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Type 2 Feeling really angry!

AllieRainbow

Well-Known Member
Messages
207
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I have just been looking at the Diabetes.org.uk site at food recommendations, after following a clickbait link on Facebook about the signs of foot damage for diabetics.

I am now feeling really angry at their recommendations to eat carbs with every meal, and low fat everything. If I ate like that I would be looking at pretty grim prospects for my Type 2 Diabetes. And I would very likely be looking at getting foot damage!!

When I was diagnosed I saw the diabetic nurse at my doctor's practice, and she was extremely keen to get me on medication (which I refused), and for me to follow the usual NHS EatWell plate. If I had taken her advice I wouldn't have got my HbA1c down from 82 to 42. I would be sitting here, feeling ill, exhausted, and very depressed about my progressive disease. The way she talked about my future I could have sunk into despair. She told me there was basically nothing I could do except delay the inevitable a little by being a good girl and taking increasing amounts of medication.

Fortunately for me I had already found this site by then and started making lifestyle changes, incorporating exercise into my daily routine, testing my BG - which she was very keen to discourage me from, and warned me against doing (???) - and changing to a very low carb, high fat diet, with intermittent fasting and lots of water.

I just feel so massively angry that if I followed this flawed advice, I would be looking at sleepwalking my way towards very serious complications - blindness, amputations, and all the rest. I listen to my body, and I know I feel worse if I eat anything carby - it is obvious - I feel tired and lethargic, and my blood sugar shoots up. Why would that be a good idea?? What the h**l?

I can't help but feel the advice people are given to make sure they include carbs with every meal, and low fat everything, in the face of research that indicates that it is the carbs, not the fats that are the problem, is actually verging on criminal.

Rant over - the stress is probably making my BG go up, so I am off to practice my meditation and calm down.
 
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I agree that it is totally incomprehensible, but at least we are living in the age of the internet and information is far more easily accessed, though the bad is just as easy to find as the good. At least the good information seems to be backed up with improving blood tests and reducing symptoms quoted.
 
I so agree with what you say Allie Rainbow. I saw the diabetic nurse a year ago when diagnosed with prediabetes and she gave me the same high carb low fat nonsense you speak of. I told her what I thought of the NHS and their eatwell plate and mentioned the 8 week blood sugar diet - which she was all in favour of!! Extraordinarily she said she recommends it to patients on the quiet but that they have to keep to the NHS 'guidelines' in public. Totally perverse. Interestingly I was seeing a different nurse recently on a different matter in the same surgery and there was no Eatwell plate pinned on the wall.
Unfortunately my efforts haven't been good enough and I have to see her again having just had a dodgy HbA1c test. Speaking for myself I feel I wasted 40 years at Weight Watchers following their low fat and high carb regime. The weight I lost always returned because it isn't sustainable imo, whereas high fat and low carb is. My problem has always been that carbs aren't just bread, potatoes, rice and pasta. Fruit is my downfall!
 
Whilst on the subject, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry this afternoon when I arrived at a local hospital for my appointment, to be greeted by this right by the hospital’s main entrance!

 
Mmm. Tech has made life and information so very much more accessible...if you have resources, literacy, and want to take responsibility for issues. My GP has been pretty decent and I reported on here my great result following diagnosis in June. HbA1c went from 89 to 34. I have just returned from holiday in one of the most carb and sugar riddled countries: Mexico. Still, largely maintained my commitment to low carb. Letter from GP when I got back, appt with another GP plus an HCA tomorrow! I rung today to cancel, receptionist sounded surprised. Why would I want to see a GP I dont know plus an HCA when I can do it myself?? Dreary and a waste of NHS resources.
 
Rachox said:
Whilst on the subject, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry this afternoon when I arrived at a local hospital for my appointment, to be greeted by this right by the hospital’s main entrance!
Click to expand...
... and I wonder what tempting foods were on the menu!!!!! It's shameful, eh?
 
I can understand why you feel angry! My diabetic nurse in hospital told me i need the carbs for energy. She also said all slim diabetics are diabulimics.
 
enzina said:
I can understand why you feel angry! My diabetic nurse in hospital told me i need the carbs for energy. She also said all slim diabetics are diabulimics.
Click to expand...

