I think i am good

[flakey rascal]

I got my warning of prediabetes on 10th January at 44mmol. I was 16 stone, now down to 14 stone 7 lbs. I just recieved a 10 day trial from Dexcom. My reading is 6.1 mmol, so i think that is on a good range. Thanks to this forum i have learned so much.
I am looking forward to see what spikes i get with a sandwich. I am hoping it is good as i like an egg sandwich.

 

[flakey rascal]

A bit of a self congratulory title . I meant i think the rrading is good

 

[grantg]

nice weight loss there congrats have fun experimenting with various foods you probably will have a few surprises on effects of sugars in various formats have on ur bg, worth noting abbots do a free trial with libre sensor if want alittle bit more time to play around with (15day). pretty sure dexcom is 10day good luck

 

[Melgar]

Well done @flakey rascal

 

[KennyA]

I got my warning of prediabetes on 10th January at 44mmol. I was 16 stone, now down to 14 stone 7 lbs. I just recieved a 10 day trial from Dexcom. My reading is 6.1 mmol, so i think that is on a good range. Thanks to this forum i have learned so much.
I am looking forward to see what spikes i get with a sandwich. I am hoping it is good as i like an egg sandwich.

Well, you can expect a rise in BG if you eat carbs - in this case the bread in the sandwich - because that's what carbs do. It's not a spike in my book as it's perfectly normal and happens to everyone, non-diabetics included. The question will be how long the rise lasts, and what your BG level will be after two hours. And then you'll have to decide whether that's acceptable to you.

 

[flakey rascal]

Well, you can expect a rise in BG if you eat carbs - in this case the bread in the sandwich - because that's what carbs do. It's not a spike in my book as it's perfectly normal and happens to everyone, non-diabetics included. The question will be how long the rise lasts, and what your BG level will be after two hours. And then you'll have to decide whether that's acceptable to you.

I walked into town. For a bit of research, i had a Greggs sausage roll. I was 4.9 before i ate. It went to 6.9 and within 2 hours it was steadily climbing down to 5.5. 3 hours later i am at 5. I realise that Greggs is a bit of a waste, as there is little nutrition and not the best use of carbs. I was interested to see though. You never know when you get stranded on the M5 service station.

 

[flakey rascal]

worth noting abbots do a free trial with libre

I thought you were going to say a free trial with Abbotts Ale at first. I would be up for that

 

[grantg]

I thought you were going to say a free trial with Abbotts Ale at first. I would be up for that

too scared to try a little booze here at the moment lol feel free to have one one for me though

 

[Deleted member 596235]

I walked into town. For a bit of research, i had a Greggs sausage roll. I was 4.9 before i ate. It went to 6.9 and within 2 hours it was steadily climbing down to 5.5. 3 hours later i am at 5. I realise that Greggs is a bit of a waste, as there is little nutrition and not the best use of carbs. I was interested to see though. You never know when you get stranded on the M5 service station.

I may well have this wrong, and I'd be happy to stand corrected,
but from what I've read as a T2 newbie, occasional, irregular, and
not inordinately excessive spikes should not be a concern for T2s.
This is assuming that the spike doesn't remain so for an extended
period of time, and that BGLs return to "normal" based on one's usual,
acceptable parameters.

 

[flakey rascal]

I may well have this wrong, and I'd be happy to stand corrected,
but from what I've read as a T2 newbie, occasional, irregular, and
not inordinately excessive spikes should not be a concern for T2s.
This is assuming that the spike doesn't remain so for an extended
period of time, and that BGLs return to "normal" based on one's usual,
acceptable parameters.

I am new to this as well, so i am not sure. The app is set between 3.9 and 14 mmol , and warns me if too high or low. It was set at that by dexcom, although i think i can change it. I assumed they are acceptable ranges?
I had black bean stir fry with noodles. I was at 4.2, And went to 6.1 , and now dropping after an hour of eating to 5.9.
Too be honest, i was expecting the sausage roll to spike to 14 as i know they are not good for us. I also expected the noodles to really go up high as well, but so far , not too bad.. i have no idea if i still have some insulin that is helping me. The weight loss and heathier eating probably helps. When my mmol goes to normal, i am going to try a beer.

 

[grantg]

according to the the nurses notes in my book my range is 6-10 (starting range).
i'm presuming as i said out of range for a lot of the time the app was then changed currently my target range is set to 4.5-9.0 mmol/L

target range will be whatever your DSN has said and will be tailored to your needs and in the 4th page of the nordisk home monitoring diary

"you should aim to keep your pre-meal blood glucose in the range of: X
(target blood glucose range as agreed by you with your healthcare professional)

followed by 'post-meal target (2 hours after a meal or as agreed by youi with your healcare professional)

target range is likely to change.

low alarm 3.9 (under 4 considered hypo) high alarm 13.9, if blood glucose stays above 13.9 for couple of hours to do keytone test.

