At the very least it's well worth a try. I have been eating low carb since January 2014, and it has worked really well for my control. HOWEVER, there is a low carbohydrate 'initiation' that many people go through, and I was no exception.
Carbohydrate is addictive. There's no two ways about that. So when you limit its consumption, there are withdrawal symptoms and side effects. They are temporary, but it does make the first few weeks difficult. I powered through, because my blood sugars vastly improved and that kept me going. I will list what I experienced, to give you an idea of what to expect.
Fatigue. Your body can use fat and protein as its fuel source, but it takes a while for your body to fully get the message. Your cells might take a few weeks to adapt to the change of diet, so you will probably feel a lot more tired to begin with.
Dehydration. Initially, your body will think it's starving. 'Where has my lovely carbohydrate gone?!' It screams. So it does the logical thing, and releases a lot of your glycogen stores, to make up for the supposed shortfall in energy. Glycogen comes fortified with water. You lose glycogen, you lose water as well. I actually thought I had kidney failure, I got such bad abdominal cramps. My urine also went a horrific dark orange colour. I then realised I had not had anything to drink all morning, and had a bottle of water. The relief was instantaneous. You will probably find that you need to drink a lot more water in the early weeks.
Cramps. This one is caused by lack of salt. We hear about how too much salt is bad for us, but too little ain't a picnic either. If you enjoy ready meals, pizza, etc, you probably get a lot more salt than you care to realise (just like I did). When you take away those foods, as they are loaded with carbohydrate, you drastically reduce your salt intake. You can offset this by eating things like bacon or smoked salmon. Long story short, if you find you are getting leg cramps, sprinkle some salt over your meals. Obviously don't coat everything in it, just up your intake a bit. The relief of symptoms should be pretty rapid.
Changes to sex drive. This one can be unpredictable. Some people have claimed their libido shoots through the roof in the early stages of low carb. I had the opposite effect. For about three-four weeks my sex drive entirely disappeared. Once my body adapted to low carb, everything went back to normal.
Some people transition very nicely into low carbohydrate diets. Others find the side effects pretty overwhelming. I should also note that I immediately went from 200-300g of carbohydrate a day, down to 30g a day. It may serve you better to gradually reduce the amounts over a period of days or weeks. Keep an eye on your blood sugars, and note down results if you don't already. Your insulin requirements will change drastically as your diet does. It's also worth pointing out that the body can convert protein into glucose through a process called gluconeogenesis. Therefore, you will need to inject insulin to cover protein when you low carb. I tend to give 1 unit of Lispro for every 20g of protein, but it is very individual.
Best of luck, and let us know how you get on!
