Gutted - Not Doing As Well As I Thought And Confused

Hi @KiwiInOz & welcome to the forum. Can I ask why you are testing urine instead of blood glucose?

As to testing high at the doctors - this is to be expected if you are diabetic & had consumed carbs not long before the test.

I'll tag in @daisy1 who will be along soon with some basic information on diabetes management.

Guessing by the username you chose that you're in Australia?

Agree with @Safi that you need BG testing. Go to a local chemist that has NDSS support for diabetes (most of them do, I think), get the form for test strips and ask your doctor to sign it. You can then join NDSS and get testing supplies for at least 6 months. You pay about $40 for the BG meter, but the pharmacy should get you to complete a form that will refund the money to you. Eventually you'll get a cheque in the mail from the manufacturer.

Paging @daisy1 for her advice to newcomers.

If you're on a device that can see my signature, please check out the links in the recommended reading section. I'd highly recommend: https://www.bloodsugar101.com/ as a great place to start educating yourself about diabetes.

Good luck

KiwiInOz said:

Hi everyone,

I was diagnosed 3 weeks ago with fasting BG of 12.0. Bit of a shock and not really been given much information excepting to take Metformin ER 500mg once every evening.

I found this forum straight away and make some immediate lifestyle changes. My BMI was high and I weighed 92.7kg.

Fast forward 2 weeks and I've settled into logging all my food on the Lose It app, greatly reducing carbs to 20-40g per day - a bit up and down but mostly close to 20g. Taken my medication everyday. My goal was to try to also lose 5kgs over the next 3 months.

Outcome: Fantastic weight loss, went slightly ketogenic and last week lost 8kgs. Now weigh 85.2kgs. Stoked! I got this I thought.

I started exercising going for 30 minute brisk walks every day.

Trip to the Dr. and Oh Dear my blood pressure was too high. had to monitor for 24 hr and return. Turns out that was a stress spike and the monitoring showed I was highish but ok.

Dr does a urine test then freaks out, says my BG is extremely high. the highest reading on the strip at over 111 mmol/L

Tells me to double my Metformin to 1000mg a day.

I thought I was doing well so I'm just shocked. I did eat carbs at a lunch I attended for work a few hours before my DR's appointment. 4 cubes of watermelon, 1 white dinner roll and 1 small square of plain chocolate. Everything else combined that day was under 10g of carbs.

This morning I tested my urine. slightly better but still 56mmol/L 2nd highest colour on the glucose strip.

Took the first morning Metformin tablet this morning and tested at 10am and not registering any blood glucose.

What am I doing wrong? Why did I have such a huge reaction to a relatively small carb treat? Is 1000mg of Metformin meaning I'm not responding very well to the drug. Do I have to stop all carbs?

Why has my weight loss and exercise not helped?

I obviously haven't got this at all.

Thanks
Sharyn

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Urine strips are highly inaccurate. If you really want to know what's what, do get a bloodglucose meter. Test before a meal and 2 hours after, this will tell you how your insulin-response is doing and whether the meal was too carby. I'm not surprised you tested high at the doc's, but that was due to your meal before that. If it'd been on another, 20-grams-of-carbs day, it probably would have been fine. So take a breath, you're doing well. And the bloodpressure thing could be white coat syndrome, so try to relax... You're doing great with the weight loss, your bloodsugar is in all likelyhood much better than it was, with the changes you implemented, so don't panic. Just get a proper meter and test. That'll put your mind at ease, and will help you figure out where you're at. But I'm figuring, if you're losing the weight and have been in ketosis... Bloodsugar levels are bound to have improved.

@Kiwiln0z

Hello Sharyn and welcome to the Forum Here is the Basic Information we give to new members and I hope you will find it useful. Ask as many questions as you need to and someone will be able to help.

BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED DIABETICS

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 235,000 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

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.

Over 145,000 people have taken part in the Low Carb Program - a 10 week structured education course that is helping people lose weight and reduce medication dependency by explaining the science behind carbs, insulin and GI.

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.
Take part in Diabetes.co.uk digital education programs and improve your understanding. Most of these are free.

• Low Carb Program - it's made front-page news of the New Scientist and The Times. Developed with 20,000 people with type 2 diabetes; 96% of people who take part recommend it... find out why
  
  
• Hypo Program - improve your understanding of hypos. There's a version for people with diabetes, parents/guardians of children with type 1, children with type 1 diabetes, teachers and HCPs.
  

Sugars may take a while to come down if they have been very high. And sometimes our bodies work against us by "helpfully" relesing sugar into our system in times of stress.