I have consultant appt in a couple of days, when expecting to be given a new 'target range' its not 1 range fits all prob as newly diagnosed possibly more 'leeway'

 

[KennyA]

I walked into town. For a bit of research, i had a Greggs sausage roll. I was 4.9 before i ate. It went to 6.9 and within 2 hours it was steadily climbing down to 5.5. 3 hours later i am at 5. I realise that Greggs is a bit of a waste, as there is little nutrition and not the best use of carbs. I was interested to see though. You never know when you get stranded on the M5 service station.

That would be acceptable to me in one sense in terms of BG, but it would seem to me to be a substantial rise for only a small bit of food, so not something I'd choose to do. You'll come to your own conclusions.

If you're going to test for beer, you need to note that alcohol will generally lower BG values. It seesm to do this by interfering with the liver adding glucose to your system. So you may get artificially low readings after alcohol, that don't reflect the carbs you've actually eaten. I don't usually bother testing at all if I've had any alcohol with food, as it skews the results too much and you can't really judge how well you've handled the carbs.

"... i have no idea if i still have some insulin that is helping me." This jumped out at me - I thought you said you are pre-diabetic?

 

[flakey rascal]

That would be acceptable to me in one sense in terms of BG, but it would seem to me to be a substantial rise for only a small bit of food, so not something I'd choose to do. You'll come to your own conclusions.

If you're going to test for beer, you need to note that alcohol will generally lower BG values. It seesm to do this by interfering with the liver adding glucose to your system. So you may get artificially low readings after alcohol, that don't reflect the carbs you've actually eaten. I don't usually bother testing at all if I've had any alcohol with food, as it skews the results too much and you can't really judge how well you've handled the carbs.

"... i have no idea if i still have some insulin that is helping me." This jumped out at me - I thought you said you are pre-diabetic?

Yes, Greggs was a waste of time to be honest, but as i said, i was just interested in how it would affect me.
I never tested the beer. The noodles i had started rising to 8.5 about 45 minutes after i thought it had peaked, as it went down, then back up. It was too late for me too test.

Yes, i was told i was prediabetic, but i am not sure if i caught it in time, so no clue what is happening. I really don't know how it works.

 

[KennyA]

Yes, Greggs was a waste of time to be honest, but as i said, i was just interested in how it would affect me.
I never tested the beer. The noodles i had started rising to 8.5 about 45 minutes after i thought it had peaked, as it went down, then back up. It was too late for me too test.

Yes, i was told i was prediabetic, but i am not sure if i caught it in time, so no clue what is happening. I really don't know how it works.

Ah right. You will probably have tons of insulin, probably far too much. That's fairly classic for those who of us are T2 /no longer have normal blood glucose levels. It's difficult to say, as the NHS doesn't regularly test T2s for insulin levels, so most of us (I'm one) have no idea what our insulin levels are or were. But if we were producing no insulin, that's T1 territory, not T2. The practical effects would be very different.

Insulin resistance is usually described as the body having plenty of insulin, but the cells becoming resistant to its effects, so glucose doesn't get stored as readily and therefore stays in the blood stream for longer than it should. This drives the body to produce more and more insulin to get the glucose stored away, which drives further insulin resistance. The low carb way of eating is intended to interrupt that process by reducing the demand for insulin, and therefore helps to make us a bit more insulin sensitive. That means the body is both dealing with less glucose (because fewer carbs are being eaten) and it's more efficient at using its own insulin. Result in my case (and in others) was lower blood glucose levels within weeks and weight loss over the months and years following. For me that meant and means sustained low carb eating.

High levels of insulin for long periods can also cause problems of itself - it does a lot more than assist in the processing of carb/glucose.

 

[flakey rascal]

Ah right. You will probably have tons of insulin, probably far too much. That's fairly classic for those who of us are T2 /no longer have normal blood glucose levels. It's difficult to say, as the NHS doesn't regularly test T2s for insulin levels, so most of us (I'm one) have no idea what our insulin levels are or were. But if we were producing no insulin, that's T1 territory, not T2. The practical effects would be very different.

Insulin resistance is usually described as the body having plenty of insulin, but the cells becoming resistant to its effects, so glucose doesn't get stored as readily and therefore stays in the blood stream for longer than it should. This drives the body to produce more and more insulin to get the glucose stored away, which drives further insulin resistance. The low carb way of eating is intended to interrupt that process by reducing the demand for insulin, and therefore helps to make us a bit more insulin sensitive. That means the body is both dealing with less glucose (because fewer carbs are being eaten) and it's more efficient at using its own insulin. Result in my case (and in others) was lower blood glucose levels within weeks and weight loss over the months and years following. For me that meant and means sustained low carb eating.