How ignorant and rude of her!!
 
enzina said:
I can understand why you feel angry! My diabetic nurse in hospital told me i need the carbs for energy. She also said all slim diabetics are diabulimics.
Click to expand...

There needs to be a wow reaction!
 

That's very true. I have asthma and hypertension and used to see the GP for my hypertension annual review and the nurse for asthma. Now they want me to see the nurse for asthma and the HCA for hypertension. Why would I do that, just a waste of my time and theirs. The HCA would have taken the BP seen it go off the page [white coat] and be saying I needed more meds.
 
If you look at the history of Diabetes. even when I was diagnosed there was a prevalence of T1D over other types, so a majority of diabetics used insulin regimes. Even T2D had poor access to effective oral meds, and so progressed naturally to becoming Insulin Dependant. So it made sense in those days that the guidelines used carby diets to support Insulin treatment. Also there were no effective or cheap means of measuring the bgl in the home, so SMBG was not an option, and eating to meter was a lottery too since we had no means of guaging our bgl levels apart from HbA1c once a year. Sadly the GP advice given at the time was also based on Eatwell, so the system was therefore predictable as being progressive. We did not know, nor did the HCP;s,, that carbs were so directly linked to bgl and the internet did not exist to wake us up to alternatives.

We live in an era where SMBG is possible for anyone prepared to make the investment, and food labelling has made carb chasing simpler to implement, It is much easier to follow an LC type lifestyle now than it was in the days when I started my PWD journey. The problem we have now is that the guidelines are so entrenched and so controlling our medical system that it now presents this brick wall against change, so until the training of HCP's changes, then there will remain this resistance to self management. BUT. The taking of GP meds and advice is subject to our agreement, and there is no legal means they have of forcing their POV on us unless sectioned under the Mental Health Act, or our freedom curtailed by the High Court. So we are able to make our own choices of treatment. NICE now recognises this, and have changed their guidelines to be more patient inclusive and lifesyle management is becoming an option otherwise Drs Unwin , Taylor et al would have been constrained in their efforts to bring diet management into the general practice arena.
 
Rachox said:
Whilst on the subject, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry this afternoon when I arrived at a local hospital for my appointment, to be greeted by this right by the hospital’s main entrance!

View attachment 29009
Click to expand...
enzina said:
I can understand why you feel angry! My diabetic nurse in hospital told me i need the carbs for energy. She also said all slim diabetics are diabulimics.
Click to expand...

There needs to be several new Smilies - shock horror and angry come to mind, or a banging head against brick wall.
 
enzina said:
I can understand why you feel angry! My diabetic nurse in hospital told me i need the carbs for energy. She also said all slim diabetics are diabulimics.
Click to expand...


That latter statement is a disgrace. I wonder if it reflects what she sees in her day-to-day dealings with her patients living with diabetes, or if she just has a lot of "diabulimics" on her books.

For the avoidance of doubt, if it's the latter, those folks should be being referred for specialist support and care.
 
Hi. I complained recently to the NHS via their website which has the same appalling diet advice. I would suggest anyone else who feels it's a disgrace should do the same. All these organisations get their advice from Public Health England who in turn use SACN etc. Alison Tedstone's name comes up quite often when looking at public diet advice. SACN and others rely on university research departments and they rely for a lot of their funding from food companies. As carbs are very low cost to provide you may guess how the Eat Well Plate came into being
 
It's interesting how the diabetic epidemic has exploded since the 1990's when in fact it was in the 1980's onwards that the low fat/high carb way of eating became mainstream. I think the idea came from America ....
 
gardengnome42 said:
It's interesting how the diabetic epidemic has exploded since the 1990's when in fact it was in the 1980's onwards that the low fat/high carb way of eating became mainstream. I think the idea came from America ....
Click to expand...

Type 2 diabetes is normally very slow to materialise. High circulating insulin comes first along with insulin resistance, followed sometimes decades later by a T2 diagnosis. It doesn't just happen over night.
 
As a retired former nurse I used to advise people that ultimately they are the guardians of their health and if possible, to find health profs in which they might place their trust / wellbeing. Given the budget cuts in past 20 years to health care, increasing emphasis is on getting rid of senior nurses, experienced staff as they cost too much. Managers and senior docs always protect themselves, it’s the nature of the beast. I have no interest in attending appts which I consider “amateur hour”. I could become very rude if messed around by people who don’t have a clue.
 
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