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Girlfriend of a newbie!!

K

kjl4480

Newbie
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1
Hiya,

I am just on here looking for a bit of advice and support. My boyfriend was diagnosed on Sunday after me dragging him to A&E!! He had had a blood test taken on the Friday before but was advised that the results would take at least 10 days. After being worse on the Sunday(no energy, shaky, drinking litres and litres of liquids), a trip to A&E and a pushy girlfirend he finally got the results. His reading was 19 on the Friday and 24.4 on the Sunday when they took more blood!! Having been given Metformin and told to go back to the Drs on Monday for another test and a referral to a Diabetic Clinic we went home.
When he went to the Drs on Monday he was diagnosed as Type 2, no blood test was taken and he was given Glicozide and told to come back in a month. As you can imagine we are both in shock at both the diagnosis and the treatment from the Drs. We have now managed to get him in to see a diabetic nurse next Tuesday.
I have bought him a blood tester so we can at least monitor his blood sugar and so far he has come down and seems to be averaging at about 13/14 - but of course we don't know if this is still dangerous!
We just don't know what he can and cant eat, what we should be looking for when it comes to grams of sugar in things, how to go forward with this?
Any help or advice would be so greatly appreciated as I want to do anything I can to support him with this xxx
 
Daisy1 will be along soon with the information you need.

Just wanted to say Welcome and that there is a wealth of information here and people to help you both. You are not alone.
 
Hi

Well done for being so pro-active and getting things moving. You will find loads of help, information and support on the forum.

Your partner needs to start testing his Blood Sugar on waking, before eating, and 2 hours after eating (called postprandial readings). For safety his sugars need to be approx 7.8mmol/l at the 2 hours after eating stage.

A food diary will begin to give clear indications of what sends his Blood sugar over the limit. This tends to be carbohydrate ( and the sugars within them ) - so he might want to look at his bread/ potato/ cereal / pasta intake and possibly cut down or look at alternatives. There is lots of info about diet here, with people usually finding their own way by taking advice from everywhere and then testing what works for them.

I am a moderate low carber, so I won't eat much more than 50 - 60g a day ( but I am a woman, 5foot two and weighing 8 1/2 stones, so what works for me may not work for a man ). It really is down to the individual. but for a start, why don't you encourage your partner to have his usual diet, but up the veggies and cut the carbs slightly. And test, test, test.

Depending upon the ethos at your surgery, you may be advised not to test. But most people on this forum do, and it is the only way you can be properly informed.

And yes, the 13/14 average is too high. But it's a start.

Good luck with the diabetes nurse and keep up the support, he will need it.

CathyN
 
Well I just wanted to say what a great girlfriend you are ! Your boyfriend is a lucky guy and with you helping him and supporting him he'll be back to normal in no time. I'm fairly new myself so haven't got lots of tips but at least try to cut out carbs,i.e.,bread,potatoes,pasta,rice etc. If not, at least reduce them a lot. As the meds kick in, his blood sugar will come down too. Not sure how his doc diagnosed him type 2 so quick, I've been waiting 2 months and 10 blood tests later and still not sure if type 2 or whatever ! Please don't panic though, but sometimes you do need to be persistent, think you'll be OK ;-)
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

Here is the information we give to new members as mentioned by Lucy. Ask all the questions you like and someone will help.


BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED MEMBERS

Diabetes is the general term to describe people who have blood that is sweeter than normal. A number of different types of diabetes exist.

A diagnosis of diabetes tends to be a big shock for most of us. It’s far from the end of the world though and on this forum you’ll find well over 30,000 people who are demonstrating this.

On the forum we have found that with the number of new people being diagnosed with diabetes each day, sometimes the NHS is not being able to give all the advice it would perhaps like to deliver - particularly with regards to people with type 2 diabetes.

The role of carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are a factor in diabetes because they ultimately break down into sugar (glucose) within our blood. We then need enough insulin to either convert the blood sugar into energy for our body, or to store the blood sugar as body fat.

If the amount of carbohydrate we take in is more than our body’s own (or injected) insulin can cope with, then our blood sugar will rise.

The bad news

Research indicates that raised blood sugar levels over a period of years can lead to organ damage, commonly referred to as diabetic complications.

The good news

People on the forum here have shown that there is plenty of opportunity to keep blood sugar levels from going too high. It’s a daily task but it’s within our reach and it’s well worth the effort.

Controlling your carbs

The info below is primarily aimed at people with type 2 diabetes, however, it may also be of benefit for other types of diabetes as well.
There are two approaches to controlling your carbs:

  • Reduce your carbohydrate intake
  • Choose ‘better’ carbohydrates
Reduce your carbohydrates

A large number of people on this forum have chosen to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat as they have found this to be an effective way of improving (lowering) their blood sugar levels.

