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Just been diagnosed and I'm very confused

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bkkMick

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Bangkok, Thailand
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Chemotherapy. Just finished it.
Hi

I live in Bangkok and the figures for my blood/sugar don't seem to be in the same range as I've read on this forum, so apologies if what I'm about to say doesn't make any sense.

Over the past three years I have lost a lot of weight. I went to the hospital here in Bangkok yesterday to get my blood sugar tested (as well as a other tests) and the result came back at 300. The doctor said that it was very high and put me on Diamet 500 tablets for two weeks after which I have to return to the hospital and get checked again.

Today I bought a test kit (One Touch Ultra by Lifescan). When I got home I did my first test and was quite happy to see that I was now at 219. A few minutes ago (a couple of hours after eating my dinner) I did another test only to find that I'm up to 280!

Now I'm a bit scarred and not sure if I should seek further help.

I feel quite well and not very thirsty, if that helps.

Anyone that has Type 2 experienced anything like this? Is the test reliable? Should I wait a couple of days before getting too concerned?
 
try this link http://www.faqs.org/faqs/diabetes/faq/p ... ion-9.html it converts Mg/dl which is what your meter readings are set out to, to mmol/l which is what our meters are set to . A reading of 300 works out at about 16.5 , hope this helps. I shouldn't panic just yet although your BGs are quite high, they are not an immediate concern as you have only just started treatment, when you go back they will need your readings to decide whether to up your dose, so unless you start to feel unwell or they get higher and don't go down then just keep testing for now
 
Thanks stabatha at least I can converse using the mmol/l.

Actually reading the descriptions alongside gives me a bit of hope (not dead yet!)

I'm 6'3" and 95kgs - does that have any impact on my blood/sugar reading? (i.e. if I have a large frame then should I be able to cope with the higher level? - sorry if that's a stupid question).

Thanks

Mick
 
Hi Mick,
I guess the first thing to say is don't panic. We have all been there so can understand your confusion, but if you stick with us we will turn you into an expert on diabetes on no time!!

Yes, I am joking, but you do need to understand diabetes and in particular what causes your blood sugar to increase, and what effects different food types have on your blood sugar, before you can start to control it. But you don't need to do that right now. You have been prescribed Diamet, which is the brand name for metformin manufactured in Thailand. The diabetes team at the hospital will want to see how you respond to this medication before they consider whether to keep you on Diamet or try something different.

You have done the right thing in getting a test meter, but it is a great temptation to go mad and test yourself every hour! Please don't do this. At this early stage the meter should be your guide as to how things are going, so I suggest that you test initially just once a day before breakfast. That is the point of the day that generally your BS is at its lowest. It will take a few days for the Diamet to really get to work properly, so just test once every day to see how your BS is doing.

When you eat something during the day then your BS will shoot up (whether you are diabetic or not), and how quickly it will come back down again will depend on what type of food you have eaten, so taking a BS measurement at other times during the day will just get you more confused.
Hopefully after a couple of weeks you should be seeing a steady reduction in your BS. If that doesn't happen then your doctor will probably increase the Diamet dose, or try a different med, or both.

Keep in touch and let us know how you progress. In the meantime have a browse round the forum at the many topics on diet because you may well need to adjust your diet to help the medication do its job.
 
DiabeticGeek...thanks for the utility, I'll use the UK figures from now on!

Dennis...thanks for your post and your suggestions. On Tuesday when I tested at the hospital my BS was 16.6. Yesterday I tested when I bought the machine and the result was 12.2 (after eating not much during the day). Then last night two hours after eating the result was 15.5. I must admit that freaked me out a bit as I was expecting it to go down again.

I understand now, from what you said, that the figure will bounce up and down depending on what I've eaten. I'll start testing each morning before breakfast and keep a track of the downs (hopefully no ups!).

I'm married with two kids and usually look forward to a Friday night out drinking with my friends over here. A bit depressing that I can't have a night on the beer anymore. I don't mind cutting out the sugar completely but my Friday night!?

Thanks again.

Mick
 
bkkMick said:
I understand now, from what you said, that the figure will bounce up and down depending on what I've eaten. I'll start testing each morning before breakfast and keep a track of the downs (hopefully no ups!).
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Expect ups and downs - even with a fasting test. The purpose of testing is to initially keep an eye on your condition and make sure that it is improving, and then later on to help you learn about how different foods effect you so that you can fine tune your diet. Sometimes it will be higher than you expect - if you panic at that, then the whole process can become very stressful and that is not good. The important thing is that over the next few weeks the overall trend is downwards. You initially want to get it down into single figures, and eventually consistently under 7. However, this won't happen overnight.

bkkMick said:
A bit depressing that I can't have a night on the beer anymore. I don't mind cutting out the sugar completely but my Friday night!?
Click to expand...

