top