mariancoral said:
Hi i was told over the phone that i had T2 then told no-one could se me as they were busy flu jabbing.2 weeks later i was given an appointment but was unable to make it due to a school trip.Scared witless i decided to join an online diet club that tailors the diet (i need a low fat diabetic and dairy free) That was 6 weeks ago ....good news i have lost 10kg and many of my symptoms have gone but i am told my fasting sugar is high and my average BS is poor.I am now in a complete panic my diet seems to contain alot of bread more than i used to eat.should i buy a blood test kit?
Hi marian.
Welcome to the forum. Have a good look around and if you have any questions then fire away, there is always someone with an answer.
Well done on your weight loss. As regards your Bg levels it might not just be bread that is contributing to your high, and, in your words, poor average levels. John has given you some pointers there.
What you really must do is get a meter and test strips by any means. Without this bit of kit you have no idea what certain foods do to your BG levels. This is the information we hand out to most newly diagnosed, covers most things I think.
Diabetes is an inability to process glucose properly. Carbohydrate converts, in the body, to glucose. So it makes sense to reduce the amount of carbohydrate that you eat.
The way to find out how different foods affect you is to do regular testing and keep a food diary for a couple of weeks. If you test just before eating then two hours after eating you will see the effect of certain foods on your blood glucose levels.
Buy yourself a carb counter book and you will be able to work out how much carbs you are eating, when you test, the reading two hours after should be roughly the same as the before eating reading, if it is then that meal was fine, if it isn’t then you need to check what you have eaten and think about reducing the portion size of carbs.
When you are buying products check the total carbohydrate content, this includes the sugar content. Do not just go by the amount of sugar on the packaging as this is misleading to a diabetic.
As for a tester, try asking the nurse/GP and explain that you want to be proactive in managing your own diabetes and therefore need to test so that you can see just how foods affect your blood sugar levels. Hopefully this will work ! Sometimes they are not keen to give Type 2’s the strips on prescription , but you can but try !!