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Wendy53

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Hi
My husband has recently been diagnosed diabetic type 11. I also have pre diabetes.
We are both struggling to come to terms with this.
We have started on a low card diet 30g a day after reading some of the information on here. we also have bought Dr Bernstein's Diabetes Solution and also Trick and Treat. The books have been quite useful. Just waiting for the Collins low carb book to arrive.
I feel so overwhelmed the diagnosis and so frightened of the future. I am thinking about diabetes all the time even dreaming about it.
Although we are following a low carb diet his blood sugars do not return to normal within 2 hours after eating. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Wendy
 
Hello Wendy and welcome to the forum. :D

There is great deal to get your head round so it isn’t surprising if you are feeling overwhelmed by everything BUT you have found a good site where there is lots of information and many people willing to help you. 8)

You sound as if you are gathering together all your tools and another tool you would benefit from is a meter and a prescription for testing strips. Tell your doctor that you want to be proactive in controlling the condition.

It is also a good idea to keep a food diary and you can note your meter readings by the food to help build up an overall picture of what you ought to avoid or cut down.

If you could tell us what you are eating then it will give us something to go on so that advice can be given.

It takes a little while to get to grips with it all but it is do-able. We have ALL been there!
:)
 
Hi
Thank you for your reply.
We already have the test strips and monitor. We are seeing the Dr on Monday and will be asking for more test strips. The nurse last week said we only need test once a week,aggghhh.
We have another problem in that we live in Spain, we have a lovely Dr though and I hope she will give us more test strips.
We have cut out bread potatoes rice pasta. Stopped eating fruit.
We are measuring the carbs in every thing we ear and having 6 carbs on a morning and 12 carbs for lunch and tea. We do not alway have as much carbs as this.
My husbands levels are not high but even after only 6 carbs they can increase by more than we expect.
Hope this is making sense

Wendy
 
Hello again Wendy, :)

Glad that you have got the meter and strips already as they will help if you use it to test before your meals and two hours afterwards. Not like your DN suggests! :roll:

What are you actually eating? 'Carbs' could mean anything. :?
 
Hi
We are eating eggs , cheese, some times bacon for breakfast. My husband eats sardines also.For lunch we r having chicken with lettuce cucumber red and green peppers. Dinner will be 6 oz steak with 100g broccoli cabbage or asparagus. I am wondering if it is the sugars in the veg that put his blood sugars up. We have stopped eating tomatoes as this sends hid BS high.
 
Hi Wendy,

Eating any carbohydrate will likely raise your blood glucose levels to some degree even when low carbing. What sort of levels are you worried about?

You sound to be spot on with everything that you are doing to combat your problems. I didn't need to go to such low level of carbohydrate intake as that to get my situation under control.

Good luck and best wishes to both of you.

John
 
Hi John
Thanks for your reply. My husbands BG levels are anything from 100 mmol to 150 sometimes as high as 170 mmol. I know this is not mega high I am concerned that the levels do not always come down 2 hours after food. They have definitly improved since we have reduced tha carbs but so much. Also struggling to find recipies.

Wendy
 
Hi Wendy.
Would you help us all here by converting your numbers before you post please. We use mmol/l in
the UK not mg/dl. You need to divide your numbers by 18 to convert. It saves all of us having to rush off for our calculators and lets us answer you more quickly. Thank you. :D

I have converted the numbers you are quoting for the benefit of other members.
100 mg/dl.......5.5 mmol/l
150...............8.3
170...............9.4

As you say not mega high by any means, mostly within the NICE guideline numbers for a T2.....maybe just tweak the carbs a little, maybe reduce the portion sizes.

Ken
 
As Ken says tweak the portion sizes. :)

How about the exercise side of things? You may well find that this will help to reduce the numbers.

Is weight a problem?
 
Hi Wendy,

Nothing tremendously bad in those numbers considering that you are early into sorting this thing out.

However, I'm just a little bit surprised that you mention numbers as high as the 170 mg/dl on a diet of only 30g per day - and with the carbohydrate being well spread out as you describe. However, the first thing I ever did in my improvement programme was to try to avoid numbers just like those.

In my opinion, the way to deal with things to get better control is after getting any result higher than you are happy with is to try to work out what caused the result to be high (usually something that you have eaten) - and then change what you do slightly in future to try to avoid it ever being that high again. It's a quite gradual process. In my experience, the numbers just keep getting lower and lower even after eighteen months.

Best wishes - John
 
Hi Ken
Thank you for your reply. I thought you were using these figures in the UK now. I will convert them in future.

Hi John
The higher Bg figure of 170 mmol 9.4mg was when we thought we were low carbing. Since then the figures are mainly reducing but we still get some surprises. We are keeping a record of how different foods affect us.

Hi synonym

We walk 4 miles twice week and as much as possible try to do half an hour exercise most days.
This is helping.
I am trying to lose weight have lost 10 lb in 2 weeks. My husband is nearly at his recommended weight. He is going to try weight training to see if that can help


Thank you all for your replies Hope it is Ok to reply on one page like this.

Wendy
 
Hello again Wendy, :)

You sound as if you have got a handle on this and hopefully it is now just a question of patience and plugging away at the food and exercise. 8)

We will be interested to hear how you get on. :D
 
Hi Synonym
I suppose it is just patience but never been good at that. At least the BG levels are coming down.
Thank you for your replies. Seems to be so much to learn.
I will let you know how things go

Wendy
 
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