Hi All, I've posted this as I thought some on here might be interested, and maybe someone is in the same situation as me. If so, I'd like to hear how they're coping. By the way, I've managed to be posting on the Newcomers profile area, and I'm not sure how to make this a general thread. sorry about that. I've been a fairly constant user, if not posting much on this forum since I was diagnosed in 2015 as prediabetic. In fact I think I have introduce myself once. I have found the site to be a mine of information and very early on I learned about the low carb method, and followed recommendations to get the books "Blood Sugar 101" by Jenny Ruhl, and also the much weightier tome "Diabetes" by Dr Richard Berstein. Excellent books, which I read several times, and I adopted "Blood Sugar 101" as my bible on Diabetes. Ditched all the then NHS advice and went low carb - to frowns from my GP.
So, for the last nine years I have kept myself in the prediabetic range with waking blood glucose in the 4.1 to 4.3 range, and during the day I'd bumble around in the high 4s to low 5s range. I never spiked over 6 for more than two hours, but I need porridge to keep IBS and Stomach irritation at bay. That would spike me to 8.9, but I found that a brisk forty minute walk sorted it, and again I'd be down under 6. Then a series of illnesses and injuries caused me to get somewhat fed up, and I started to indulge in comfort eating so over the last three yaers the diet and my blood glucose both deteriorated, but I did still stay safely under 6 so felt safe. However a couple of months ago, when my waking blood sugar was 5.1, I decided to take myself in hand again, and became stricter about catbs eating and little treats.
Unfortunately, a few weeks ago I started to suffer from severe headaches, increasing to agony level, my scalp became so painful that I the weight of my plaits hurt and I had to pin them up, my teeth hurt, my jaw hurt and eating was painful and difficult. Tried to get appointments with a doctor and couldn't. I'm sure you know the score, bang on eight you phone the docs and get the message "Thank you for contacting the surgery, your call is important to use. Unfortunately we are experiencing very high call volume at the moment. You are 39th in the queue. Please hold" And when they finally come onto the line to answer your call that is so important to them, you get told that there are no appointments left, not anywhere with anyone and please phone tomorrow. Well, after one particular awful night I phoned 111 (on a Saturday), and got put through to our local on call doctors. The minute I mentioned the symtoms he just said. "OK I'm coming out to you now" and arrived within 20 minutes. And then he told me he was pretty certain I had Temporal Arteritis, I needed to have an immediate blood test, and I needed to go on very high dose steroids immediately otherwise I could go blind, and it was irreversible. I freaked out! Anyway he was brilliant. He organised a blood test at home on the Sunday, arranged for steroids to be sent to the local pharmacy and told me to get someone to pick them up, and arranged for my doctor to contact me on Monday morning for urgent appointment with a rheumatologist. So I started the tablets as instructed, a very concerned doctor phoned me at 8.15 on Monday and arranged an appointment with a rheumatologist on Friday (we have very limited facilities in this area). I'm on Prednisalone 50mg daily, and all the pains went within twenty four hours, WHAT a relief, and on the Friday the rheumatologist did an ultrasound scan of my head and showed me the screen as he was doing it. He said a biopsy wasn't necessary as it was quite obviously Arteritis, which in fact I could see for myself. The swelling inside the arteries looked very scary. Since then my GP's have been great (it's just the computerised booking system for appointments that's absolutely awful)
However, a slight hiccup occured, when it seemed the headache was coming back. At the weekend (again) so it was 111 on doc on call that again came out and he found there was no rheumatologist on call anywhere in the county, so he arranged for me to be admitted to hospital. as he thought I might need to up the Prednisolone. The hospital was a disaster as I got no help re the dosage issue and all they did was feed me huge platefuls of carbs three times a day. I'd told them I was pre-diabetic, diet controlled, but it made no difference. And I know, I shouldn't have eaten them, but I did. Then when someone on the second day stabbed my finger and took the BG reading, it was 15.9. I sort of went into shock, and the Trainee Nurse Practitioner told me that was fine I didn't need to worry, she'd give me two units of injected insulin and then I could go home. I explained that as they'd fed me a huge plateful of carbs two hours previously, the BG should already be on it's way down. And I had no idea how much one shot of insulin would bring down the blood glucose, and if she just sent me home, what would happen if out of the blue for the first time ever, I had aHypo. I told her to go away and repeat the test in an hour. Which she did and it had gone down to 10. So I escaped off home. Awful experience.
Once home I did monitor my blood glucose through the day. I get up about 8.00 and have breakfast at around 8.30 and take the prednisolone just after I've eaten. I found to my horror, that although it was just about within safe limits on waking and through breakfast at 8.30 and even went down to 5.4 after a short walk, after that as the Pred began to take effect it went up and up and up even though I ate strict no-carb meals. It got up to 9.6 by 7.30 that evening. Yesterday it was at 11.4 by 7.30pm, but then it came down to 10.2 after another two hours. I was at a loss. The only thing I could think of was that the liver was dumping glucose. But - Why? So I looked up how exactly Pred affects blood sugar, and found that it does indeed stimulate the liver to dump glucose, AND it makes you more resistant to Insulin. What's more in this situation the diabetes medicines taken orally are largely ineffective and apparently injected insulin is required (but if you've just been made insulin resistant by the drug how is insulin going to help). I think this was research done by the John Hopkins Hospital in America. Anyway, I'm now terrified. I'm walking around for most of the day with blood sugars so high for so long that organ damage is virtually guaranteed. And I can't do anything about it. And it's not even my fault.
