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Shortbread

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Hi there everyone!

This looks like a great place to find information and support. I have just been told I am type 2 this week and even though I had an intense feeling that would be the outcome of my tests, it is still a lot to take in.

I'm feeling okay now and have psyched myself up over the weekend to start making some real changes!
My Blood sugars have been at 10.8 ish on both blood tests I have had done, and doctor said medication would be required! I have managed to get the doctor to agree to about 2 months without medication to see if I can turn it around by changing what and when I eat , and to get rid of quite a bit of excess weight!

I feel positive I can do this, but know that if the symptoms........being ultra thirsty, going to the toilet 5 times through the night and being totally knackered don't change then I will have to submit and take the the medication!

So anyone any tips on how to do this best?

Much appreciated , :D

Shortbread xx
 
hya shortbread and welcome,
my advice would be to cut out on sugar and cut down on carbs, buy a carb counter book,collins do a great pocket size one and test,test,test to see what foods do what to your bloods :D
 
Hi Shortbread
New on here myself but found this place to be the fountain of knowledge.
If you can't find what you are looking for in the forums just ask - someone will know the answer (although I'm still waiting for a reply to " what is the meaning of life " :) )
 
Hi Shortbread,

10.8mmol is pretty high so its not surprising your doc wants you on meds. You were pretty lucky to get a 2 month reprieve so you need to make the most of it. There are different options that you can follow: low-carb, reduced carb, low GI. But if you are going to make a real change in that short a time then it will need a radical change in your diet.

No sugar has already been mentioned, but you need to look for sugar in the unexpected places. Most processed foods have a very high sugar content. Also breakfast juices, even milk contains lactose which is a sugar. Most supermarkets now sell lactose-free milk - tastes exactly the same as ordinary milk but a bit dearer.

But sugar is not the biggest culprit in raising blood sugar. It is carbohydrates that do the most damage, particularly the starches which are wheat products (cereals, bread, pasta), rice and potatoes. If you really want to lower your blood sugar levels then you will need to reduce your consumption of these starchy foods.

For breakfast, rather than cereals or toast, have eggs (scrambled, boiled, fried, poached), bacon, mushrooms, tomato - none of these will spike your BS. If you really can't do without bread then use a low-carb version like Burgen, Weightwatchers or Nimble (each has around half the carbs per slice that "normal" bread has).

For lunch, try a salad. If you like fish then an oily one like mackerel or salmon will not only help reduce your BS but will also lower your cholesterol.

For evening meal any meat, poultry, fish, but have with it a very small portion of potatoes but loads of leafy veg.

As has been suggested the Collins Little Gem Carb Counter book is a great help and will show you within each of the food types which are the ones to avoid.

Hope that helps but if you have any questions please fire away.
 
Aadrgon said:
Hi Shortbread
New on here myself but found this place to be the fountain of knowledge.
If you can't find what you are looking for in the forums just ask - someone will know the answer (although I'm still waiting for a reply to " what is the meaning of life " :) )
Click to expand...

41 ?
 
Dear Ardrgon,
I though everyone knew the answer is 42
 
Hi again,

Thank you everyone for your support and replies. Your very detailed and thoughtful reply is much appreciated Dennis!!! I knew there was the demon hidden sugars, but hadnt really realised that it was going to be such a drastic change.

I am a junk eater, I will quite happily much away on pizza, fish and chips, curries, chocolate, cakes and crisps. Thats not to say I dont enjoy fruit, vegetables and salad, but I guess I have just over indulged and now Im left with the consequences. Does anyone actually eat the odd bits of the forbidden food?? Or does being a diabetic , type 2 with blood suagr at 10.8 mean I will forever have to be a good girl and not have some pleasures in my life.

I once did a low carb diet and lost a few pounds, and though it was difficult, I did get into the mindset, I guess I just need to revist that place and get my head in gear and accept my reality and stop with the avoidance..........Im a counsellor, so you would think I would know how to do that without whinging haha!!!

I guess many of us have a hard time adjusting to the changes, but I am looking forward to a slimmer, healthier body.................I think lol x
 
Hi Shortbread,

You're welcome. Alongside getting your blood sugar levels reduced, particularly if you take the low-carb route, will be weight loss, and once the weight comes off not only will you feel much fitter but it will also reduce insulin resistance. Once the insulin resistance is lower then that means that your body's own insulin is better able to deal with whatever carbs you throw at it, and it is at that stage that you can gradually start to re-introduce some of the "forbidden fruits". But just gradually or you could just end up back where you started!
 
