Good morning!

Hi @HappyPumpkin

HappyPumpkin said:

3 weeks ago a random HbA1c test had me at 7.1% 54. They wanted me back 2 weeks later to confirm diagnosis. Today the results are 6.8% 51. I know I could still have a lot of sweet blood cells in my body. I don't understand how a 2 week difference will help? Surely they need to see if the blood will change?

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OK so your first HbA1c diagnosed type 2, the second test two weeks later was as you say to confirm diagnosis, and quite simply just that. As the HbA1c is a clever way to average out your blood sugar levels over the previous three months (the life span of red blood cells) any significant change will only appear after two or three months have elapsed.

Hi @HappyPumpkin (love the username!), it sounds like you've been having quite a rought time.

I'm tagging @JoKalsbeek for you, she had liver disease when she was diagnosed with T2. Changing her way of eating has both brought her blood glucose to healthy levels again and greatly improved the liver disease, so she's knowledgable on both.
Maybe her approach can be helpful for you as well.

Wish you all the best!

HappyPumpkin said:

Thank you I am a Halloween lover

Oh that is wonderful, thank you very much. The nurses at The British Liver Trust feel helping my liver will in turn help my T2 but it would be wonderful to speak with someone who has had the same. Thank you

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Hello!

Oookay... Sit back with something you actually like to drink, because this is a long-ish story from someone who's supposed to be dead and buried by now. (To quote Beasto Blanco: "I ain't writin' this song if I'm dead"). And it's not a matter of me adoring myself so much I want to talk of nothing else, but if any of it resonates or seems familiar, it might help, you know? So I'm Jo, and I have a whole lot of conditions... Which is why the diabetes went unnoticed for a long time. I kept putting it down to my Hashimoto's, adjusting dosages and whatnot... And I'd been a frequent visitor to the loo since I was a kid, when I'd been given propranolol. I stopped the meds when they didn't work for my migraines, but the weeing never went away, and I just accepted that. So all those signs on the wall? Ignored. I was still very fatigued while I changed my levothyroxine dosages, and kept getting heavier, even on the high carb, low fat diet the hospital put me on. (Which actually made everything that much worse.). I had been told I had PCOS, but it was at the same time as another, more pressing/debilitating diagnosis, so all that was mentioned was that I'd have to jump through hoops to even attempt to ever get pregnant, and even then it was iffy. Nothing about insulin resistance and whatnot, nothing that was to be actually useful to me later on. So there was a lot going on and nothing that seemed fixable. I was just enormous, and so fatigued I couldn't even hold a fork. My husband had to cut my meat, I couldn't apply enough pressure to get it done. And sometimes my knees would just buckle out from under me. I was weak. Extremely weak. And I just accepted that that was my life. I just wanted it to be over, really.

At one point I couldn't handle my shoes anymore. Bending over was hard, and whenever I did, my liver area hurt like heck. That too, went ignored, until I started losing weight suddenly, and my first thought was, okay, here we go... Cancer's finally caught up with me. (Runs in the family). I went to the doc, and they did ultrasounds, a CT and an MRI. It kept looking like a massive tumor, but as it turned out, it was "an abnormal stacking of fat in and on the liver". Right. So it went from, "you're going to die in a matter of weeks" to "You're still going to die, it'll just be a little slower. But not much". My husband was sent out of the room to check whether I was a closet drunk. So... Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease... There was nothing to be done about it, nothing that could fix it, the doc'd just see me again when things got bad and he'd give me palliative care drugs.

In the meantime, I'd tried to figure out WHY I had NAFLD... Google told me it was associated with diabetes, and that was easy enough to rule out. Our cat was an insulin dependent T3c, so I borrowed Night's meter. 18 mmol/l. And it peaked out at 22 about an hour later. I knew exactly what it meant. I was put on metformin, which didn't agree with me at all, and when that happened I decided to see if there was anything else I could do. That's when I stumbled across low carb, high fat. The EXACT opposite of what even now, I was being told to eat by (by then) two dieticians, two endo's and two diabetes nurses. But Night's meter? That told me it was working! (I'd get my own eventually. ).

