I'M new to forum, but not diabetes.

[Danny Hyslop]

I was diagnosed 4 months ago with T2 and immediately put on 1 metformin in the morning, then on week two , 2 per day. I was given an eye scan within a week of being diagnosed, which turned out to be OK. It has now been 3 1/2 months since I've been contacted by any medical professionals or aid groups. Is this unusual, and how often should I be consulted?

I have no equipment to test blood sugar levels, but in the four months since being diagnosed, I have lost 2.5 stones; now, at 15 stones dead. Today I have , for the first time since starting the medication, felt really unwell. Do people with diabetes have good and bad days?

I hope I can get some useful tips on what to do, I feel absolutely lost as I live alone and have non malignant cancer, which at present requires no treatment. Thank you.

 

[EllieM]

Hi @Danny Hyslop and welcome to the forums

What sort of feeling really unwell? Non diabetics can feel really unwell on occasion so it's not necessarily due to the diabetes?

Have you done anything in particular to lose this weight? eg Have you adopted a low carb diet? Low cal diet? Something else to lose weight? Do you happen to know what your hba1c was on diagnosis?

I'll let the UK T2s answer to whether the neglect is unusual, I suspect not, but as an overseas T1 I can't really comment on that.

Hopefully the non malignant cancer is not in your pancreas.

As for tips, many of the T2s here cut the carbs in their diet to successfully reduce their blood sugars, and buy a testing meter so that they can work out what their blood sugars are doing.

This is a very helpful link about T1 and low carb

The Nutritional Thingy

There’s a few things you should know. 1. Practically all carbs turn to glucose once ingested , so not just straight sugars, but starches...

josekalsbeek.blogspot.com

Good luck. Hopefully some T2s will be along soon with more targeted advice.

 

[ajbod]

Hi Danny, if you could give us a bit more info, ie Hba1c, other medical complaints, height, weight, diet and any other medications etc. we will be in a much better position to give advice.
As to the non existent activity from your medical practice, welcome to the club, it's most certainly not unusual. You should get a 6 month check up, they often try to tell you every 12 months, but are trying to cut costs, as the NICE guidelines state 6 months.
Buy yourself a meter and strips, unlike the advice from doctors and diabetic nurses, they are pretty much essential for us type 2s, (and not available to type 2s on prescription, unless on med's which actively lower your blood glucose). How else can you know whats going on, and which foods to avoid. I'l tag @Rachox, she is the forum expert on the best meters etc. I myself use a Gluco Navii which was £30 ish, with 250 extra strips. You use a lot initially, but rapidly learn which foods are good, and then usage plummets.
Well done on the weight loss, if it was intentional. if not, perhaps what else is going on with you, may point a finger.
Welcome to the forum, don't be afraid to ask anything, however trivial you think it is. NOBODY is stupid where diabetes is concerned, even doctors know a lot less than they think, until you live with it, you never think about it, so cannot know much about it.

 

[Rachox]

Thanks for the tag @ajbod .

Here’s some info on UK meters, and to be clear I have no commercial connections with any of the companies mentioned.



HOME HEALTH have the Gluco Navii, which is a fairly new model and seems to be getting good reviews.

https://homehealth-uk.com/all-produ...ose-meter-test-strips-choose-mmol-l-or-mg-dl/



Links to the strips for future orders:

https://homehealth-uk.com/all-products/glucose-navii-blood-glucose-test-strips-50-strip-pack/



Then they sell the older SD Code Free, details to be found here!

https://homehealth-uk.com/all-products/codefree-blood-glucose-monitoring-system-mmoll-or-mgdl/





SPIRIT HEALTHCARE have a meter called the Tee2 + which is quite popular:

https://shop.spirit-health.co.uk/co...e2-blood-glucose-meter?variant=19264017268793



The strips are to be found here:

https://shop.spirit-health.co.uk/co...py-of-tee2-test-strips?variant=19264017367097



If there is a choice of units of measurement then ‘mmol/L’ are the standard units in the UK, ‘mg/dl’ in the US, other countries may vary.



Don’t forget to check the box if you have pre diabetes or diabetes so you can buy VAT free. (for all meters and strips)

 

[Danny Hyslop]

Hello folks, thank you for the advice so far. In 2003 I was hit by a car being driven by a driver on drugs. I spent 18 weeks in hospital in recovery, also taking DVT, which was treated for 2 years . Before this accident, I was a tremendously fit person, running marathons and the like. My weight before the accident was always around 11 st, but ever since this accident, my weight ballooned to, at one point 19 st. In the last ten years, I've lost and gained weight to varying degrees.Then I got the wake-up call about my diabetes.