Don't let this thing ruin your social life - it is important that you control the diabetes, don't let it control you. You should still go out on Friday nights, just modify them a bit. There is absolutely no reason why diabetics shouldn't drink (so long as they are sensible - heavy drinking is very bad for anyone, diabetic or not). Alcohol itself won't raise your BG (in fact it lowers it slightly - some diabetics even use this as a part of their management strategy). However, you do need to be a bit careful about some drinks. Beer is problematic because most beers contain a lot of carbohydrates. Sweet wines, liquers and many cocktails contain a lot of sugar. However, dry wine (especially red wine) have very little carohydrate and spirits have even less. Therefore I suggest that you cultivate a taste either for red wine or spirits (either straight or with diet mixers). If you must have beer, then go for the pilsner types, they have much lower carbohydrates than something like a British bitter.
 
Hi DiabeticGeek and thanks for the encouraging information.

It's quite confusing here in Bangkok to start having to be careful what I eat and checking what foods I purchase are the healthy choices as 90% of the packaging is in the Thai language. I can read quite a bit but the technical wording still out of my reach (I'll get my mrs. to explain more to me).

It's only been three days and I've been continually hungry as I'm still not sure what to eat. I've been through all sorts of web sites but translating what's recommended into what's available in Thailand is difficult.

Hmmm...British Bitter...mouth watering but hard to find here. (maybe Kilkenny - I'll give their website a look over).

Any ideas for a simple snack that I can take to ward off the hunger pangs? Not a product name as such as I probably won't be able to find it, but some straight forward foodstuffs?

Thanks again

Miock
 
Hi Mick,
For a simple snack between meals you need to go for something that is high in protein and low in carbohydrate (otherwise you are just constantly topping up the blood sugar levels). Examples are a piece of cheese or ham (if available in Thailand) or chicken, a handfull of nuts (but not peanuts or cashews), even fruit provided it is very low GI so won't spike your BS (an occasional apricot or plum is filling and doesn't do too much damage).
 
bkkMick said:
It's only been three days and I've been continually hungry as I'm still not sure what to eat. I've been through all sorts of web sites but translating what's recommended into what's available in Thailand is difficult.

Hmmm...British Bitter...mouth watering but hard to find here. (maybe Kilkenny - I'll give their website a look over).

Any ideas for a simple snack that I can take to ward off the hunger pangs? Not a product name as such as I probably won't be able to find it, but some straight forward foodstuffs?


Miock
Click to expand...
Mick

You should be OK with things like Thai green curry with fish/prawns, or the red curry with beef - just avoid the rice and noodles (or cut down on them). It's not just sugar to avoid, it's stuff like bread, rice, pasta and potatoes which are carbohydrates. As others have said, protein, dairy and vegetables are fine.

Incidentally, when I used to visit BKK a lot we used to go to Bobby's Arms off Patpong 2. I believe it's still there... they used to do a cracking steak and kidney pie which should be fine for you if you go easy on the pastry! I miss BKK - haven't been for 8 years, but will be there late Feb 09. Can't wait to go shopping. LOL!

There
 
Thanks Dennis and Patti

I'm not sure what GI is, but, would it be ok to eat the occasional banana, apple, pear during the day?

What about a sandwich? Would a tomato on grain bread be ok once a day? (no margarine necessary)

Patti, that's good news on the Green Curry as I really like that. Maybe chicken green curry with brown rice? (Bobby's Arms is still there - expanded even - I walk past it every Friday on my way out to drink with my friends...hopefully I'll be able to do that soon!)

I'm trying to build a profile of food that I can eat during the day to keep the hunger pangs at bay.

Sorry for all these questions but I've read so many websites and there are so many technical and vague things that it's difficult getting the exact answer I need - thank goodness I found this website forum.

One final question, then I leave you all alone (for a while). I list above my BS readings. Do they seem REALLY high or just high?

All the best

Mick
 
bkkMick said:
I'm not sure what GI is, but, would it be ok to eat the occasional banana, apple, pear during the day?
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GI stands for glycaemic index - it is a measure of how long it takes for the carbohydrate in a food to convert to blood sugar - the lower the GI then the slower the conversion so better for you. Anything with a high GI has a much quicker effect and will send your blood sugar very high very quickly.

