Hello There & Some Background...

[Babbinel]

Hi there

I'm a 37yr old male living in North West England. I hold a postgraduate (Masters) degreee and am an IT professional by trade. Hi all!

I've signed up to this forum after a good old browse, because it appears to be a very helpful community, so I took the plunge and signed up.

A few weeks ago I suffered a stabbing which resulted in a 7cm puncture to my liver, the hospital gave me a full laparotomy (pubis to sternum) to pack me and stop some serious internal bleeding. I spent time in ICU where it was noticed that my blood glucose was consistently >15. The hosp then started regular urine and blood testing. Ketones were regularly high in my urine and blood glucose fluctuating between 10 and 16. They put me on sliding scale IV insulin.

For nearly 2 weeks after discharge there was no further action taken with regard to the suspected diabetes.

Last week I attended the specialist diabetic clinic for the first time and they prescribed me Gliclazide and advised me about diet etc.... (I tend to eat healthily anyway) my vices were boozing and smoking (which, since the incident have been nipped in the bud). The diabetic centre are unable to diagnose accurately what the condition is as the liver injury and laparotomy and have suggested something called: Stress Hypoglycemia.

Before the incident (for about 2 months) I have been incredibly dehydrated at night and displaying other symptoms of diabetes including; distrorted vision (after trails and blurring) and frequent urination. At the time, I put this down to drinking (alcohol) as I was drinking more, my excuse was the warmer weather and the fact that a Vodka and Schweppes Ruschian is incredibly refreshing (honest).

That's my background, and the reason I've joined this site is because I'm going to have many many questions arise from my situation. The first questions I'm thinking of are:

1: If I had type 2 diabetes before the incident, would the stress hypoglycemia increase the severity of the diabetes (if there is such a thing or effect)?
2: If I didn't have it before, is it likely that the stress hypoglecemia would lead to diabetes?
3: How serious is it if the diabetes and stress hypoglycemia act adversely together?
4: Is there likely to be any permanent damage so far to my sight? (it's one of the best things I had going for me - lol)

Im not back to the diabetic clinic for a week or so, but even then, they are saying that it's going to be a while yet before they can do further tests because my physical wounds haven't healed. So I'm not really going to get any definate answers anytime soon.

I'm frightened to death and very emotional at the minute and I'm hoping that some answers might come from you guys, I have a blood glucose monitor and even now that I'm taking the gliclazide I'm fluctuating between 6.6 at the lowest but up to 15 still. Food and mealtimes doesn't appear to be a factor, my highest readings seem to be first thing in the morning before breakfast.

Anyway, thanks in advance for your welcome advice and support......

Cheers people!

 

[Synonym]

Hello Babbinel and welcome to the forum.

You really have been through the mill, what a horror story! :shock:

It will take a while before everything settles down and you can get a complete picture so you will need to be patient and not stress too much about things as that in itself won't help you.

Q1. In my own humble opinion it would put your numbers up.
Q2. No idea - no medical qualifications.
Q3. No idea- no medical qualifications.
Q4. We are all different so there is no telling but all the work you can do to get your numbers down may well help to mitigate any damage.

You may have seen the 'Advice to newly diagnosed T2s' which is often posted on here by Ken and/or Sue, our Forum Monitors, but just in case you haven't I will paste it below as, if you follow that advice carefully, it will really help you.

This is a brilliant resource so do have a really good around the various threads and ask anything you need to ask.

Hope you get better really quickly.

Welcome to the forum. here is the advice we usually give to newly diagnosed type 2 diabetics.This forum doesn't always follow the recommended dietary advice, you have to work out what works for you as we are all different .

It's not just 'sugars' you need to avoid, diabetes is an inability to process glucose properly. Carbohydrate converts, in the body, to glucose. So it makes sense to reduce the amount of carbohydrate that you eat which includes sugars.

The main carbs to avoid or reduce are the complex or starchy carbohydrates such a bread, potatoes, pasta and rice also any flour based products. The starchy carbs all convert 100% to glucose in the body and raise the blood sugar levels significantly.

The way to find out how different foods affect you is to do regular daily testing and keep a food diary for a couple of weeks. If you test just before eating then two hours after eating you will see the effect of certain foods on your blood glucose levels.

Buy yourself a carb counter book (you can get these on-line) and you will be able to work out how much carbs you are eating, when you test, the reading two hours after should be roughly the same as the before eating reading, if it is then that meal was fine, if it isn’t then you need to check what you have eaten and think about reducing the portion size of carbs.

When you are buying products check the total carbohydrate content, this includes the sugar content. Do not just go by the amount of sugar on the packaging as this is misleading to a diabetic.

As for a tester, try asking the nurse/doctor and explain that you want to be proactive in managing your own diabetes and therefore need to test so that you can see just how foods affect your blood sugar levels. Hopefully this will work ! Sometimes they are not keen to give Type 2’s the strips on prescription, (in the UK) but you can but try !!

As a Type 2 the latest 2010 NICE guidelines for Bg levels are as follows:
Fasting (waking).......between 4 - 7 mmol/l.
2 hrs after meals......no more than 8.5 mmol/l.
If you are able to keep the post meal numbers lower, so much the better.

It also helps if you can do 30 minutes moderate exercise a day. It doesn't have to be strenuous.