I am a 61 year old , 6ft 2' male who presently weighs 15 st, down from 17.5 st. My target being 14 st by next march. I can not do meaningful exercise due to my previous injuries and take pain killers as and when needed to dull the pain of my injuries. For the diabetes I only take Metformin. I have never been given any readings regarding my diabetes as I didn't know any existed until I came on here.

Diet:
Breakfast , shredded wheat, or wheatabix( 2 cakes ) milk and 70 grams of fruits
Dinner, sandwich (brown bread )with ham or tuna or cheese, amongst others, try and keep calories below 400 for this meal.

The main meal differs, but try and get low sugar low salt high protein.

Snack on half an avocado or 90% cocoa chocolate. Have also made my own recipe of cooked spinach, brocoli, carrot, and green peas.usually along with the main meal, but use as an alternative snack.

I've cut out 90% of my coffee intake because I abhor it without sugar. I drink ginger or green tea, with no sugar or milk. And volvic no sugar flavoured water. Fluid intake about 2 litres a day.

 

[Danny Hyslop]

I should add I don't drink any alcohol and am a non smoker.

 

[EllieM]

Well the good news is there are plenty of carbs in your current diet so I suspect that that gives you plenty of scope to reduce levels via diet....

I strongly recommend getting a meter as high levels can make you feel ill (as can lots of other things) but you won't know whether your levels are high without a meter.

 

[HSSS]

Hello folks, thank you for the advice so far. In 2003 I was hit by a car being driven by a driver on drugs. I spent 18 weeks in hospital in recovery, also taking DVT, which was treated for 2 years . Before this accident, I was a tremendously fit person, running marathons and the like. My weight before the accident was always around 11 st, but ever since this accident, my weight ballooned to, at one point 19 st. In the last ten years, I've lost and gained weight to varying degrees.Then I got the wake-up call about my diabetes.

I am a 61 year old , 6ft 2' male who presently weighs 15 st, down from 17.5 st. My target being 14 st by next march. I can not do meaningful exercise due to my previous injuries and take pain killers as and when needed to dull the pain of my injuries. For the diabetes I only take Metformin. I have never been given any readings regarding my diabetes as I didn't know any existed until I came on here.

Diet:
Breakfast , shredded wheat, or wheatabix( 2 cakes ) milk and 70 grams of fruits
Dinner, sandwich (brown bread )with ham or tuna or cheese, amongst others, try and keep calories below 400 for this meal.

The main meal differs, but try and get low sugar low salt high protein.

Snack on half an avocado or 90% cocoa chocolate. Have also made my own recipe of cooked spinach, brocoli, carrot, and green peas.usually along with the main meal, but use as an alternative snack.

I've cut out 90% of my coffee intake because I abhor it without sugar. I drink ginger or green tea, with no sugar or milk. And volvic no sugar flavoured water. Fluid intake about 2 litres a day.

What an awful thing to happen. I’m so sorry you’re still dealing with it.

As to your diabetes, do you know what your hba1c (3mth average check) was at diagnosis? Metformin doesn’t restrict your diet choices. It’s a fairly mild drug that works mostly by reducing the amount of glucose your liver adds to the blood (a normal process that can get a bit unregulated in type 2), and a little to make you respond better to the insulin you make As type 2 don’t usually respond effectively to it.

Diet wise most of us here that are managing without drugs and getting normal levels do it by restricting carbs - that become glucose - rather than worrying about calories. 1000 calories of one food can do very different things to your body than 1000 of another, especially in a type 2. Eating the ones we aren’t a bit broken in respect of will make us lose weight even without limiting calories.

The stand out things to me are the cereals (of any and all kinds) for breakfast. Swap for eggs, bacon, plain Greek yogurt with nuts and berries. So other fruits aren’t the best idea. At lunch it doesn’t matter much which bread it is the carbs are much the same. Make it into a salad instead without the bread. Add some healthy fats like cheese or avocado. For the main meal it’s carbs you need to limit (rice pasta potato pastry bread etc) and fill up on the naturally occurring meats fats and veg. Unless you have a pre existing kidney issue which I’m thinking probably not if you eat high protein no need to be too concerned with salt.

Not at all unusual to be abandoned without much useful information I’m afraid. I definitely second getting a meter and learning how to test your food responses.