Hi again,

Hello my name is Caroline and I am a Carboholic lol

I have been off the sugary, cakes and biscuits etc since Sunday and have to say I am sleeping better already! Normally I am up 3-5 times through the night for the toilet, but have more or less been sleeping straight through since I said good bye to the forbidden chocs and cakes etc! However I did notice on Wednesday I had a bowl of pasta and was up to the toilet twice through the night............so I guess its just a process of elimination game eh???


I really want to try the low carb diet, but feel I need to get the lack of sugar items withdrawals out of the way first! Plus I keep hearing from diabetics that I should be doing high carb cause their doc said its the right way to control blood sugar??? Whats all that about??

Bonus is I have dropped another couple of pounds, but not sure if thats still a symptom or a reaction to me not eating any cakes etc??

Hope you are all well?
 
I keep hearing from diabetics that I should be doing high carb cause their doc said its the right way to control blood sugar??? Whats all that about??
Click to expand...

Wish I knew the answer to that one! I've yet to meet a diabetic that could control their blood sugar on a high carb. diet. It's not just impossible, it's downright illogical.

All the best,

fergus
 
Hi Caroline,

Good to see that you are already proving to yourself the difference that reducing carbs makes. As you reduce the carbs also generally you will find that you lose weight, and you will feel a lot fitter and have more energy. Unfortunately the dietary information given by many GPs (not all) is terribly out of date. For many years now the official recommendation for a "healthy diet" has been to eat plenty of carbohydrates with every meal. No consideration was ever given to the diet for a diabetic being any different.

But if you look at this logically, it is carbohydrates that your body converts into the glucose that is stored as blood sugar. As diabetics we have a condition that makes it difficult to convert that sugar into energy, and we end up with very high BS levels. So any advice that we should eat more carbs, and so create even more blood sugar, is plainly ludicrous. In the BNF (the British National Formulary - the doctors "bible" for treatments) it clearly states that doctors should recommend to newly diagnosed type-2s to reduce carbs and increase exercise. Unfortunately it seems to be a part of the BNF that some doctors appear not to have read.

So I'm afraid the information that some of your friends have been given by their GPs is very out of date and certainly not in line with current thinking on diabetes control.
 
Hi Caroline,

good for you to find this site! I think it will help you find the best way to control your condition! I was only diagnosed about 6 weeks ago and after finding this and a few other websites, reduced my carb intake dramatically. I eliminated all pasta, rice, potatoes, bread and cereals for a while and my sugars dropped within a weel from 14-16 down to 6-8.5 and then in another week 4-6.9 and that's where I stay now most of the time. I am also taking metformin 500 mg twicw daily and that seems to help with reducing my appetite. :D

So low carbing seems to be the way for me, I feel so much better and feel I'm eating proper food too. I'm not the strictest low carber though, I still eat sweet potatoes and carrots a few times a week but less than before. I also have started reintroducing some carbs into my diet like Burgen soya and linseed bread (1 slice only), dreamfields pasta (occasionally only) and very occasional chip. These amounts have had no spikin effect on my sugars so will happily carry on. But I have tested before, 1hr and 2 hours after eating to ensure there is no huge spikes. I am also carboholic so I'm having to be very mindful of starches. It would be very easy for me to slip back to my carbladen days... :oops:
 
Unfortunately there are Doctors and diabetic nurses who seem to think advising diabetics to eat carb is the right approach probably because they are not diabetic themselves.

Fortunately there is this site where there is useful dietry advice which works and suprisingly enough a lot of it comes from diabetics :)
 
Aadrgon said:
Unfortunately there are Doctors and diabetic nurses who seem to think advising diabetics to eat carb is the right approach probably because they are not diabetic themselves.
Click to expand...

They are conned by the advice from drug manufacturers and charities financed by carb pushers into believing that all Type 2s will inevitably decline, and that a low fat diet protects against heart disease (which it manifestly doesn't)

When they see what happens to people who follow their advice it isn't surprising that they have such a pessimistic view. Prove them wrong!
 
Hello again all!!!

Well I saw the diabetic nurse and she put me straight on to the medication, I have to work my way up to 3x daily over the next 3 weeks!! I was kinda shocked as the doctor has said I would be given 6-8 weeks to try sort it myself, so was not amused when she told me I needed to be on them!!!

