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Did anyone else take a back step after the diabetic nurse??

Hi I have recently been diagnosed with type 2 and have had some interesting comments from the medical profession. The diabetic nurses opener was ' the good news is you are less likely to lose a limb these days!! ' to which my reply was that's a pity I was hoping for a peg leg, mahogany with a nice chrome hook! The Urology specialist today was 'you are too fat for a diabetic' to which my reply was you are too small to be telling an 18st tattooed diabetic he is fat!! Whilst my response to negativity appears flippant it still hurts no matter how brave a face you put on it
. The good news is there are people on this group who can offer advice, support and a giggle. It's diabetes,it is what it is, and too be honest it has made me stop and take stock of everything I take for granted. Perversely it's probably the best thing that happened to me.
 
I feel it is bad to "like" your post but it proper made me smile!! And you are dang right on this forum...I bestow upon them for literally saving my life when I was first diagnosed as I was at a point of total despair...your responses are pretty much on a par with me normally hence why sat here chuckling!! x
 
I won't tell anyone you 'liked' the post. Half the battle is maintaining balance and a sense of humour however warped.
 
Interesting to read other people's experiences. Thanks!!
MissMac - I completely get your frustration and fury!!!
I've seen several different 'nurses' including one entirely useless HCA who was simply unable to answer my questions! The others are variable. But the last one I saw was substituting for the 'diabetes specialist' and turned out to be the most approachable and useful! So I think I've decided to take their information and advice and pick and choose what I use alongside of my own reading.
I bought a carb counting book - so useful. It's fruit, not sweets I really miss. It took a while for me to realise I could eat berries, but apples have lots more carbs, for example.
I'm tackling this at the same time as the menopause and being an older mother of a 7 year old girl. Never quite sure which one causes me to have tired spells!
 
I feel so sorry for anyone going through this experience, I don't think it's just them reeling off NHS rules though, I think it's laziness and ignorance about diabetes as my dietician told me about the low carb high fat diet a while ago now! I don't understand why so many type 2s are disregarded by Drs, I had an argument with a type 1 the other day about how us type 1s can have things easier! We get taken care of much better than type 2s from my experience and if I want to eat something naughty I can just take extra insulin, your diet must be so much stricter! I'm very lucky in that my DN is an absolute star and so is my gp and diabetic team but the horror stories I've heard are terrible! Maybe wear ear plugs for the next appointment and just nod along lol hope things work out for you, I bet you're doing fantastically anyway without their input!
 

My new doc told me the other day that it will only get worse by time with diabetes so much hope, hey?
When I showed him my great a1c test result, he was like "have you been misdiagnosed as diabetic? your result shows me you're not" - I rolled my eyes and I just hold my breath hard not to say DUUUUUH
 

Same!!!
I am big fruit eater before my T2D diagnosis.
I miss fruit dearly, I dream about them sometimes.
I live in the tropic, so it is kind of a real torture to see mango ripen in the garden, juicy mangosteen, om nom nom...
 
I had a similar feeling ie probably was the best thing to happen in that it saved my life (after nearly killing me!!). Once I (eventually) opened up to the fact that I needed to take this seriously, I now realise I was on the way to a heart attack or worse, so I now take my health seriously
 
MissMac, feel your frustration! The only way is self analysis and self research. I used to exchange emails with my diabetes consultant asking about various treatments and was even ahead of him when i mentioned the Newcastle diet; he graciously acknowledged this and gave appropriate advice, I think it just takes time for the 'new' information to filter down to the surgeries and DN's, info ike Saturated fat is our new best friend, butter is ok, low fat is bad etc etc it all goes against what we have been told for the last fifty years, which in itself is all down to the flawed interpretation of one study and equally flawed interpretation of lots of other studies supporting low fat as the way ahead!
But, as Rambo once said when offered surrender terms by the Russian Army in Afghanistan....'F*** 'em!!'
 
In defence of DN's, one of them obnce told me that to have that qualification, you have to do a six month correspondence course and this means books and considering that much of the current advice has only been announced and accepted within the past year or so, the books may not have been written, nor advice dispensed in the way of courses and teachings just yet. So, good luck on the journey and hoep you get over the frustrations and maybe even reach the nirvahna of Diabetic Remission!!
 
It's a sad situation isn't it? As a Type 1 I get the kit but not the information, I think it is worse for Type 2's as you don't get the kit or the information and in addition are told it's all your own fault.

The 'your HbA1c is too low' is the most sinister thing though; I was told that many years ago when I had an HbA1c of 5.8% and then stupidly let it go up. I've never got back to that great position.

The reason that HCPs say HbA1c is too low is down to the ACCORD study that showed that intensively medicated lowering of HbA1c increased all cause mortality in the Type 2 patients in the study. Therefore lowering your blood sugars = increased mortality risk.

