• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Is this really bad? Triglycerides.....

kelliez

Member
Messages
8
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hi,

Background: HBA1C last Autumn was 70. No-one at the doctor's picked up on it. They asked me to retake the test in February and it had rose to 84. I was put on Metformin (500mg 3Xday) and I started a Keto diet and within days my readings had come down to 'normal' i.e. in the 5's. I have to admit, after a few months I fell off the wagon and went back to my old bad habits and stopped monitoring. A few weeks ago I started to feel really dreadful- fatigue, headaches, pins and needles, nausea....I bit the bullet and tested myself and my bloods were 24!!!! This scared the **** out of me and I immediately started eating low carb/keto. However, this time my bloods would not go back to 'normal'. No matter what I did, I couldn't get them below 14/15. So after 3 weeks of feeling rotten and bad readings, I contacted the doctor again. I have now started Gliclazide (40mg with breakfast). They seem to be doing something good. My morning fasting levels are still bad (around 10, which is better than before) and my readings 2 hours after meals are hovering between 5.5 and 7.5.

I just got my latest blood test results back. My HBA1C is up to 91, which is to be expected given the background I just described. However, the bit I don't understand is my Triglycerides are 3.2, which I believe is high? But what does it mean? How bad is it? I am worried about eating keto/low carb (high fat) if this is something to do with cholesterol.
 
Had you fasted before your cholesterol test was taken?
Any fat in a meal eaten before the test can increase the Trigs significantly.

My surgery have stopped asking me to fast before a chol test, but I always do it anyway - it is the only way I can gauge what is really going on...
 

No, it wasn't a fasted blood test. But I can't remember if I had breakfast before I went. I would have for sure had coffee with cream.
 
My experience of LCHF and Lipid profiles is that for me it appears to have raised my LDL, unlike many/most of Dr Unwin's patients on Low Carb.
But like Dr Unwin's patients, my Triglycerides have dropped and my HDL has risen - both good things.

I'm sorry to hear that despite Keto (which is more low carb than my 20gms to 40gms of carbs per day) your BGs are still high enough to need Glic. I know that low Carb doesn't work for everybody, but it seems strange that it would work the first time, but not when you tried it later.
It does make me wonder if your pancreas is having trouble making a normal amount of Insulin, much less the much larger quantities required by a Type2 Diabetic.
 
The feelings you have experienced were what I went through with bg of circa 20 mmol/L; it is like death warmed up. In your shoes I would go for easy wins. Fix your sleep if this is not great, to lock in changes you may do. I would stick to strict enjoyable Keto - when I first started researching Type 2 reversal, I watched a WFPB movie where it took a while for blood sugars to come down, consistency was / is key.

Trigs of 3.2 is higher than you would want, but may have confounders, ask for another fasted test (including as full a panel as possible, HDL, LDL, Total).
 
Imho, fix your BG first, then work on the lipids. It could be that your body is trying to store newly created fats ( from glucose) and there’s no room left. Are you overweight? If so you may have fatty liver.
 
Very hard to answer your question about trigs when the test wasn't fasted... you really need a fasted result, 12hrs without food. Drink some water to stay hydrated of course. Personally I would regard any non-fasted lipid test to be worthless.
 

What would it mean if that were the case?
 
Tophat1900 said:
Very hard to answer your question about trigs when the test wasn't fasted... you really need a fasted result, 12hrs without food. Drink some water to stay hydrated of course. Personally I would regard any non-fasted lipid test to be worthless.
Click to expand...

Thanks, fasting was never mentioned to me by the GP. This might be a dumb question, but wouldn't fasting skew the results? Or is that what I want- to see what the result is without any interference?
 

Hi, so these are my full results:

Total cholesterol: 6.1
HDL cholesterol: 0.9
Triglycerides: 3.2
Cholesterol/HDL ratio: 6.8
Calculated LDL cholesterol lev: 3.8
 
Tophat1900 said:
Very hard to answer your question about trigs when the test wasn't fasted... you really need a fasted result, 12hrs without food. Drink some water to stay hydrated of course. Personally I would regard any non-fasted lipid test to be worthless.
Click to expand...
Ok I am going to fast for my next one
 
LaoDan said:
Imho, fix your BG first, then work on the lipids. It could be that your body is trying to store newly created fats ( from glucose) and there’s no room left. Are you overweight? If so you may have fatty liver.
Click to expand...

Hi, yes I am overweight. I am 5'4" and 16 stones.

If I had a fatty liver, wouldn't my liver function test have come up abnormal?
 
kelliez said:
No, it wasn't a fasted blood test. But I can't remember if I had breakfast before I went. I would have for sure had coffee with cream.
Click to expand...
The trig/hdl ratio is a good predictor of cardiovascular risk, better than total cholesterol. If your hdl is higher than your trigs it shows your liver is working too hard to turn excess carbs into fat (the glyceride part of tri-glycerides).
Having a level above 1.7 and a correspondingly lower HDl is a marker of your insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome:
https://www.heartuk.org.uk/genetic-conditions/metabolic-syndrome#unhealthy-blood-fats

So whilst your diabetes drugs are helping to bring down your too high blood sugars it is worthwhile trying something different to get rid of the underlying problem of insulin resistance. That could be low carb or some restricted eating (fasting). You may well end up needing less medication for diabetes or any you're taking for blood pressure too.
 
kelliez said:
What would it mean if that were the case?
Click to expand...

I hope it isn't the case, because it would be bad news.
A blood test would be needed to confirm, but it would make you more like a Type 1 in that eventually you would need to go onto Insulin because diet and Type2 medications would not be enough.
 

I think you meant the opposite, by which I mean:
HDL higher than Trigs = good
Trigs higher than HDL = bad
 
kelliez said:
Thanks, fasting was never mentioned to me by the GP. This might be a dumb question, but wouldn't fasting skew the results? Or is that what I want- to see what the result is without any interference?
Click to expand...

You want the result to be fasted.... not fasted skews the results. So, say you want to get it done at 9am, just don't eat after 9pm the night before. Drink water to stay hydrated or that can skew other results. Some GP's will tell you it doesn't matter if it's fasted or not, but it does. Much easier to compare fasted results then non fasted as cholesterol is very dynamic once you add food into the system.
 
Singapore... or at least my doc specified 12 hour fasted and has so for every test so far, even A1c. I was about 16 hours, just the way it worked out. I drank my usual jug of water.. side note, I get my results in two hours, I found it odd that some people have to wait for days.
 
Thanks so much everyone.

My GP has just upped my Metformin to 1000 mg twice a day. Kept my Gliclazide at 40mg with breakfast.

I am going to have another set of blood tests done in a month to see if my HBA1C has come down and to look at the cholesterol results again.

She has told me do do these tests fasted, so it is reassuring that her advice is in line with what you are all saying.

My fasting levels are around 10 at the moment, although my post meal readings seem to be coming down to an acceptable range.

Is there anything one can do to bring the fasting levels down? Eat before bed? Don't eat before bed?
 
What can do you for high fasting levels?
Firstly there is a natural reaction called the dawn phenomenon in which your liver produces some glucose to get you up and going as your cortisol hormones wake you up. You may just be testing at a time when this is peaking but it is probably not the whole story.
If you have underlying insulin resistance as indicated by high trigs/low hdl ratio then tackling this with the advice previously given re low carb/fasting will help. It amounts to turning off the tap of glucose that you are putting into your body (low carb) or at least having long periods of the day when the tap is off (fasting) so that your body gets sensitive to the insulin again.
So that could be an eating window ending at 8pm and/or a brisk walk around the block after an evening meal.
Keep checking to see what if any tactics are working best for you!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…