Typical banana has 20g carb, apple has 17.4g and a pear has 11.7g, so pears are much better than either of the others.

bkkMick said:
What about a sandwich? Would a tomato on grain bread be ok once a day? (no margarine necessary)
Click to expand...
Remember that for a mid-meal snack you need protein not carbohydrate, so no bread or rice. For a main meal that is different, but you will need to eat lower amounts of each than you are perhaps used to. Incidentally butter or margarine is the least of your worries because neither contains carbohydrate.

bkkMick said:
One final question, then I leave you all alone (for a while). I list above my BS readings. Do they seem REALLY high or just high?
Click to expand...
A reading of 16.6 is pretty high, nearly 3 times higher than it should be! But it is not astromically high - many on here have reported levels well into the 20s when first diagnosed. Your reduction to 12.2 is a good reduction for such a short time-span, but would indicate that the medication is working. Your target is to get it down initially to single figures, then into the 7s, then the low 6s. When you have achieved that then you will be able to proudly say that you have your diabetes completely under control. But as DiabeticGeek pointed out, don't expect that to happen overnight.
 
Ok, so even though I really wanted to test last night, I held off as recommended until this morning before breakfast.

To me it looks ok, this mornings reading was 13.3 (from 16.6 on Tuesday). It might be a one-off so I'll keep working on it.

One thing that I have noticed, even in the short length of time that I've been working on my diet and taking the tablets is that I don't feel anywhere near as tired as I had been. I don't drink anywhere near as much water as I used to (I still drink a few glasses a day). For the past few months I've had a funny, not painful, feeling on both the ball of my right foot and the 'chubby' parts under my toes. As I said not painful, just different. Well that's almost subsided as well! At bed time last night I was actually feeling quite energetic! :)

Can being diagnosed as have T2 diabetes actually be good for me!?
 
bkkMick said:
Can being diagnosed as have T2 diabetes actually be good for me!?
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Yes, to the extent that you take control - of healthy diet, increased exercise, etc.

Obviously it would be better to do all that without diabetes, but who does? Its also much better to be diagnosed & treated than suffering the symptoms.

Once you do take control, it becomes second nature & you can look forward to years of good health. You need to make sure those around you understand, so they don't keep offering you what is unsuitable.
 
Bad (new) boy

OK, I am new at this but it's something that I couldn't resist testing (even at this early stage).

Last night I didn't go out with my wife and friends like I normally do so as to avoid the temptation of drinking all night.

But, sat at home on my own (kids asleep in bed), I couldn't resist the urge to drink some beer to see what the effect was. I had three large (640ml) bottles of San Miguel Light from around 10:30pm.

I did my morning test at the BS result was 10.5!? I'm sure at this early stage the BS will bounce up and down but I was surprised to have gone down from 13.3 to 10.5 after drinking three large bottles of 5% alcohol beer.

I'm not going to go mad and start drinking every day, just thought that I'd mention this further drop.
 
It is quite hard to interpret this sort of experiment. Your morning fasting test gives you a rough indication of how good your overall control was the previous day. Therefore it is a good general indicator of your progress. The fact that yours is on the way down means that you are getting on top of this thing, but the fact that it is still in double figures means you aren't quite there yet. However, it isn't a very good indicator of a specific food. If you want to get that then you really need to observe the impact that the food has upon BG directly. I suggest that you get your BG down to something safe first, and then start experimenting to see what you personally can and can't eat and how far you can get away with occasional exceptions. Everyone is different, so this sort of fine tuning has to be a personal thing.

When you do this sort of experiment, then I suggest that you take a BG reading immediately before you eat (or drink!), and then again at half-hour intervals while it increases. After that you should take it again at hourly intervals until you get back to where you start. Plot this on a graph and see what has happened. Generally you want to choose foods where the area under the curve is as small as possible. Some foods will cause a very high spike, but come down quickly. These won't have much impact on your average BG, but you shouldn't have those too often because that sort of variability is bad (these will become treats). Some foods will cause the BG to come down very slowly (it can take many hours). These are more likely to have an impact upon your average BG - because there is a danger that you have a knock on effect with the next meal starting from a higher point. These are the sort of foods that you need to be very careful about (typically they are high carbohydrate). I suspect that this latter is the risk with an evening of drinking beer - your BG would be likely to climb throughout the time while you are drinking and for a while afterwards. However, as I have said, everyone is different - you can't really tell how it will effect you until you try it.

However, although it wouldn't do any harm to do the occasional experiment now I suggest that you hold off with this until you get your BG properly under control (consistently well under 7).
 
You might find the following helpful. The conversion factor from mg/dl(big numbers) to mmol/l (small numbers)is 18. To go from small numbers to big, multiply by 2 and then by 9. the other way, divie by 9 and then by 2. To do it stepwise like this is easy. If you know your 9 X table.
 
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