Below this message (in red ) is my signature with links to a lot of useful introductory stuff

 

[JoKalsbeek]

Hi Danny,

When going over your diet, a couple of things stand out. The breakfast is extremely carby. In the morning, our insulin resistance is usually at its peak, and then there's something called Dawn Phenomenon to contend with. Our liver dumps glucose when we wake, to give us energy to start the day. So you're likely already high, and then you throw a lot of carbs on top of that... You could skip breakfast entirely, as some here choose to do, (myself included, I don't have breakfast until lunchtime, really), or go for a low carb breakfast like bacon, eggs, high meat content sausages, maybe some tomatoes or cheese tossed in for variation. Let go of the calories: It's the carbs we can't handle, so that's one worry less. As for dinner, ham, tuna and cheese are low carb, but the bread isn't... Maybe make it a salad, or a ham/cheese roll-up with butter? Low sugar, high protein for your main meal sounds good, but practically all carbs turn to glucose once ingested, so it's not just sugar, it's starches too that will spike us. Peas too, for instance...

If you want to try a stevia/erythritol mix, they are okay in warm drinks. (One or the other is absolutely vile, the combination tends to work though). But you'll have to test to see how your blood sugars respond to artificial sugars. Some can tolerate them, some can't.

I don't know what the cancer means for your diabetes... Where it's located (pancreas would mean you're developing T3c, not T2, so would require different treatment than solely dietary), whether you need to up protein as it is, or whether there's medication in the mix that raises blood sugars too, but it's something to take into consideration. Co-morbidities can impact one another, after all.

All in all there's a lot to win here, changes that can bring your blood sugars down further. Because going up and down all day can indeed make you feel miserable. Getting on a bit more of an even keel, preferably with non-diabetic numbers, should make you feel less wrecked. Should feeling like that continue after you get a grip on the blood sugars though, look further, as it may not be a diabetes-related issue. Maybe it's side effects from medication you're on etc, and it would merit further investigation.

Good luck!
Jo

PS: Get a meter. You're flying blind now and you need to know what's going on. Test around meals, before, and 2 hours after the first bite. You're looking for a rise of no more than 2.0 mmol/l between the two. Also, if you're feeling decidedly off, check what your blood sugars are doing. If you feel wrecked when high, you know it's time to look into how to get those blood sugars down further.

 

[Danny Hyslop]

Hi all, I just got my tester delivered this am. I had omelette ( eggs only) , 40 grams of Chedder , and three slices of smoked ham . Two hours later, I took measurement and am 6.1, which is I hope within limits.

Thank you all for the great advice on diet etc . I will now adjust my lifestyle accordingly to some of that advice.

Thanks again

 

[Resurgam]

Hi all, I just got my tester delivered this am. I had omelette ( eggs only) , 40 grams of Chedder , and three slices of smoked ham . Two hours later, I took measurement and am 6.1, which is I hope within limits.

Thank you all for the great advice on diet etc . I will now adjust my lifestyle accordingly to some of that advice.

Thanks again

Good? Bloody brilliant!!
If you find you need a bit of variety then some mushrooms or a tomato might hit the spot just to make a change.

 

[KennyA]

Hi all, I just got my tester delivered this am. I had omelette ( eggs only) , 40 grams of Chedder , and three slices of smoked ham . Two hours later, I took measurement and am 6.1, which is I hope within limits.

Thank you all for the great advice on diet etc . I will now adjust my lifestyle accordingly to some of that advice.

Thanks again

Excellent.

One piece of advice is do your best to forget everything you think you know about healthy eating.

The current low-fat high-carb diet was first introduced in the 1980s, and has been closely followed by a rise in both T2 diabetes and obesity. There are signs that things might be changing, but slowly.

The low-carb diet followed by many of us on here has been around almost forever - I have encyclopaedias from the 1980s which say in effect "if you want to lose weight, cut out the sugar and starchy carbs. If it doesn't work, you didn't really try". They don't mention T2D at all - it doesn't seem to have been an issue.

These are good reads as background.

The sugar conspiracy | Ian Leslie

The Long Read: In 1972, a British scientist sounded the alarm that sugar – and not fat – was the greatest danger to our health. But his findings were ridiculed and his reputation ruined. How did the world’s top nutrition scientists get it so wrong for so long?

www.theguardian.com

Substantial and Sustained Improvements in Blood Pressure, Weight and Lipid Profiles from a Carbohydrate Restricted Diet: An Observational Study of Insulin Resistant Patients in Primary Care

Hypertension is the second biggest known global risk factor for disease after poor diet; perhaps lifestyle interventions are underutilized? In a previous small pilot study, it was found that a low carbohydrate diet was associated with significant improvements ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

best of luck

 

[JoKalsbeek]

Hi all, I just got my tester delivered this am. I had omelette ( eggs only) , 40 grams of Chedder , and three slices of smoked ham . Two hours later, I took measurement and am 6.1, which is I hope within limits.

Thank you all for the great advice on diet etc . I will now adjust my lifestyle accordingly to some of that advice.

Thanks again

Excellent, well done!!!