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Fasting blood sugars 19mmol/l

Woody83

Member
Messages
14
Hello everyone,

I've been on and off the forums reading what I can and thought I would join up today.

Unfortunately I think I may have T2 diabetes.

I've been monitoring my blood sugar in the last few months and my fasting levels are 19-20mmol/l.

I decided to try and fix it myself before seeing the doctors, not sure if that was a good idea, but I did a low carb diet that I was finding okay, and also upped my exercise to include a long weekend bike ride in the forest, and an exercise bike ride after work for 30 mins.

Everything was going fine for the fist week and then I started to feel ill, tired, jittery and like I was going to faint when standing.

I stopped the low carb and went back to eating regular meals, and things seemed to improve and at the weekend I did another good mountain bike ride and some heavy duty gardening and felt fine.

Come Monday and I feel rubbish again. I tested my fasting bloods this morning and was surprised it was 16mmol/l, lower than expected, but I feel really terrible and ill, especially after eating lunch and evening meal I've noticed I get sleepy and headachey.

Can anyone offer any insight into what is happening and what is the best way forward. Low carb seems to have set off this chain of events, I was okay before I did that, so I'm not sure what to do as going back to it might continue this feeling.

I even used a SuperSapien device (Abbots) on my arm for 2 weeks and at the beginning it was off the chart (over 200mg/dL), then it was coming down due to low carb and the exercise really showed it coming down, but then would rise after, but still it was showing some good results. When I started feeling ill and went back to my normal eating, albeit healthier, it never came under 200mg/dL for the last 4 days now, even when I did a 1.5hr bike ride.
 
Hi @Woody83 , and welcome to the forum!
Woody83 said:
Can anyone offer any insight into what is happening and what is the best way forward.
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The best way forward is to call your doctor or 111, your levels are very high.
Should you at any point develop a stomach ache or nausea alongside those high numbers you'd best visit A&E. High blood glucose sometimes can go together with DKA, which is an emergency needing a hospital. It very rarely happens in T2's and not often with T1, but if it does it's dangerous.

I wish you all the best, and please let us know what happens!
 
If you don’t ring 111, at least please speak to your GP to get a definite diagnosis. Your poor body doesn’t know if it’s coming or going, I’m guessing the jittering etc after a week of low carbing you were getting false hypos, that is lower blood sugars than you’re used to, it takes a while for your body to get used to eating less carbs. Now back on eating carbs I’m guessing you are sleepy and headachy after eating due to higher levels again.
 
Thank you for the replies.. yes, I'm really up and down all the time so my body really is struggling now.

I wasn't aware of false hypos, so that would explain a lot.

I've done an online consultation with the GP, hopefully they will be in touch and I can get somewhere.

I'm going to try low carb again, but not as low as before...

Really appreciate the replies, I'm not sure what to do for the best right now.
 
Woody83 said:
I'm going to try low carb again, but not as low as before...
Click to expand...
That sounds like a sensible plan, when I was first diagnosed I lowered my carbs gradually over several weeks if not months. I never suffered ‘false hypos’ or ‘keto flu’. 4 years down the line I eat less than 45g carbs/day and feel fine on that.
 
I'm feeling a bit more positive now, the false hypo part makes sense looking back.

If it happens again, what should I do with a false hypo? Have something with carbs?
 
Those glucose levels are very high and you do need to take action to bring them down. Try lowish carbs rather than full throttle low carb. I went gently with mine from a similar start point, and I had no problems on the way down. Your liver will fight you all the way down by pumping stored glucose out into the blood to maintain the levels it had gotten used to (19 mmol/l) until it runs out of supplies and starts to accept lower levels as the norm. This is expected. The jitters etc are also expected as the blood sugars drop, and you should try to ride it out, so long as your levels are not going too low (less than 5 mmol/l ) its a target for you but a shock for your body. But walking around with sugars up in the rafters is a recipe for long-term damage. It may feel better, but it's not healthy,

I too think you have diabetes and need to see the GP asap. It is not going to go away of its own accord. It is not a panic situation, but prompt action will get you better quicker. This is the beginning of a new phase in your life but it's manageable.
 
Woody83 said:
I'm feeling a bit more positive now, the false hypo part makes sense looking back.

If it happens again, what should I do with a false hypo? Have something with carbs?
Click to expand...
Test your levels to see if it is a real hypo (<4mmol/l) in which case eat carbs. But as you are not on medication then that is very unlikely, so if you can sit down and ride it out, it will become less and less of a problem, and eventually, you won't notice it. Do not drive or operate machinery if feeling dodgy. Do not climb ladders or scaffolding if jittery or feeling faint.
 
With fasting blood sugars of 19-20 you need to attend the A&E at the hospital. Just walk in. They will start the necessary testing.
 
