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Feeling Despondent

LeftPeg

Well-Known Member
Messages
210
Location
Gateshead
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Conflict
Hey guys,

I hope you don’t mind me having a vent, but the situation is getting to me a bit. I’ve got a stressful job (made more stressful by my slow home broadband), two kids at home, and worst of all extremely high blood sugars which I can’t seem to bring down. This is making me massively pessimistic about my chances of survival should I get Covid19.

Sick day advice seems to be to eat carbs but I don’t want to make my bloods worse? They’ve been as high as 18 this past week and no lower than 11 at any point. Just feeling very hopeless.
 
Can you try putting a temp increase of the basal in the first instance, maybe 10 or 15% [assuming type 1]

sick day rules are solely for the control of ketones......obviously having an intake of some cabrs will help stop any contribution from starvation ketones.....but it doesnt need to be a lot to achieve that....even just sipping some sugary juice would do....

have you tested for ketones...?
 

Sorry I should’ve stated I’m Type 2 ‘diet-controlled’ but thanks for taking the time to respond.
 
Hey, @LeftPeg .
No need to worry about having a bit of a vent. We all need to at times.
Diet controlled T2? Increasing carbs won’t help, but we all have to eat just what we can get at the moment.
You don’t say how old the kids are, but the schools should have set them projects, if not they need to be given stuff that will keep them occupied and perhaps away from you?

are you able to step away from the computer and work for a 5-10 minute break every hour or so? No employer should be expecting the same output from homeworkers under current circumstances. Get some fresh air and move about a bit if you can’t get outside, by an open window. Perhaps a quick exercise session with the kids?
As for the BG levels, keep an eye on them, and if they don’t start to lower in next few days put in a call to GP. You may need to consider meds if you can’t reduce levels by other means,
 
You vent away. It is a stressful time and stress raises levels.

Saw on the internet yesterday, under the heading "Home schooling "
Two pupils expelled for fighting.
Teacher sacked for drinking.
Wasn't you was it?
 
I’m T1, not T2, but boggled by the eat carbs for a sick day. Do you take medication that would leave you hypo without carbs?Would a bit of exercise help? And if it’s a sick day (high carbs isn’t healthy) should you be working?
How old are your children? What do they enjoy doing that’s not something that’d wreck the house or be super noisy? Can you set them a challenge? My daughter and her husband, both working from home, have half a day each doing things with their two children.
 
LeftPeg - Do you know what's making your sugars so high at the moment? That won't be helping with how you cope with anything - work, kids, broadband and so on.

If you know what i is, is there anything you can change to trim them back a bit?

Do you have any option to upgrade your broadband speed at all? It may not even cost anything.

Whilst we are fortunate enough to achieve decent speeds on BT's top line fibre package, I recently had reason to change other aspects of my BT deal, so ended up recontracting. I now pay almost £50 a month less than before.

I have worked from home for several years now. It takes a while to get the hang of it, and work out where, aside from the short commute ( ) the "wins" were.

I do hope things settle for you soon, but do agree with Pipp that if those numbers aren't coming down, it could be reasonable to try some medication - even for a while to wrangle the numbers down.

Finally, if you have a moment, it's be helpful if you could adjust your account to show your diabetes type. You can o that from this link: https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/account/
 
Curious where you are getting sick day advice that tells you to eat carbs if you are a diet controlled type 2? Poor advice. And regardless if you aren’t actually sick why are you following them?

what sort of diet do you you use to control it at the moment? I appreciate some people are struggling to get some items Right now but mostly it’s not too difficult for many to find a reasonable amount of lower carb options.

Take a look at the the links in my signature for some guidance on low carb that should help a great deal. 18 is way too high.
 
Thanks for the responses guys. Avoided carbs yesterday and woke to an 11mmol/l which is not great but certainly an improvement. I find it very hard not to comfort eat but getting one day under my belt has given me a bit of impetus to continue.
 
Don't worry about your fasting numbers for now. This will be the dawn phenomenon. Concentrate on your numbers before and after eating.

You will be fine.
 
LeftPeg said:
Thanks for the responses guys. Avoided carbs yesterday and woke to an 11mmol/l which is not great but certainly an improvement. I find it very hard not to comfort eat but getting one day under my belt has given me a bit of impetus to continue.
Click to expand...
hello. I hope your feeling more positive continues. Less carb will result in better blood sugars but your body will take time to adapt especially when you include stress hormones that increase insulin resistance into the equation.
Other than trying to relax when you can and perhaps avoiding peak broadband usage times (different pattern of working) how about avoiding all the |CoVid news? It is catastrophising propaganda and tends to focus on the vary worst aspects of this virus. I'd focus on being grateful that you do have a job you can keep doing which is keeping the country going until all this madness ends.
I am type 1 with way higher spikes than you are getting but other than being diligent around carbs, insulin doses and exercise/sleep there's not much else I can do. I believe at some point we will all get exposed to the virus and most of us will recover well.
 
Having a vent is probably good for your stress levels I suspect- having g responses helps us feel connected and I think that's a good thing.

I'm a comfort eater- or used to be but low carb food doesn't give me that comforting.

I am so glad that my children are young adults and so I don't need to school them at all- it's a tough gig.

I'm another who doesn't have a lot of hope if I get the virus although it does seem to be different here in Australia- not many deaths yet.

Good luck.
 
Maybe you should talk to your GP or diabetic specialist. Your BG is running consistently high - fasting is only a short-term solution.

In the meantime, avoiding carbs will help.
 
I am a type 2. I understand your frustration and aggravation. I swam to help maintain my blood sugar levels and they closed the pool on me. After a week I had good friend kicked me in my backside and suggested that I should start walking to burn off sugar, One thing that has worked me is that when I eat something I know that is causing a spike is I take a walk for an hour.

I agree about reducing the carbs in your diet, but I would run it by your GP, medication may provide a bridge until you get things under control or may discover what is going on. One thing I would say be patient. Reducing carbs has reduced you numbers it will take time

When did the numbers started to going up? The other thing I do is test 4 times a day and make diet corrections accordingly

I hope this helps

Dave
 
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