Some of us can reach non Diabetic HbA1c without any regimented exercise. Diet is key.Ask to come off the Metformin after you have stabilized your blood sugars and achieved an Hba1c (3-month average) below 5.7%. Your GP will have experienced very few diabetics who can achieve this unless they are prepared to switch to a very low carbohydrate (keto) diet with fasting and exercise every day.
Bulkbiker - I have never had to stick myself with a needle! Have excellent CONTROL, am HEALTHY and ALIVE - enough said.Which is precisely the reason why testing is recommended then you can have hard evidence rather than guessing.
Do you believe they are godlike? Some doctors give that impression whereas others seem quite willing to work with their patient. I know for sure which I prefer.
Then you must have a lot more insulin on diagnosis than I have. Sigh.Some of us can reach non Diabetic HbA1c without any regimented exercise. Diet is key.
Then you must have a lot more insulin on diagnosis than I have. Sigh.
Quite frankly you sound lucky. Lucky if you got good quality advice about what to eat and not eat on your course. Lucky that your choices worked out (you had no way of knowing that til 6 months or a year down the line- what if they hadn’t been so good? It’s happened to many on here) lucky that you achieved control and health without complications full stop. Some of us have to work a bit harder to get the same results. That’s necessary for some not a rebellious need for control as you imply. Some of us have personal experience of misdiagnosis, poor advice and indifferent medics. To us it is not “silly” to understand what is happening to our own bodies. I’m sure I matter more to me than I do a random locum gp. We don’t give the advice to test for fun or to inflict needle stick injuries. We do it because it works and isn’t down to good luck.Ian - I unlike many on this forum am a NON Tester. My GP and Nurse also say it is not necessary to test and not to buy a tester. I had my bloods tested by the nurse every 6 months. After just over a year I was taken off my Metformin and am now diet controlled. My blood is only checked annually with my last HbA1c 41. Please remember that everyone is different and everyone's body behaves differently. What food you eat and how you eat it may be completely to how someone else eats similar food, those having a completely different reaction on your body.
Some Diabetic feel the need to be in constant control and test regardless of what their GP's say, whilst others Don't. Have you been offered the chance to go on a diabetic information course - if not ask to go. You will be able to ask all sorts of questions there without getting silly comments like "Doctors are not Gods".
You have excellent control unless something happens (like aging). Testing at home gives you a heads up should trends rise, something an annual A1c cannot do.Bulkbiker - I have never had to stick myself with a needle! Have excellent CONTROL, am HEALTHY and ALIVE - enough said.
Bulkbiker - I have never had to stick myself with a needle! Have excellent CONTROL, am HEALTHY and ALIVE - enough said.
Bulkbiker - I have never had to stick myself with a needle! Have excellent CONTROL, am HEALTHY and ALIVE - enough said.
Then you must have a lot more insulin on diagnosis than I have. Sigh.
All blood glucose meters are now supposed to meet an industry standard of +\- 5 % error rate. That is better than most continous monitoring devices.My doctor says she advises against type 2 diabetics purchasing blood glucose monitors,as they aren't an accurate reading of blood sugar over a 3 monthly period.
My doctor says she advises against type 2 diabetics purchasing blood glucose monitors,as they aren't an accurate reading of blood sugar over a 3 monthly period.
Knowing your BSL and the effect of the food you eat is paramount. A three months test is worthless if you do not know what raises, lowers or keeps you insulin where it should be.Your doctor has also told you to increase the Metformin. Do you agree with this? Doctors are not gods. They do not know it all.
At the end of the day, all doctors are supposed to do is advise, with reasons. They cannot tell you to do anything. The choice is yours, and yours alone.
In my opinion, and I am not alone in this, the finger prick readings from blood glucose meters are far more an accurate indication of how your blood sugars are than the HbA1c. They tell you instantly what each meal has done to your levels if you test before you eat and 2 hours after first bite. If the rise is too high you can change that meal to something less carby, right there and then, without waiting months for your next HbA1c test. Most GPs tell us not to test, and give a variety of excuses, but this is for financial reasons. If they told us to test they would be obliged to provide the mean to do it - and they can't do this because of the costs involved. Bite the bullet, ignore the GP, and buy your own meter. That is the only sensible thing to do.
You clearly have a good constant diet that does not need checking. Nevertheless, within that three month period you do not have a clue what foods effect your BSL the most. The averaging out over the last three months before your test may also hide any unusually high spikes you may have. Large, albeit short term, fluctuations may have a detrimental effect on your long term health, including neuropathy and retinopathy. You also appear content with being a T2D. As with any chronic disease, insulin resistance can be controlled for long periods of time, but eventually and gradually it will get worse. It is no longer acceptable for a T2D to simply live and maintain his/her condition because we know it can be partially or fully reversed. It took me 5 years to learn that my GP didn't know anywhere near as much as I did and whats worse, the original advice given at the Diabetes clinic was plainly wrong and geared to keeping me in long term chronic sickness. I have never received any updated advice or recommendation, even after major studies by Newcastle University and the Diabetes Association have proved what a small minority of doctors have been saying for years, namely, T2D is an easily treatable condition.Ian - I unlike many on this forum am a NON Tester. My GP and Nurse also say it is not necessary to test and not to buy a tester. I had my bloods tested by the nurse every 6 months. After just over a year I was taken off my Metformin and am now diet controlled. My blood is only checked annually with my last HbA1c 41. Please remember that everyone is different and everyone's body behaves differently. What food you eat and how you eat it may be completely to how someone else eats similar food, those having a completely different reaction on your body.
Some Diabetic feel the need to be in constant control and test regardless of what their GP's say, whilst others Don't. Have you been offered the chance to go on a diabetic information course - if not ask to go. You will be able to ask all sorts of questions there without getting silly comments like "Doctors are not Gods".
Perhaps you'd like to fill in your details as this would make clear to all where you are coming from.
Unfortunately, it's not as simple as T1 producing ever decreasing amounts of insulin for no apparent reason. The main reason is T1 run their average blood sugars high to avoid hypos on insulin, which kills off one's islet pancreas cells after a honeymoon of six months. Dr Berinstein says you can stay in honeymoon indefinitely if you can keep your blood sugars low. Some type 1's do have ongoing immune system responses, presenting with continuous GAD and IA2 antibodies, so this doesn't apply to them.That, unfortunately is one of the differences between T1 and T2. T2s have a problem with processing carbs, and tend to produce large quantities of insulin while they attempt and fail to do this (until their insulin producing cells wear out). So if they avoid the carbs they can often maintain perfect sugar levels. T1s just produce ever decreasing amounts of insulin..... Though the symptoms (high blood sugar) are the same, they are really two different diseases.
All blood glucose meters are now supposed to meet an industry standard of +\- 5 % error rate. That is better than most continous monitoring devices.
The blood test for over the 3 months only gives an average - it does not indicate whether you might be higher in BSL say, after a particular meal and then too low after another over those 3 months as the average looks OK.
The beauty of the blood glucose meter testing is that you can see the excursions of bsl and do something to reduce the highs and lows to obtain even beter control.
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