Hi and welcome @KiwiInOz

The figure of 111 that you quoted sounds a bit off to me. mmol/l don't come in those units... So I would check with your doc (do you have online access to your test results in Oz?).

Blood glucose measurements come in different units, depending on where in the world you are, and whether you are testing the HbA1c (averge over time fig) or the fingerprick (snapshot in time fig).

The chart below helps me to keep things straight, because it compares how the different units relate to each other.

Hi Sharyn, well done on the finger pricking! Monitoring really is the way forward to getting your bg down.

When you record what you eat to measure carbs are you weighing and including everything? Even non carby things like salad and milk in tea and coffee. I was pre diabetic and consume between 70 to 80 gms carbs a day with eating no obvious carbs like bread, rice, etc., when I started I was lower though to get my bg down.

Hi and welcome @KiwiInOz
You are doing everything right don't worry. It takes a little time to get the numbers to come down so give all the changes you have made a chance to take effect. As others have said pee strips are a notoriously bad way to measure anything to do with Type 2. A lot will depend on your level of hydration as well as what you had eaten.
You are most welcome to the forum.

KiwiInOz said:

Thanks everyone, especially for the links for more reading. And yes I am in Australia but this forum seems to be the most active and has the best info so I hoped you wouldn't mind me interloping.

I went to the chemist and bought a blood glucose monitor. Took me an hour to prick myself - that is so unnatural. I didn't have a monitor because I'm extremely needle phobic!

So I've done my first blood test 9.3 mmol/L This is pre-lunch so I hadn't eaten for 4.5 hours. I'll test again in 1.5 hours which will be 2 hours after eating. I guess this is still too high but much better than yesterday.

I'll read the 101 links and Daisy's advice and links.

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

Cheers
Sharyn

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Interloper? Join the club. (English isn't even my first language, but the Dutch forums are generally just not... You know... Helpful. Clinging to the EatWell plate and such.) It'll be a little while before your numers come down, so this is the important bit: If your numbers, whatever they may be before eating, don't rise more than 2 mmol/l when you test again two hours later, your meal was right for you. If it goes up more, then it was too carby. And when you're just starting out, your liver thinks that high is good, because that's all it knows. So if you drop sometimes to where you want to be, it very helpfully dumps some glucose into your bloodstream, pushing the numbers back up. It's a gradual process to teach the little b*gger to do a bit less of that, but it will happen. Then it'll just be dawn phenomenon, when it very helpfully gives you a little glucose in the morning to give you the energy to start the day. Mine's still convinced that's a good idea, as for many others, so don't panic if everything's finally going right, and in the a.m. you're still hitting sixes. It's normal.

I know it feels very unnatural to jab yourself, (used to make my skin crawl and the hairs in the back of my neck stand up) but after a while you really get used to it. AND, once you know what meals spike you and which don't, you don't have to test all that often. It's just in the beginning, when you don't know what a certain meal will do to your numbers, that it's a regular thing. Some of us still test 8 times a day or so... But for me, I was paying 1000 euro's a year in test strips, as my insurance only covers 40 euro's worth of them. So now I only test when I'm experimenting with foods, or am ill, or feeling off for an unknown reason. I can go weeks without testing, and then doing 10 in a day. It kinda helps that I usually eat the same foods when I'm at home (eggs, salads, meat and veggies), so I don't have to check much: those meals already passed the tests. Literally. Could be the same for you.

You're on the right track here. And good on ya for using a needle!

KiwiInOz said:

Thanks everyone, especially for the links for more reading. And yes I am in Australia but this forum seems to be the most active and has the best info so I hoped you wouldn't mind me interloping.

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I'm also in Australia @KiwiInOz & no-one has objected thus far! Worst they can do is banish us to the colonies right

Hi Kiwi, I'm in Aussie too. Nobody has given me any stick so far. You're almost a carbon copy of me 3 years ago. Only diagnosed 3 weeks ago so those numbers will take a few more weeks on average to stabilise at acceptable levels. Providing of course you don't go dining out on bread rolls for lunch.. Definitely get a BG meter. These too are only accurate to about 15% but a whole lot better than urine tests.

Good luck
Glenn
( One day we'll get that Bledisloe back from you )

Looking at your signature @KiwiInOz - you're off to a flying start

You'll get there, for sure!

Just keep doing low carb and the results will follow. It can take several months but it is worth persevering.

Don't feel down, you made a start and have now taken another step towards improving your health, getting bg under control. Don't forget that you have 8 fingers with two sides plus thumbs to use for prick testing. You will find that using the same finger repeatedly makes it sore, and some fingers are easier to use than others. Keep a note of what you have eaten too and that will show what is causing raised bg.