The carbohydrates which tend to have the most pronounced effect on blood sugar levels tend to be starchy carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and similar root vegetables, flour based products (pastry, cakes, biscuits, battered food etc) and certain fruits.

Choosing better carbohydrates

Another option is to replace ‘white carbohydrates’ (such as white bread, white rice, white flour etc) with whole grain varieties. The idea behind having whole grain varieties is that the carbohydrates get broken down slower than the white varieties –and these are said to have a lower glycaemic index.
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/food/diabetes ... rains.html

The low glycaemic index diet is often favoured by healthcare professionals but some people with diabetes find that low GI does not help their blood sugar enough and may wish to cut out these foods altogether.

Read more on carbohydrates and diabetes

Eating what works for you

Different people respond differently to different types of food. What works for one person may not work so well for another. The best way to see which foods are working for you is to test your blood sugar with a glucose meter.

To be able to see what effect a particular type of food or meal has on your blood sugar is to do a test before the meal and then test after the meal. A test 2 hours after the meal gives a good idea of how your body has reacted to the meal.

The blood sugar ranges recommended by NICE are as follows:

Blood glucose ranges for type 2 diabetes
  • Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 8.5 mmol/l
Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (adults)
  • Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 9 mmol/l
Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (children)
  • Before meals: 4 to 8 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 10 mmol/l
However, those that are able to, may wish to keep blood sugar levels below the NICE after meal targets.

Access to blood glucose test strips
The NICE guidelines suggest that people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should be offered:

  • structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review
  • self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education

Therefore both structured education and self-monitoring of blood glucose should be offered to people with type 2 diabetes. Read more on getting access to blood glucose testing supplies.

You may also be interested to read questions to ask at a diabetic clinic

Note: This post has been edited from Sue/Ken's post to include up to date information.
 
Hi. You have been given good advice already by other posters. Is your boyfriend perhaps overweight? If so, then moving to a good diet should help together with the meds; the meter will guide you. As others have said, probably worth setting a daily carb target (I aim for less than 150 gm) and then work out the carbs for a meal using the packet info and the expected portion size. No need to be obsessive about it but just try to move away from the carbs that the supermarkets are stuffed with. It's difficult at first changing the diet but you do find it easier as time goes by. Often the docs will do an HBa1C blood test around 3 months after first diagnosis and this will guide your boyfriend on his average blood sugar over 3 months. The HBa1C should be lower than, say, 6.5, in old money to be in the right area. Daisy has given the figures for the blood meter test. Good luck and well done for helping your boyfriend. Do come back for more questions.
 
hi kj,

it was weird reading your post as it described what happened to me 2 weeks ago almost exactly, my wife playing your part in all this, i am a typical stupid man who never went to the doctors in ten years and denied anything was wrong for i dont know how long, anyway i kinda feel like you saved him as my wife saved me, i feel like ive been diabetic for years not two weeks as ive read soooo much online, like another poster i havent been told which type i am other than everyone i ask says your probably type 2 as your on tablets not insulin, but the people im asking would be the ones to put me on insulin so i guess unless we are put on it from the a&e doctor then we are type 2, anyway.... my advice would be to test your blood all the time im like a pin cushion my metformin has been increased to 2000mg a day from 1000 and thats taken my bg to 5-7 were as it was down to 14-15 from the twenties, but more importantly i feel because it is invisible that if you dont test then how do you know how its going, ive cut out so much nice food its ridiculous, ive lost over half a stone in 2 weeks, so i kinda feel there was life before diabetes and this is a new life which is going to be different but still a good life and maybee, who knows even better, ok today im in glass half full mode and tommorrow maybee half empty, but i suppose as a fellow newbie i want to say, dont panic! look into what you can eat and find somethings you like, my wife has been really good much better than i thought she would, shes making me seperate meals to them but slowly i can see them turning towards us all eating better, i am at a loss as to how people stay at the carb levels they do so i basically dont eat bread potatoes rice or pasta and study the back of packets in the supermarket to the point that its embarrassing ive found it amazing what stuff is really not very good that i always thought was healthy it almost seems like a trick by the food manufacturers, im finding out that foods like porridge for brekkie fill you up much longer than other cereals so im not as hungry and this means im not as miserable, sorry im rambling on so please read as much as you can, folks on the forum are amazing i dont think i could have survived without this place its an absolute mine of information and makes me feel that im not alone, so test test test is my advice, and try to stay possitive its hard but helps, oh and the metformin is a really good drug by all accounts so dont worry about taking it, good luck!
 
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