If anyone has experience of this I'd be so glad to hear how everyone has coped, and what happened. Oh crumbs - I really, really don't want to kill mt Beta cells.
So, for the last nine years I have kept myself in the prediabetic range with waking blood glucose in the 4.1 to 4.3 range, and during the day I'd bumble around in the high 4s to low 5s range. I never spiked over 6 for more than two hours, but I need porridge to keep IBS and Stomach irritation at bay. That would spike me to 8.9, but I found that a brisk forty minute walk sorted it, and again I'd be down under 6. Then a series of illnesses and injuries caused me to get somewhat fed up, and I started to indulge in comfort eating so over the last three yaers the diet and my blood glucose both deteriorated, but I did still stay safely under 6 so felt safe. However a couple of months ago, when my waking blood sugar was 5.1, I decided to take myself in hand again, and became stricter about catbs eating and little treats.
Unfortunately, a few weeks ago I started to suffer from severe headaches, increasing to agony level, my scalp became so painful that I the weight of my plaits hurt and I had to pin them up, my teeth hurt, my jaw hurt and eating was painful and difficult. Tried to get appointments with a doctor and couldn't. I'm sure you know the score, bang on eight you phone the docs and get the message "Thank you for contacting the surgery, your call is important to use. Unfortunately we are experiencing very high call volume at the moment. You are 39th in the queue. Please hold" And when they finally come onto the line to answer your call that is so important to them, you get told that there are no appointments left, not anywhere with anyone and please phone tomorrow. Well, after one particular awful night I phoned 111 (on a Saturday), and got put through to our local on call doctors. The minute I mentioned the symtoms he just said. "OK I'm coming out to you now" and arrived within 20 minutes. And then he told me he was pretty certain I had Temporal Arteritis, I needed to have an immediate blood test, and I needed to go on very high dose steroids immediately otherwise I could go blind, and it was irreversible. I freaked out! Anyway he was brilliant. He organised a blood test at home on the Sunday, arranged for steroids to be sent to the local pharmacy and told me to get someone to pick them up, and arranged for my doctor to contact me on Monday morning for urgent appointment with a rheumatologist. So I started the tablets as instructed, a very concerned doctor phoned me at 8.15 on Monday and arranged an appointment with a rheumatologist on Friday (we have very limited facilities in this area). I'm on Prednisalone 50mg daily, and all the pains went within twenty four hours, WHAT a relief, and on the Friday the rheumatologist did an ultrasound scan of my head and showed me the screen as he was doing it. He said a biopsy wasn't necessary as it was quite obviously Arteritis, which in fact I could see for myself. The swelling inside the arteries looked very scary. Since then my GP's have been great (it's just the computerised booking system for appointments that's absolutely awful)
However, a slight hiccup occured, when it seemed the headache was coming back. At the weekend (again) so it was 111 on doc on call that again came out and he found there was no rheumatologist on call anywhere in the county, so he arranged for me to be admitted to hospital. as he thought I might need to up the Prednisolone. The hospital was a disaster as I got no help re the dosage issue and all they did was feed me huge platefuls of carbs three times a day. I'd told them I was pre-diabetic, diet controlled, but it made no difference. And I know, I shouldn't have eaten them, but I did. Then when someone on the second day stabbed my finger and took the BG reading, it was 15.9. I sort of went into shock, and the Trainee Nurse Practitioner told me that was fine I didn't need to worry, she'd give me two units of injected insulin and then I could go home. I explained that as they'd fed me a huge plateful of carbs two hours previously, the BG should already be on it's way down. And I had no idea how much one shot of insulin would bring down the blood glucose, and if she just sent me home, what would happen if out of the blue for the first time ever, I had aHypo. I told her to go away and repeat the test in an hour. Which she did and it had gone down to 10. So I escaped off home. Awful experience.
Once home I did monitor my blood glucose through the day. I get up about 8.00 and have breakfast at around 8.30 and take the prednisolone just after I've eaten. I found to my horror, that although it was just about within safe limits on waking and through breakfast at 8.30 and even went down to 5.4 after a short walk, after that as the Pred began to take effect it went up and up and up even though I ate strict no-carb meals. It got up to 9.6 by 7.30 that evening. Yesterday it was at 11.4 by 7.30pm, but then it came down to 10.2 after another two hours. I was at a loss. The only thing I could think of was that the liver was dumping glucose. But - Why? So I looked up how exactly Pred affects blood sugar, and found that it does indeed stimulate the liver to dump glucose, AND it makes you more resistant to Insulin. What's more in this situation the diabetes medicines taken orally are largely ineffective and apparently injected insulin is required (but if you've just been made insulin resistant by the drug how is insulin going to help). I think this was research done by the John Hopkins Hospital in America. Anyway, I'm now terrified. I'm walking around for most of the day with blood sugars so high for so long that organ damage is virtually guaranteed. And I can't do anything about it. And it's not even my fault.
If anyone has experience of this I'd be so glad to hear how everyone has coped, and what happened. Oh crumbs - I really, really don't want to kill mt Beta cells.
. As an offshoot, Insulin resistance tends to rise as the day progresses in diabetics and none diabetics alike. My blood sugars are always higher, for me anyways, in the evening than they are in the mornings.