High levels of insulin for long periods can also cause problems of itself - it does a lot more than assist in the processing of carb/glucose.

Ahh.thank you. I was under the impression that i had no- to low insulin. I assume that is why a prediabetic can control it easier than a T1 with diet, as we have it, but need to sort of tell it to work with low sugar, glucose? I aalso ssume a prediabetic is basically T2, but caught in time to lessen the damage, but still need to treat as full type 2?

 

[KennyA]

It's a bit more complex than that.

T1 and T2 are essentially completely different conditions. Very simply, T1 is an auto-immune disease where the body does not produce insulin, or not in anything like sufficient quantities. T2s typically have plenty of insulin, but it's ineffective. There's a shared symptom - high blood glucose - but otherwise not a great deal of crossover. I wouldn't really start comparing T1 with pre-diabetes. It's a bit like saying floods and droughts are the same thing, because it's all to do with water.

There's a lot of confusion partly because up to around 20 or so years ago diabetes was thought to be a single disease with people "progressing" from not being insulin dependent to being insulin dependent. T2 as a concept didn't really figure - I have textbooks published in the late 1990s that were still taking this approach. That has changed a lot since, but you'll still read stuff on the internet that takes this line.

Pre-diabetic as an idea was developed only about ten to fifteen years ago to cover the fact that people's blood glucose was often no longer in normal range (almost all non-diabetic people fall somewhere between 35 and 41 on HbA1c) but not yet at the level where T2 would automatically be diagnosed. I had a full and painful range of diabetic symptoms with HbA1cs of 43 and 44 upwards, so I'm inclined to think that when I go out of normal levels, I have a problem, and I'm not "pre-" anything.

As T2s we have a problem dealing with glucose, resulting in high levels of glucose throughout the body, not just in blood. Our insulin response systems cannot cope. This results in both chronically raised blood glucose and raised insulin levels, probably weight gain, and a raft of other possible symptoms. But - there are lean T2s, and people's experiences can be very different. Some of us think there may be a number of T2 variants.

By "chronically raised" I don't mean the normal temporary rises and falls after eating. I mean long-term elevated levels that never really come down. These can result in physical damage, mainly to nerves and capillaries.

As with any system under stress, the first step in coping with it is to reduce the stress on the system - this is what low carb is about. You take carbs out of the diet, reduce the amount of glucose arriving in the body, and hopefully give your insulin system a bit of a break. Many of us find that our systems can work well enough with somewhat lower levels of carb, so that there isn't unmanaged glucose floating around , and consequently insulin levels should also fall. As with any system that's been under strain, putting the same load on it again is likely to result in exactly the same problems - so low carb is a way of managing, not "curing" the problem symptom.

Is that helpful? Unfortunately there is so much misinformation around that reading stuff on the internet can be less than useful. The media are probably responsible for most of it. If you're not sure about anything, please ask.

 

[flakey rascal]

Thanks. The has explained it so much better. As you said, there is so much disinformation, it is hard to know what is what. I remember in the 80`s that diabetes was no problem as Holsten Pils had you covered as there was no sugar. Good times to be a diabetic then . Obviousy now we know it is not true. I believed it until i realised virtually no lager had sugar, but loads of carbs. Pils is slightly better than most lager, but not by a lot

 

[KennyA]

Thanks. The has explained it so much better. As you said, there is so much disinformation, it is hard to know what is what. I remember in the 80`s that diabetes was no problem as Holsten Pils had you covered as there was no sugar. Good times to be a diabetic then . Obviousy now we know it is not true. I believed it until i realised virtually no lager had sugar, but loads of carbs. Pils is slightly better than most lager, but not by a lot

You're spotting some of the methods that manufacturers use to hide carb - "zero sugar" may be technically true but does not always mean "zero carb".

I work to there being around 20g carb per pint of beer. Bit more for the darker stouts etc. As I'm aiming to stick to around 20-25g carb per day, standard beer doesn't feature much. On the other hand, there are some genuinely low and zero-carb beers around that actually taste like real beer. Have a look at this thread:

Zero-carb beer

I saw this advertised and gave it a try. I have been a bit skeptical about low-carb/zero carb beers in the past, as almost all (Marston's Resolution is the only half decent one) taste so bad that they're not worth it. However, Salute is an exception. They do two beers, a lager (4.8%) and an...

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