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Michael19781969

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Type of diabetes
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Good morning. I recently had a blood test where my A1c reading came back as abnormal when asked I was informed it was 63 which I’ve been told by a friend with type 2 diabetes that is very high.
I have heart condition and breathing difficulties and usually genuinely feel lethargic tired and I urinate a lot. Problem I have is on my doctors notes it says no further action needed and I am not so sure that’s the case I think I should be on medication.
 

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Michael19781969 said:
Good morning. I recently had a blood test where my A1c reading came back as abnormal when asked I was informed it was 63 which I’ve been told by a friend with type 2 diabetes that is very high.
I have heart condition and breathing difficulties and usually genuinely feel lethargic tired and I urinate a lot. Problem I have is on my doctors notes it says no further action needed and I am not so sure that’s the case I think I should be on medication.
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Hi and welcome to the forum. Your HbA1c reading puts you in the "officially diabetic" camp (anything over 48 does that) and you are reporting symptoms that sound to me like diabetes. A reading of 63 is therefore higher than it should be but there are many people on these forums who were diagnosed with much higher readings than yours and sorted things out very quickly - often without using medication.

If you want to do something about your blood sugar levels (and if I was you I would) then a low carb lifestyle can reduce your levels very quickly without medication. It worked a treat for me and you'll find many examples in the "Success Story" section on this forum. Here's my advice:

Forget and unlearn the official "healthy" eating advice which recommends basing meals on starchy carbohydrate. Calories are not central - carb intake is.

Get yourself a blood glucose meter and test before and two hours after a meal. You're looking for rises of less than 2 (mmol/litre) and nothing above 7.9. The rise is caused by your system being unable to cope with carbohydrate - that's why we have diabetes.

Cut out the (carb) foods that are associated with unacceptable rises. These are likely to be bread, pastry, rice, potatoes and other root vegetables, pasta, fruit, sugar, etc. As our systems are all a bit different in how we respond the impacts of the source carbs may vary. Pastry and potatoes have a huge impact on my system, for example.

I aim to take in around 20g of carbs over a day. This keeps my blood sugars in the low normal range (36-38 on HbA1c) and incidentally has taken off about 45lbs in the last two years. I can honestly say I 've never been hungry - my eating is based on plenty of meat, dairy, eggs, green veg etc.

I have a post on my blog about what helped me in my first year after diagnosis - you might find something useful in it.

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog/kennya.517579/

Best of luck. This forum is a great source of advice and support.
 
Michael19781969 said:
Problem I have is on my doctors notes it says no further action needed
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Hi @Michael19781969 , welcome to the forum.
Apart from the things you can do yourself to improve your numbers, I would contact your doctor to ask him why he didn't tell you you have diabetes.
Getting officially diagnosed is important, because it means you will get regular diabetic eye, feet and kidney tests, as diabetes gives you a higher risk of issues with them.
 
Hi @Michael19781969 and welcome to the forum.

Like @KennyA I too reversed my T2 Diabetes into remission by just changing what I ate (no medication) without cutting calories. I did that because I was still on the borders of normal weight even though my weight had risen consistently over the decade of me so-called 'healthy' eating (low fat whole grain lots of fruit etc).
I no longer drink fruit juice (liquid sugar) and in fact don't eat any of what are thought of as 'fruits' apart from berries, rhubarb and avocado.
I just ate what my meter told me was good for me, yet despite not consciously cutting calories I lost 1/6 of my weight - it's back down to what it was in my 20's and I'm currently 71. I didn't have to go quite so low on carbs as Kenny, my highest intake of carbs being around 40gms of carbs per day and my lowest around 20gms.
 
Hi. Your GP sounds an idiot. That HBA1C means you are 'officially' diabetic and need diet advice and possibly meds. Normally you would be put onto Metformin which will help a bit. Have a low-carb diet (not low-calorie or low-fat). If you have online access to your surgery records check that 'Diabetes Mellitus' has been entered. You need that to trigger annual retinopathy eye checks
 
As others have said, get back on to them. I was diagnosed with type 2 just after Christmas with a HbA1C of 59. Have had kidney function and feet checks and am booked in for the retinopathy check. Offered metformin which I initially refused in favour of dietary changes and am about to have my repeat HbA1C.
 
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