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

Diet only - think this is changing

Fizzy1408

Active Member
Messages
32
Location
North Yorkshire
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
Hi all, haven’t post on here for a long time. I’ve managed my glucose levels for more than 10 years with diet and exercise, but recently my levels have been creeping up and have not been able to get my levels down below 7 before eating. One of the questions I’d like to ask, is has anyone had problems with jelly like muscles and weight loss when their levels raise or when they were first diagnosed or needed medication for their diabetes. I have other health issues as well and don’t know if it’s my diabetes or not. I’ve been unwell all Christmas and can’t get to see my GP until Tuesday at the earliest. Can anyone help as I’m quite worried.
 
First question: are the symptoms directly related to your BG level? If so, at what BG level do the symptoms start, and after what drop do they stop?
 
LittleGreyCat said:
First question: are the symptoms directly related to your BG level? If so, at what BG level do the symptoms start, and after what drop do they stop?
Click to expand...

Hi, thank you for replying. The problem is I’m not sure, that’s why I plan to visit the doctor, but I suspect it is, as it seems the energy isn’t getting to my muscles from my food. I had 2 slices of toast this morning and after 90 mins it was 10.7 I waited another 35 mins and it went up to 14.1mmol/L after drinking a cup of tea. I am only just having a sandwich after 2 mugs of tea and a glass of water (6.9 mmol/L). Which is probably about the lowest it gets.
 
Sounds as though you aren't coping well with the toast and sandwiches.

I know we bang on a lot about carbohydrates on this forum but I think I would struggle if I had toast for breakfast and then sandwiches.

What else do you eat? Have you tried reducing the carbohydrates and substituting protein and fat? Plenty of advice on here if you fancy giving that a try.

What you are describing sounds quite like insulin resistance (or your pancreas not producing enough insulin - sometimes hard to tell the difference). That is, your blood glucose goes up a long way before it starts to come down again. This could well make you feel shaky if you are running unusually high blood glucose levels.

Yes, this could be a delay in the glucose getting to your muscles.

Go and see your doctor as soon as possible to sort out what exactly is going on. There are plenty of options to improve things once diet and exercise are no longer working. Although I suspect that you may be able to help a bit if you make a few dietary changes.

If you want some opinions, you could always post an average day of food, and an average day of exercise.

Do you have any other issues, any non-diabetic medication, weight or mobility problems? It does sound as though you have had a good run for your money over the last 10 years
 

At the moment I’m going through a transitionary period as I’ve just introduced meat into my diet as I was also wondering about my vitamin B12 levels and iron - I have Coeliac disease and before I was diagnosed I had very low ferritin levels which also caused the shakes, because my body wasn’t absorbing any nutrition from my food. Gluten free bread is not like ordinary bread and I find that a lot of gluten free foods don’t stay in my blood stream very long. In the summer I was sent to a dietitian because my glucose was dipping too much (apparently that can happen because gluten free foods don’t stay in your blood stream very long, especially if, like me, you are intolerant to dairy products. It’s possible my carbs have gone too far the other way now, as I’d been told to eat more carbs (I would get glucose readings of about 2.7 mmol/L due to these complications with my food. I am going to try and get an appointment after the Bank Holiday, to see if I can get my next Hba1c brought forward a month or so.

I do have daily exercise walking my dog, but the last week I have felt so week, I’ve been unable to walk him, and my other half has walked him to let me get rest.
 
Fizzy1408 said:
<snip> Gluten free bread is not like ordinary bread and I find that a lot of gluten free foods don’t stay in my blood stream very long. <snip>
Click to expand...

An interesting point.

I've had a quick go at tracking this down, but not found any immediate references, but some that advise eating gluten if you can (that is, you are not intolerant) . I think that this is because gluten is a protein and associated with fibre which is supposed to be good for you. I take this to mean that if you are eating grains, don't eat gluten free unless you absolutely have to.

Some studies suggest that going gluten free may increase your risk of developing T2 - again I assume that this may be because the carbohydrates are more easily absorbed, which would tie in with them not staying in your blood stream for as long.

With regards to carbohydrates, gluten free products (that is, bread and other grain products without gluten) are still carbohydrates. As far as I know if you avoid grains then you should be gluten free and a lot of diabetics avoid grain products to keep the carbohydrates down.