What they failed to state, or to think about, was that the drugs used to lower blood sugar (on average 3 different ones plus insulin) included Avandia, also known as rosiglitazone, which has since been suspended by UK and European drug watchdogs because of its propensity to cause heart attacks.

But never mind that eh? It's the low HbA1c that's causing the problems...

This sounds like conspiracy theory nonsense but alas it's true.

Here's the full text of the ACCORD study and you'll see that 91% of participants were on rosiglitazone...

http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/nejmoa0802743

This insane bit of research doesn't seem to die and now we have this:

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/nationa...for-minimum-hba1c-target/11033370.fullarticle

That's a suggestion that the NHS has a minimum target for HbA1c even though we know from the study that informs how diabetes is treated in the UK the DCCT ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/gap/cgi-bin/GetPdf.cgi?id=phd000390 ) that the lower your HbA1c the lower your risk of CVD. As I recall the escalation in risk starts at about 5.6% in old money.

Could the new proposed target have anything to do with the annual failure of the NHS to get diabetics HbA1c below 6.5% ?

For Type 1 the annual results sit at about 96% of Type 1's failing to get below that. That's very bad. But why not use an idiotic study to justify moving the target marker up and then we hit the targets! Hurrah! Funding bonuses all around for our success in hitting targets, lots of drugs prescribed! Everyone's a winner. Apart from the dead diabetics but let's look at the big picture eh?

If only there was a way to lower blood sugars without medication? You know like a dietary approach or something?

Best

Dillinger
 
@Rosie'Ma if you don't mind me asking what book did you get? I am getting so bogged in information at the moment, still googling my little self out to find me a dietician or someone who is up to speed with keto-diet or LCHF or whatever we wanna call it!! It's all a bit much for my lazy head to take!!
I am rather impressed with myself this morning though as I ate a hot flaxseed breakfast and it weren't that bad! Not a lot different to weetabix really but didn't need to cover in layers of sugar!!
I think it is truly shocking how so many people are having bad experiences...making me wonder if I need to go and become a diabetic nurse specialist once I get a handle on myself!!! x
 
Hi @MissMac - my post was a bit of an off topic howl so sorry about that.

Here is a great site for information on diabetes and low-carbing http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/

The classic carb/calorie counting book is the Collins Little Gem one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Carb-Count...5355&sr=8-1&keywords=collins+gem+carb+counter

There are also some good apps that help such as the MyFitnessPal which include carb counting elements (that one is quite handy as you can scan barcodes for carb info).

Best

Dillinger
 
Lush, thank you..already book marked the phlaunt one!! te he xxx
 
Had a lot of negative encounters with HCPs since diagnosis. Most recently, "You should eat carbs at every meal" - I'm, of course, carbohydrate intolerant; "You should eat low fat yoghurts" - which are full of sugar; and, "You can eat porridge" - 60 % carbohydrate. I've tested, so I know I can't. Oh, and been arguing against having the metformin taken off me for twelve months.
 

You must ignore other peoples' nonsense and do the right thing for you. Good luck.
 
I despair when it's time to see the DN I usually try to avoid the surgery as much as possible. Always made to feel a complete failure over my blood sugars the usual comments ' you haven't list enough weight you will have to go on insulin, actually because you can't control your blood sugar we aren't going to deal with you anymore you will have to see a diabetic consultant and they will put you on insulin ' ! All pretty negative comments makes you feel really down, on a positive note I went to see a consultant and no I don't have to go onto insulin, they did say there are lots of other options first and I've lost weight so everything positive at the moment, the only down side is I have to go to have my annual review soon, not looking forward to that one bit. We just gave to try to do our best - which we all do and try to let their comments go over our heads
 
I'm really lucky it seems, I have a fantastic local DSN who is up on all the latest ideas, and a very good diabetes team at my local hospital (in Dorchester). The attitudes that I'm hearing on this thread take me back to when I was diagnosed, and the following 20 years or so, when medical teams told me I had bad results, and how I should live my life! I have walked away from a hospital after a nurse told me that I should never only inject insulin to bring down a high BG, but should only inject if I was eating. Now I am encouraged to pass on my knowledge of diabetes (all 49 years of it), not only to other patients, but to the staff as well. It may take time, but things are improving, honestly . . .
 
Sorry, I rated your post 'Funny' because your final comment made me laugh out loud, but I totally agree with your post.
I think a lot of the reason why the NHS is so slow to take on board "new" information is largely due to the fear of being sued if they promote ideas which don't work. I think they're just 'hedging their bets' until sufficient time has elapsed for the truth of this "new" information to become blindingly obvious!
 
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