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purplehippo_dog

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Hi, my name is Fiona, I hit 40 in july just gone. I have four kids with which i have had gestational diabetes, the first two controlled just by diet, and the last two, diet and insulin. I now have diabetes which i expected. I visit the nurse every three months, and am really not finding her very helpful on stuff in comparrison to the diabetic clinic at the hospital that i attended in 2003 and 2004. I hope I would be able to get a few questions answered on here. I have recently gone up to three 500mg metformin a day and find that they don't seem to be having any affect at all. My blood sugars are ranging between 12 and 19 most of the time. I have not had any normal levels. Coupled with this my stomach has swollen so i look like i am nine months pregnant!(which i am not!) I keep getting pins and needles in my fingers too and itching occassionally like i have fleas. My mouth is full of mouth ulcers to, and at times I am so tired and ratty, but i do not get low sugars. Not sure if any of those are related to the diabetes. Also, i presume i am a type 2? I have four kids, and a large dog, and exercise like a nut, and my levels are still not normal. What usually happens when it has gone up to four tablets, if it is still not working?
 
Hi Fiona, welcome to the forum.
I hope that we can help you. Can you give us some idea of an average daily food intake that you eat to see if we can make any suggestions that will help you get your blood sugar levels down.
 
hi sue thankyou. Yeah, to be honest i am a diabolical eater!! I was eating an evening meal only, with two tablets. It would be for example, pasta,veg and chicken,. Now with the third tablet i force a breakfast down my throat, usually cereal, weetabix or porridge. I also consume large amounts of coffee throughout the day, but without sugar.
 
Hi Fiona,
The best idea with diabetes is to eat at least three times a day even if you do not eat a lot at each meal. This keeps your blood sugars more even during the day especially if you do exercise a lot as your tend to ' liver dump' .
The first thing is to try and reduce your carbohydrate intake a bit, Bread ,potatoes, pasta and rice and all flour based products are starchy carbs which convert 100% into glucose in the body.
Try and cut these down to start with and see what affect this has on your blood sugar levels.
Keep a food diary for a week and record the food you eat,the blood sugar level before the meal and two hours after you have eaten. This will show you what effect the foods that you are eating is having on your blood sugar levels.
Get yourself a carb counter book and work out just how many carbs you are eating. Aim to get down to 100gm per day to start with. Then, if you can, reduce this a bit further until your blood sugar levels are down to at least the NICE guidelines or even lower if you can.

As a T2 the NICE 2009 guidelines for a Diabetic are as follows:
Fasting (waking) ................between 4 - 7 mmol/l.
2 hrs after meals................no more than 8.5 mmol/l.

I know it sounds daunting but, taken step by step, it is possible to reduce your levels and this will help with many of the other problems you have as well.
 
this is fantastic, thankyou. i found with the gestational diabetes and the support i had it was really easy to manage. Now i zoom about, and on metformin, it feels strange to deal with, and the support at the docs is not as good, every three months. I have never carb counted but will definitely give it a go. My evening meal is eaten at around four o'clock with the kids. and my sugars upon waking recently were between nine.six and sometimes after i had walked the kids to school and got home before eating were about 15. I will definitely just start eating three meals now to see if that can even it out, and try the carb counting. I definitely eat smaller portions of carbs than i used to. Thankyou again.
 
Hi,

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis diabetes. I'm a Type 2 who was diagnosed nearly nine years ago. Despite that I have no problems and I've just recently normalised my blood glucose levels by changing my diet.

Your blood glucose levels are very high you need to get them down. As others have alreaady said, the best way to start is to cut back on the starchy carbohydrate that you eat - i.e. cereals, bread, potatoes, rice and pasta. Doing that usually leads to a very dramatic improvement in the levels. Starchy carbohydrates turn into sugar almost as soon as they enter your body.

A lot of the things that you described sound like symptoms that come along with high blood glucose levels.

You'll get a lot of help from people on this forum. Just ask whatever questions you feel that you need answers to.

Best wishes - John
 
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