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M

marigold36

Active Member
Messages
25
Hi

I was diagnosed last summer and to be honest am floundering.

I ust cant figure out how to properly m bg. Initially on diagnosis t was 16, got it down to 8 (sometimes 7), have been on metformin for a few years for PCOS, so just modified my diet initially.

Went to diabetic clinic in january and because my fasting bg was still in the 8 region they increased my metformin to 2g a day and changed me to the slow release version (due to side effects). I thought this slight increase in dose would just just tweak it down to a more aceptable 6 or 7 but in fact it has slowly risen to this mornings 11.8. The past two weeks it has crept up despite me lowering my carb intake and doing some exercise to try and work it off. Not loads of exercise I admit but 30 mins on an exercise bike should have made some difference.

My post meal (2hrs) is usually less than 10, in fact one night my post meal bg was 8.6 and the next morning having had nothing further to eat my fasting one was 10.5.

I will admit I am confused and frustrated.

Ta

M
 
Hi Marigold and welcome to the forum It may help us to help you if you can give us an idea of the sort of things you are eating and your levels before and afterwards. Your exercise sounds very good - try and do it at least 5 times a week. Perhaps this basic advice from the forum monitors including information about diet might be useful to you to help you to stabilise your levels. Anyway, you have come to the right place. Here is the link:

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=17088#p155405
 
thanks daisy, I have read the info and yur right it is very useful.

I am trying to follow weightwatchers but as well avoiding the more refined carbs, even if I have points left for the day.

A typical day would be

breakfast

cereal like weetabix or porridge oats made with semi skimmed milk and splenda if i feel in need of something sweeter.
some fruit.

or some wholemeal toast with pb on.

lunch
usually a sandwich, some fruit, a yoghurt. (pre diagnosis would have had some crisps or quavers as well)

often a salad instead of a sandwich, since bg creeping up have had more salads to have less bread

snack
after work/before dinner is ready, this is when I feel I let myself down, try and have fruit or a yoghurt, or a piece of cheese or some nuts but will end up having a piece of toast sometimes or omething sweet, one of the kids biscuits etc.

Dinner

have a family to cook for as well, try and have some protein, (fish, meat, chops chicken etc) lots of veg, do like to have some starch here, either jacket potatoe, boiled pot, or some rice or pasta but have cut down my portions by about 1/2.

After dinner I was succumbing to something sweet, usually some chocolate or biscuit off the kids but since bg creeping up over last few weeks have either done without, or last night had one square of chocolate and made dh eat the rest. LOL.

I was wondering if the slow release met wasnt working as well as the regular one and if this would make the bg go up.

Thanks

M
 
I was hoping someone more expert in diet than me was going to answer but they haven't so I'll try and say what I think could be improved with your diet.

I don't think the problem lies with the Metformin as I think the Metformin SR works just as well on BG levels as the normal Metformin.

This is a good weightwatchers diet for losing weight but it's not so good for your levels as it has too many carby foods for a diabetic. If you cut down on or out completely on certain things you should see a difference in your levels. It may be that up to now it has helped with your levels and now it is time to cut down further.

You could cut your portion sizes of carby foods some more - you said you had already reduced them but I think you ought to make them even smaller or cut some of them out altogether. Try cutting the starch with your dinner - the potatoes, rice or pasta as recommended in the link I posted for you. A portion should fit in the palm of your hand. Or if you cut them out completely it would be much better. You definitely should not have the "something sweet" that you fancy so continue doing without or look around on this forum for recipes for low carb desserts - there are a lot of nice ones on here. Have a look at the Diabetes Food Forum. Here is the link:

viewforum.php?f=3

For breakfast you are having a lot of carbs in Weetabix, porridge and wholemeal bread. If you like it a full English would be a much better option.

You seem to be eating a lot of fruit - this will also put your BGs up. Have more vegetables instead.

For lunch you have a sandwich. You would be better cutting out the bread and just having more filling instead. For the yoghurt make sure it doesn't contain sugar - a natural one is best, not a fruit one.

For your snack the same applies - cut out the fruit, have a natural yoghurt. Cheese and nuts are good. Don't have the toast, and especially don't have any of the kids biscuits!

One other thing - what do you drink? You don't mention this. Things like orange juice for example are too high in sugar.

In general - cut the carbs and up the protein. You don't particularly need to cut down on the fat. You shouldn't feel hungry eating like this. Carbs just make you feel hungrier afterwards. I hope this helps your levels and I hope some other people will be along soon with their comments - the more the merrier.

Diet isn't the only thing that would affect your levels though. It could be that your pancreas is becoming less efficient with time and is producing less insulin. Only medication and your doctor can help there. If you don't see any improvement after trying these diet tips then see your DN or doctor again. (They might tell you to eat more carbs again though :lol: I have just told you what we on this forum believe, backed up by the Advice for Newly Diagnosed Diabetics in the link I gave you in my first post)
 
Hi M, everything I have highlighted in your days food is carbohydrate and if you don't want to increase your medication the only way to reduce your bg is going to be to reduce or even remove some or all of those food items, you say you are reducing carbs, can I ask by how much, a portion for me for example, and I don't severely low carb is:

cereal 17g to 22g thats what comes in the variety box's.