I didn't know getting my blood sugars back to normal would also affect how my liver was doing, but as I lost weight, the fat on my liver melted off as well. No inflammation, no cirrhosis. Liverfunction returned to normal within 6 months. (As an aside, my mom had very, very bad NAFLD and on low carb she got back to normal numbers. Alas, her depression made her quit the diet... And back up her levels went. So there was no coincidence, the correlation was more than clear.) From what I gather you're farther along far as liver damage goes, but there's no reason not to give a high fat, low carb diet a go. I couldn't exercise, now I go on pretty long walks, while I couldn't even get around the house back then. Diet really was my only option. And, inflammation feeds on sugar... Cut down the carbs, there's less for the infammation to burn on. It's worth a shot, honest. No-one ever told me anything about coffee, (Well, to steer clear because of my penchant to develop kidney stones...) but a dash of cream or milk and a sweetener like a stevia/erythritol mix sounds do-able, if you must... Just really, really, no sugar. No fruit either. I'd say have a few berries, but if your liver's already struggling.... It considers fructose a toxin, so it gets stored as fat... And you don't want it storing any more than it already does. You want those stores depleted. So in your case, give it a pass entirely.

Anyway... I'm still here. Should've been in my coffin years ago. This is basically what I did: https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html , though if you're not using cream, you might be vegan? Dietdoctor.com does have recipes that might cater. So don't give up if what you read in my little blog doesn't fit with your lifestyle. It is harder to do a low carb diet when you're steering clear from meat, poultry, fish, dairy and eggs, but there are those here who manage it.

I don't know how bad your liver is, currently. I don't know how much can be turned around yet. But I don't think it's anywhere near as hopeless as it seems to be at the moment. You have a say in how this plays out.

Hugs,
Jo

Spreadable butter usually contains some seed oils, best to avoid it. Also avoid bread of any colour.
Jo is the expert here, and i can only agree with her, LOW carb is the way to go, and good luck with everything.

HappyPumpkin said:

My nemesis is ice cream and chocolate. They are out the window

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Not necessarily so. There are low carb versions of almost anything, especially if you or someone around you can cook.
Check out dietdoctor.com and https://www.ketofitnessclub.com/pages/free-recipe-library
Simplest icecream is frozen raspberries mashed into cream.
Just be aware it will take a while for your taste buds to adapt, but adapt they will.
I was a huge chocoholic, now I enjoy my 1 or 2 squares of 85% cocoa chocolate more than I ever did my huge bars and boxes of milk chocolate that I'd binge and hardly taste
Life on low carb is great, come and join us.
I'm lighter, healthier, happier and eat well and really taste and enjoy my food

HappyPumpkin said:

I am going to adapt to this maybe a little more slowly at first. I do know something of keto diets and want to make sure it is safe for me. I also suffer a lot of allergies and one of them is to dairy.
I have read Jo's blog which is really useful and looked up about keto foods. I will speak to the Consultant next Friday when I go for my Fibroscan and to my Dr so they know what I plan to do.
Thank you all so much for your helpful advice

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Cow milk products make my rheumatism flare, I find I do better on goat cheeses/milk which might be an option for you. I hear you on the allergies and sensitivities (My IBS and migraines are also often food-triggered, and cruciferus veg van make my thyroid swell, soy keeps my levothyroxine from being absorbed... Tip of the iceberg. It's a minefield sometimes, I know!). Extra dark chocolate is still very much an option. And if Lindt / Moser Roth 85% and up are too bitter for you, maybe have a bit of walnut to go with it, or try a chocolate sweetened with stevia. Loads of those available, check amazon. If you have a proper chocolatier close by, they might have sugar free bonbons to boot.

Do make changes slowly if you have to feel your way through. It takes a long time to figure out what works for you and what doesn't. And sometimes something works for a while, and then stops working. Take your time and find what suits, because you'll be eating in a way that fits with your liver and blood sugars for a long while yet.

Oh, and check out Oppo ice cream.