So, sympathy with your gluten intolerance which can make life very difficult; my SIL is coeliac.
However I still think that the toast and sandwiches may not be the best thing to eat as a diabetic.
I know my SIL is fine with potatoes and mainly has to avoid bread when eating out (although there can be wheat hidden in all sorts of things). Looking it up, there seems to be no gluten in corn (maize) or rice. To my mind if you are T2 diabetic and struggling to keep your BG under control these are things you can eat as a coeliac but perhaps not things you should eat as a T2.

We can only suggest what might be good or bad. Your call on what diet suits you best.

My current prejudices are that it is better not to eat bread at all than to eat gluten free. Step away from the wheat. Step away from the carbohydrates.
 
Resurgam said:
As you are eating bread you are obviously not on a low carb diet, which is where all my experience lies.
Click to expand...
Depends how you classify ‘low carb’. I eat bread, albeit low carb, but consider myself to be low carb as I probably average between 80-100 per day.
 
The gluten free products are among the most carborific and highly processed carbage out there. I try to avoid them like the plague as I know what they will do do my blood glucose levels. Ghastly stuff

If a food is naturally gluten free, it's on my list of possible foods - but only if it's unprocessed and low carb. The only gluten free "product" I allow myself in limited amounts is gluten-free organic Tamari soy sauce.
 

Yes, this is why I’m struggling, because I absolutely have to eat gluten free. Coeliac disease is an auto immune disease which does serious damage to the gut if you eat gluten, and it’s very dangerous to eat gluten if you have it, so it’s a little. Ore than a gluten intolerance. I also cannot eat dairy products due to food intolerances which actually led to my Coeliac disease diagnosis. It’s quite hard finding foods that fill me up as it goes through the digestive tract quickly.

I’ve been to my GP’s surgery to see a doctor and I have had a few bloods taken including bringing forward my Hba1c, so I’ll have to see what this turns up. Thank you.
 

Dairy intolerance makes life doubly difficult.

It is often the mainstay of LCHF.

Eggs are possibly one good bet.

Are you saying that you effectively have to eat non-gluten carbohydrates to stay full?
I assume the traditional answer of eating loads of leafy greens doesn't work for you?
 
I missed bread a lot, until my daughter found this recipe: https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/multi-purpose-low-carb-bread-recipe/

It is gluten free, has the texture and smell of bread and tastes fantastic provided you don't have issues with nuts. At 3g carb per 100g it is lower than any commercially available bread I've found (eg Lidl protein rolls 8.5g, LivLife 14.6g).

Now bacon sarnies are back on the menu from time to time, and I recently even had a cheese fondue with lots of bread cubes and measured 5.9 a couple of hours after.
 

Hello, I notice you had 2 slices of toast, carbs FOR BREAKFAST, THEN YOUR INDICATE HAVING Carbs again for lunch, CARBS ARE A No No for diabetics, bread, potatoes, pasta and rice are all off limits by that I have not eaten them for 11 months, yes I may eat carbs but they do not include these items, so I am not surprised that your levels are going up, YOUR PUTTING SUGAR INTO YOUR BODY, BREAFAST AND LUNCH.

Eat avocado eggs with sunflower seed breads for breakfast, eat a healthy crunch raw food salad with tuna or chicken for lunch NO BREAD, again eat seed crackers.....then check your levels. Good Luck.

Think about this!?

Mallorca.
 
@Fizzy1408 - I'm GF on the instruction of my Endo, although my blood results for Coeliac are negative and inclonclusive, but I do feel better without gluetn in my life.

These days if I "get glutened" (by some pesky hidden gluten in something) I feel totally washed out and quite unwell. I then have digestive issues, but I'll spare you too much detail.

I'm just wondering if something you might have started eating (change of brand or recipe or the like) something that doesn't agree with you.

It makes sense that you have had bloods done. Best not to ignore these things for too long.

I hope you feel better soon.
 

Thank you, that is a really useful recipe. I was expecting it to have gluten in until I clicked the link; I was very pleasantly surprised
 

Thank you, that is very useful advice. I will find it hard finding gluten free crackers which don’t have dairy or soya (intolerant to both), but I will have a look. Avocados for breakfast sounds good; not sure there’s any sunflower seed bread that are gluten free. At the present my bread is triple seeded gluten free bread (Coeliac disease is hard to manage with diabetes and also food intolerances).
 

I sympathise with you. What a lot of people don’t realise is you can can false negative blood results for Coeliac disease, but having an endoscopy and biopsies is more reliable, which I have had. I know exactly what you mean about being ‘glutened’ and it’s horrible. Some people don’t get symptoms when they have CD but it still has a serious effects on the villi in the gut.

At the moment it’s all quite scary as I feel like a ‘bag of jelly’ wobbling all the time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…