I never eat white or wholemeal bread as I find there is no difference between them, I do eat Burgen bread and wholegrain bread occationally and have just started eating the SMALL wraps 14.5g carbs (not the usual large ones 41g)

Potatoes 3 to 5 small (baby) new pots boiled in their skins or 2 or 3 small cut roast pots, chips around 12 to 15 depending on thickness.

Rice, only ever bamati rice and usual portion for me is two tbsp.

I occasionally eat small amounts, 2 x squares, of black 85% chocolate or 1 or 2 biscuits. Until my bg was controlled I did not eat any snacks, but I do now

Fruit I eat 1 apple and 1 orange a day usually but you may find that fruit raises your bg too much. You need to test test test and test some more to find out what you can and can not eat.


marigold36 said:
I was wondering if the slow release met wasnt working as well as the regular one and if this would make the bg go up.
Click to expand...
Typically a max dose of metformin will help reduce your bg by 1 to 2 mmol/L it is not a magic bullet but is a very useful drug.

Hope this is of some use to you M, you must test before and after each meal and if your bg is not reducing to before eating levels after two hours then you need to reduce the carb content of that meal.
 
Thanks Sid for the backup. I was hoping someone would come along soon
 
thank you all so much, I am so grateful for any advice as I really want to control this. The only reason I was querying the SR met was that the increases seem to coincide with the change, but maybe your right maybe the initial tweaks to my diet were enough to start with and now I need to refine it even more.

Its a very confusing time. I didnt realise my diet had so many carbs in it till you highlighted them in red. Although that is the sort of diet I was told to eat by my practice nurse. She said high fibre, low fat. Over the last week I have severely restricted my carbs in that yesterdays diet looked like this:

breakfast - two boiled eggs.
(No toast,fruit etc) actually filled me up and wasnt hungry till lunchtime.

lunch - Cottage cheese, and big salad, couple of spoonfuls of salad cream. No bread, etc.

snack - handful (approx 2 tbsp of almonds and cashews)

dinner - salmon fillet, salad, carrots and brocolli. oh and one chip pinched off dh.

2 hrs post dinner bg wa 8.3 so really pleased with that, but this mornings, although having nothing else to eat was 10.0.

I am confused how that can happen, however I am still on a learning curve. yesterdays fasting bg was 11.8 so 10.0 is better, but not good I know.

I do need to lose weight as well and have done that with weightwatchers in the past but maybe thats not going to work now. I Naively thought that if i stuck to the amount of points I was allowed and just didnt have the refined stuff like white bread, cakes, chocs etc that it would be enough of a change to make a difference.


Thanks again

M
 
ooh and someone asked about drinks -

I dont drink tea or coffe

My drinks of choice are diet coke (Iknow not the healthiest drink around but at last its sugar free), water, and sugar free squash which i drink very diluted. In that order. Rarely drink fruit juices, used to drink fresh juice every morning but not since diagnosis I now have water or squash.

Will accasionally make a fruit smoothie for the kids and have a small glass of that, but thats maybe once a month as well, usually in the summer when we have lots of berries around and havent made them one for a few months now so thats not an issue in recent bg reading.

I very rarely drink alcohol (like once a year, if that often)

I will occasionally (maybe twice a month) have a low fat hot chocolate, like an options or something similar.

thanks again

M
 
Hi Marigold - I'm glad our replies were useful. That's a much better diet - I can't see anything wrong with it at all - carry on with it. The health professionals always recommend high carbs but this keeps your levels much too high - we believe that low carbing is the way to go.

Be careful with cashews - they are quite high in carbs. Almonds are very good and try other nuts too - they are mostly low carb but be careful because they are high in calories - you can't win can you :lol:

You are right to avoid alcohol. However for a special occasion a glass of red wine won't do any damage - it can even lower your levels. But remember the calories again.

For your fasting levels I wonder if this is Dawn Phenomenum (sp?). This occurs when your levels drop at night and your liver kicks in with glucose that it stores and makes your levels go up. Try doing a search for Dawn Phenomenum and you may find something helpful. Hopefully someone will post something on that here and maybe correct me When you have stabilised your levels during the day maybe this will stop.

You should be able to lose weight better with low carb than with high carb/low fat as the health professionals tell you to eat.

Don't overdo the hot chocolate though - certainly no more than twice a month. I think you know why now :lol:

Good luck and come back with any problems you might encounter
 
Thanks

I am just finding it really hard at the minute, all the info is great and very useful.

I intend to be around quite a bit, cos this is obviously only just the beginning of my learning curve.

It doesnt help that everyone at work is now munching on chocolates, so I have resisted and taken myelf away to another room to work, having had last nights lefotover salmon and some salad for lunch.

all help much appreciated.
 
Its not uncommon for our bg level to rise slightly in the morning, an hour or so before you wake your body releases a cocktail of hormones into the blood, cortisol, adrenaline and glucagon amongst them, its job is to get you ready for the day ahead, a sort of kick start and is quite normal, although it can be annoying for diabetics.
 

Sid - does this mean that you can't do anything about high fasting levels? That you just have to put up with it when it happens? I am curious even though I don't have this problem.
 
It might help to go to bed slightly higher than normal a very low gi snack at bed time might just keep your levels up to a levl that will stop your body working against you, but in truth I've never tried it so its only a guess.

I tend to accept my fasting readings are going to be slightly higher than my other pre meal levels throughout the rest of the day.

Maybe someone else knows something to try??????
 
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