A&E .may be a quicker route to get a diagnosis, seeing how difficult it has become to talk to a GP nowadays. However, you may still be a T2D and producing your own insulin. I was in a similar state where my meter greeted me with a HI and nothing else meaning I was clocking above 32 mmol/l. I made a deal with the devil (actually my very nice GP) that I would go onto insulin if I could not turn things around in a month. I logged into this Forum, and did some speed learning, and went low carb diet. I achieved a significant drop and my GP backed off on the insulin.

I am on orals only and controlled by diet and my last few HbA1c's were all below the diabetic range. So in my case I proved that I was producing my own insulin and I have reduced all my meds down to a holding dose. So it is not necessarily a sign that you need to go onto insulin treatment, But A&E may give peace of mind.
 
Thank you for the help everyone, and thanks for the inspiration Oldvatr & Rachox.

Pleased to report my fasting blood sugar as 15.6 this morning & I've started reducing the carbs again and upping my water intake.

I really would like to try diet and exercise some more, before any medication, hopefully my bike rides have helped, just need to get the diet properly going, and get through the possibly false hypos.

I have weight to loose, so hopefully with some weight loss and more exercise I can get back into some sort of health.

Just need this fatigue to go away.
 

The doctor can't make you take medication. But if you get diabetic ketoacidosis then you will die without fast treatment (I'm talking a trip to intensive care while they wash the acid out of your blood). It's not common in T2s but it is a real risk. If you won't go to a doctor now (I really urge it) at least test your urine for ketones. And remember that you don't even know that you have T2, you are just assuming it.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/diabetic-ketoacidosis/

Please be careful.

And you can start on medication and then reduce it as your bg levels reduce. Plenty of T2s on these forums have done that and come off medication altogether.
 
Thank you for the link, I've read through it and although I do feel a bit rubbish I think I'm not too far gone just yet.

My fasting bloods have come down a lot in the last 2 weeks, which I hope will have helped a lot.

I'm just waiting for the doctors to call me back, I could only do an online consultation.

If I start to feel worse I will go to A&E for sure.
 
Fasting bloods 14.2 this morning.

Low carb going fairly well this time I think and I don't feel jittery yet, although I'm expecting it to come back.

Would you recommend having carbs before exercise?
 
Hi. Be aware that if you are diagnosed as T2 it's possible you are actually a late onset T1 (LADA) and could explain your high BS. Do you have excess weight or are you slim; the latter is a pointer to T1?
 
I do have a lot of excess weight unfortunately, and no history of diabetes in my family apart from an auntie who has T2 and also had a stroke before she was diagnosed.

Last year I lost 1.5 stones all of a sudden, and presume my blood sugars were really out of control then as I remember being very thirsty and very hot all the time, but I didn't realise it was blood sugar related. I was busy at work and thought it was that, plus I was really pleased to be losing weight and eating anything I wanted. The more I ate the more I lost weight, but deep down I think I knew what might be happening, I just didn't want to face it.

I've since been on a few unsuccessful diets and taken up exercise again and it went away, so maybe I've manage to dodge it a little.. or at least lessen the effects.

Fasting blood sugars 13.8 this morning (from a high of nearly 20).

Low carb is going well, and I'm trying to catch what spikes my sugars, plus doing at least half an hour of exercise each evening.

Mornings are the worst, I have the SuperSapiens Libre device which gives a constant glucose reading up to 200mg/dL, from 4am - 11am I am over that, so my first aim is to get that much lower. I also finger prick test a couple of times a day too.

Really determined to sort this out, I'm really gutted I've let it get to this stage and I'm upset with myself as I used to be really fit and active, snowboarding, scuba diving etc.. but life gets in the way.

Thanks for the support.
 
Sounds like yours is going in the right direction mate. I was diagnosed 4 weeks ago. fasting BS was round 13.0. Today, after nearly cutting all carbs for a month it was the lowest I have seen at 5.2. So in actual fact I am upping my intake today to around 50 grams... I don't want to go the other way.!! I have also lost a stone in weight, with very low carbs and 5:2 diet (2 days fasting/500 cals).

I was the same as you, in that I was upset with myself, but these monitors really do give you power and allow you test out different things... it'll keep getting better pal.
 
That's really inspiring Matt, thank you.
Cutting carbs is hard, but I've found some low carb bread, and cauliflower rice had helped fool me into thinking I'm eating carbs.
5.2 is so great, I can't wait to see those kind of numbers!
 
Woody83 said:
That's really inspiring Matt, thank you.
Cutting carbs is hard, but I've found some low carb bread, and cauliflower rice had helped fool me into thinking I'm eating carbs.
5.2 is so great, I can't wait to see those kind of numbers!
Click to expand...
Were do you get the cauliflower rice from it sounds great as whenever I have ordinary rice my blood sugar will shoot up sometimes 8 hours later .
 
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