Hello World

Hi @Bexninja and welcome to the forum.
Your diet and exercise will be the two main reasons why your blood sugars will eventually drop rather than the medication. Metformin will lower it slightly but do not rely on it alone to get the levels down.

I will tag @daisy1 to give you some basic information that will help you understand.

Hello and welcome @Bexninja. This is a super website with friendly, supportive people. I'm sure someone will help with answers but I just came to say hello.

Hi Bexninja, Firstly welcome to this site, believe me you are in the best place here, plenty of friendly people on here with lots of advice and support. We all have diabetes and have high readings too. This my story to you I was diagnosed in Jan this year with a reading of 19.3, started Metformin 500mg 1 daily for first week increased to 2 second week. This is what happened to my BG readings started the LCHF diet straight away a bit more walking instead of in the car all the time. lots of willpower and mainly the support of the website, lot though. s of advice and support.
After 1st week BG readings down to 14s
Second week 10s and 12s
Third week 8s and 9s
and so on everyone is different though This wek 7th week 4s 5s and 6s

@Bexninja Welcome to the Club I'm only 3 months into my T2 journey, so I am not sure that I am the best person to advise you, but there a lots of people who will give you some great pointers. There is a chart floating about the forums called 50 Shades of Diabetes, its great, gives a great indication of where your levels are at...

Good luck to you. we are here to support you

@Bexninja - Hello and Welcome to the Forum.. As catherinecherub has already stated Diet and Exercise will have more effect on blood sugars. Metformin takes time to build up in your system, and may take a couple of months to reach it's full effect, so please be patient and take it daily as prescribed.

@Bexninja - If you are not sure about anything? Just post a question - someone will answer - you will probably get a few replies. We are all helpful to each other

@Bexninja

Hello Bex and welcome to the forum Here is the information we give to new members which should help you with the diet aspects of your diabetes care and other things in general. Ask lots of questions as there is always someone here to answer.

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 over 150,000 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-and-whole-grains.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

LOW CARB PROGRAM:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/low carb program


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 bloodglucose 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.

Bexninja said:

Hello @paula.nolan42 - thanks for the support - I shall check out the dubiously sounding 50 shades of diabetes right away!

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Hi @Bexninja and welcome to the forum. In case you didn't find the 50 Shades of Diabetes, here it is:

@Bexninja Well most people on here who self test do it first thing in the morning, then before eating and then two hours after eating. Some do it at one hour and then two hours after eating, to establish which foods raise their BGs more so they can cut them out.
Personally speaking I only test first thing in the morning, so I can't say whether there is a downside. I would think that possibly sore fingers might be one. I didn't want to become too obsessed with testing, but if my HbA1c is still 42 or over at my 12 month retest in August I might start testing after meals too.
I don't think it will be though.

Bexninja said:

Hi Everyone,

Was recently diagnosed with Type 2 (on Monday) after being sent to A&E by my GP for suspected appendicitis and a blood glucose level of 20 mmol/L. Fortunately the appendicitis was nothing (well, nothing important anyway) and the BGL went down to 12.2 mmol/L, so they let me out yesterday with a confirmed diagnosis of diabetes, a nifty sharp pokey pen and a blood-sucking machine, and a bag-a-drugs (metformin 500 mg twice daily and gliclazide 40 mg once daily).

My father has diabetes, poorly controlled, so I always diligently got my blood sugar levels checked every year, and -thought- I was doing okay diet-wise (although I am definitely overweight and I eat A LOT of the bad stuff), so it's been a bit of a shock - if not entirely unexpected if I'm totally honest.

Hoping being here will give me a kick up the backside to lose the weight and start being properly healthy (instead of kidding myself that eating a croissant is fine because I just walked down six flights of stairs)...

Do have a couple of questions though, and I don't know if this is the right place to do it - my blood glucose level has stayed resolutely in the double digits, and (even though I've only been taking the drugs for about 24 hours) the meds don't seem to be doing anything at all so far. So my questions (so far) are as follows:

- How long does it usually take for the meds to kick in?
- Is a BGL of 12 - 15 mmol/L ridiculously high? When I was admitted to hospital nearly every health professional repeated '20' in the most incredulous fashion that it's kinda making me panic now about not being able to get it anywhere near normal, even when I was fasting in the hospital...

Thanks to anyone who is kind enough to answer
Bex

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Hi....I was diagnosed january 27th, my BGL was 30.6 to start off with, i was like you just eating a load of bad stuff, but it's given me a kick up the backside, i cut out the carbs/junk food and lost 1 and a half stone
now my BGL is between 5 and 6ish still got a long way to go before i'm deemed healthy but losing the weight has given me the will power to keep it up . 12-15 mmol/L is not ridiculously high compared to how i started lol but if i can do it anyone can and i'm lazy lool

Bexninja said:

Hi @amgrundy, and thanks for the answer - I guess I should stop panicking a little then and just get on with it - it does certainly help to get some rough comparisons or time frames

Hello @paula.nolan42 - thanks for the support - I shall check out the dubiously sounding 50 shades of diabetes right away!

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I panicked at first cause i was stressed going food shopping getting annoyed with myself walking past loadsa things i couldn't eat, but i'm eating heathly now and don't miss all the junk, i have the occasional treat though like a choc biscuit maybe once a week

Bexninja said:

Thanks @daisy1 and @Prem51 - much appreciated!

Just wondering though, at the moment I'm checking my blood glucose level about 4 - 5 times a day to try and work out my pattern, get more info, etc. Apart from swapping the pinprick locations, is there anything I need to be doing? Am I checking too often and is there a downside to checking too many times? I don't think there is (from my Google-Fu anyway) but checking with people who, you know, actually know would be handy

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I test before and 2 hours after breakfast and dinner, i did start a food diary noting down befores and afters but it got a bit tedious so just type my BGL's in my phone now lol

Prem51 said:

Hi @Bexninja and welcome to the forum. In case you didn't find the 50 Shades of Diabetes, here it is:

View attachment 17905

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Thanks Prem

Hi - test before and 2.5 hours after meal/new food (levels should be similar unless carbs too high); record meal, pre and post readings and time (gives you reference to spot patterns and to show doctors your progress); 2 litres of fluid per day; and none of the following - bread, spuds, cereal, pasta, rice etc etc.; check labels for carbs of less than 10g per 100g (ie. low carbs); you will get to reasonable levels and feel way more in control; research, ask..inform yourself....but your strictness of approach (and your meter) are the best weapons to employ. Good luck.