I guess so be it, no point crying over spilled milk, or in my case too many cans of pepsi!!!! lol

I just feel a wee bit deflated now as I had been motivated to go low carb and eat less carbs as I knew losing weight would keep me on track for bringing my BS down.........so then I battled with the ahhh well im on the tabs, I will just not bother, however I have talked myself round and will venture into low carb territory!! I want to lose 25 stone by June..............is this realistic??? lol :roll:


Hope everyone is well xx
 
Hi Caroline,

Sounds like the medication is metformin, which is the standard initial treatment for diabetes and is normally started at a low dose which is then increased over a few weeks. What metformin does is to reduce insulin resistance, which helps your body's insulin work more efficiently in dealing with blood sugar. It also stops the liver from over-producing unwanted glucose (a problem that is very common in type 2 diabetes). So the tablets certainly won't do you any harm and in fact might get to to your target of reduced BS and reduced weight a bit quicker. Unlike most other diabetes treatments, metformin does not encourage weight gain.

But, whatever you do, don't assume that the pills will take care of it so you don't need to do anything. If you stick to the plan of a low carb diet then you get your blood sugar under control and you will lose weight (I suspect you didn't really mean 25 stone by June though!!).
 
I tend to favour the approach, which is much commoner in the States, of throwing handfuls of meds at the disease initially in order to get your BG in line quickly. You then need to be careful to reduce them quickly enough as the dietary changes then have much more effect, which sometimes doesn't happen and people end up hypoing.

I've seen many cases where medications can be rapidly reduced and even discarded later. Not using them in the first place just means that the process takes longer and is harder.
 
A lifetime's experience of the UK medical system.

At the age of 23 I was involved in a motor accident and banged my head. 2 days later I had an epileptic seizure.
I was bundled off to hospital in an ambulance where I was told that the accident had caused me to become epileptic and put on phenytoin.
Any time I missed my medication, I would have a seizure.
After 15 years (the internet had arrived) I did some research and discovered than one of the withdrawal symptoms of phenytoin was to CAUSE seizures.
My doctor's comment was "well, what can you do. If you stop taking them you'll have seizures".
I embarked on a regime of reducing the dose over three years form 3 tablets a day to 1/2 tablet every other day. Then I stopped completely.
18 years down the road and all is well. A key benefit included the return of my memory and who knows what damage to organs has been avoided.

At the age of 51 I was diagnosed with high cholesterol and put on statins. The side-affects of this drug are even worse than phenytoin.
I did some research...
It seemed that a Vitamin B3 substance (niacin) had been discovered to have a positive effect on blood cholesterol levels. I also learned that the total cholesterol level is pretty irrelevant and that it was the ratio of HDL to LDL that was actually important. HDL clears LDL from the system. Each molecule of HDL can remove 3 molecules of LDL. Therefore provided the HDL level is at least 25% of the total cholesterol things weren't too bad. Higher HDL also enables the body to remove any LDL that has built up over time.
The doctor had not mentioned any of this to myself.
I experimented with niacin and after 3 months taking 1.5grams of niacin each night before going to sleep I obtained a cholesterol level of HDL=2.56 and LDL=3.45 (total 6.6 including 1.3 trigs) which represented an HDL ratio of 38.79%.
My doctor was delighted with the results until I told him how I achieved them. His only response was "well, I think you should keep taking the statins anyway".

At the age of 52 I was diagnosed as diabetic, type 2.
The doctor suggested various options and procedures all of which I declined. I explained that I would do my own research and see where that got me.
I dramatically reduced my carbohydrate intake and immediately obtained excellent HbA1c results. However, I was generally tired and losing weight (I am 6 ft and weighed 13 stone, so not over-weight).
When my weight fell below 12 stone I began to look at other things and discovered the benefits of various vitamins in improving insulin sensitivity. I tried various vitimins and was eventually able
to increase my carbohydrate intake to between 30 and 45 grams for each of the main meals plus a mid morning and mid afternoon of 15 grams each (typically a piece of fruit) which has halted my weight loss.
My HbA1c has been between 5.7 and 5.9 for the last 4 tests (2 years), and all my doctor can say is "You're doing a good job but you must understand that it WILL deteriorate and you will eventually need to go on insulin".

Mind boggling !
 
That was an inspirational message to me Milly, I look forward to seeing what others think about your story. My weight loss has slowed down, and my bgs won´t go below 6 on a regular basis, I have other medical problems, perhaps my morphine patch isn´t actually helping me at all, I will use the internet to try and research where I am going wrong, but feel such a thicko compared to everyone else.
 
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