Help needed, please

My husband and I are at our wits end trying to control my 85 year old father's insulin dependent diabetes since he had a stroke two years ago.

His BG ranges on a daily basis from 4 to 30+ and he is now in severe danger of blindness.

He insists on living alone and has problems with mild dementia and short-term memory loss. His entire life is dominated by routine - he is eating exactly the same food every day and refuses to change because it is 'what he normally eats.'

His daily diet, every day consists of porridge and skimmed milk for breakfast.
Three Ryvita with cheese dip for mid-morning snack.
A diabetic frozen meal and dessert delivered by a specialist company which he heats in the microwave (always either liver and bacon or beef casserole, both with vegetables)
Three Ryvita with cheese dip for evening meal.
Porridge with skimmed milk before bed.
Two clementines and a pear if he feels hungry in the meantime.

He won't eat bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, pulses etc because they are not what he normally eats.

He is getting on average two hypos a night, at which he has a small glass of lucozade and two choc-chip cookies.

His diabetic nurse or consultant can't get through to him as he instantly forgets what they have asked him to do. If they write it down, he ignores it. (He accuses them of not knowing what they are talking about!). He has twice been hospitalised for two weeks to stabilise his BG levels but comes out of hospital and immediately reverts back to his 'normal' diet.

We've tried cooking for him but the food just goes mouldy in the fridge.

Would welcome any suggestions - every day is becoming a battle ground as he can argue for England.

Hi sue,

He usually hits 30+ after dosing himself with lucozade and biscuits in the middle of the night to counter his hypos. (Because his BG readings are consistently high, he gets hypo symptoms at around 7 or 8.) He was at 23.7 this morning, before breakfast.

His diabetic nurse has asked him to take a sandwich to bed and eat that when he feels his BG beginning to drop. He won't do it, even if we make him a sandwich or buy in ready made.

We're stuck with the diabetic meals unfortunately. He's not in an area with meals on wheels and is only capable of heating something in a microwave. We use Wiltshire Farm Foods and, in fairness, their meals aren't sending his BG levels too high.

We are trying to get him to eat a more varied diet but failing dismally.

sugarless sue said:

Any possibility of substituting the lucozade for something lower sugar?This may help lower the morning level without taking him out of his routine.

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Not a hope in hell Lucozade is what he 'normally' has and any attempts at substitution create an absolute temper tantrum. The last time we tried it, he accused us of trying to kill him by not letting him have Lucozade to counter his hypos.

Forgot to mention in the initial post that his obsession with routine means he has to have his food at exactly the same time every day, to the minute.

He can have a BG in the high 20's but because it's time for food he eats, even if he isn't that hungry.

I did notice, sue and agree that Wiltshire Farm Foods are quite high in carbs. However, they are our only hope of getting a 'proper' meal into him at some stage during the day. He just isn't capable of fending for himself, even though he insists that he is.

When he accidentally missed the WFF delivery guy recently, we stocked up with a week's worth of supermarket ready meals for him. He refused to eat any of them, claiming ...wait for it... 'they weren't what he normally ate.' He then survived a whole week on nothing but Ryvita and cheese dip.

We've had Social Services involved, who want him to go into nearby a nursing home for a meal three times a week - he won't go. His diabetic nurse tries her best but he just either argues with everything she says or agrees to do exactly what she asks him to do and then ignores her as soon as he gets out of the diabetic clinic. His consultant has more or less washed his hands of him because he just will not co-operate in any way.

He recently had a foot ulcer, which took forever to heal. His diabetic nurse told him that if he didn't make some effort to control his BG, he would end up losing a limb and he's also been told that he is going blind - and has just been registered as partially sighted.

Incidentally, when he first had his stroke, we removed 108 packets of biscuits from his house. (This from a man who assures us he never eats biscuits unless he gets a hypo!)

We know we need professional help but where do we go for it? We've tried consultants, diabetic nurses and clinics, his GP, community psychaitric nurse, social services, a diabetic friend who has tried to help him...we're stuck