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Long Ranty Type Thing...

B

BlindFaith

Well-Known Member
Messages
260
Location
South UK
Okay, firstly I'm sorry. I feel that all I've done since I've joined this forum is complain and whine but I just really need to get this out before I start bawling again.

On the advice of a lovely person here (thank you again by the way) my hubby legged it to my local pharmacy to see if they sold the ketone test sticks. They did and we were both hoping that it was going to be a wasted journey and I'd get no reading.

Unfortunately it came out that there were ketones present in my urine (and at the slightly higher end of the scale too) and I was wondering what on earth to do with this new information.

I decided on calling NHS Direct thinking that they could reassure me, advise me and point me in the direction of what to do next.
The guy I spoke to was lovely, said he was really not happy about my B.S readings over the past 24 hours (today was 15.2am and 16.9pm and yesterday was 10.7am(I am never lower than that) 21.5mid-day and 19.1pm). He said that coupled with the ketones present in my urine was cause enough for him to be worried especially as I've had other things going on as well (headaches, dry mouth, dry skin, dizzy periods, shaking, feeling faint, racing heart, difficulty breathing....you get the drift) he wanted me to speak to the emergency doctor ASAP.

Emergency doctor called and was no help.
All she said was that I need to speak to my doctor (I explained I've done that previously and been ignored and dismissed) and that I should *try* and see if they would contact the diabetic consultant at the hospital to see if they can bring my appointment forward.
That. Was. It.
No advice on what I can do for myself in the meantime, nothing to say what I should do if this doesn't improve....

Right now, I am wondering why the hell I should bother helping myself if nobody in the medical profession is willing to listen and help as they're meant to.
What is the point in being good to myself and doing all this research and new ways of eating and living if all the doctors are going to do is pass me from pillar to post and fob me off and shove me aside?!

I am so close to just giving up.
And I'm sorry for whining on AGAIN... :cry:
 
If you are really worried go to an A&E department at your local hospital. If they find something is wrong and sort it out they will send your doc the bill for being an idiot.

Anyway some personal questions I'm afraid so hope you don't mind.

Did your doc test your urine for ketones?
Have you been really low carbing for more than a few days. By really low I mean under 50g ish of carbs a day.
Are you an adult over around 40?
Have you been losing weight prior to your diagnosis.
Noticed you posted about thrush? Means its very likely you've had high blood sugars for a while.
Are you even slightly overweight?

If you answer you are under 40 ish and not overweight or lost weight prior to diagnosis and haven't been very low carbing for days then I really would go to an A+E. Even if that's not the case if you are getting dizzy and such like I'd still consider an A+E visit.

Don't worry too much as many members have felt like you with those kinds of levels for weeks but the quicker you get things diagnosed correctly the better.
 
Don't mind personal questions at all - ask away

xyzzy said:
Did your doc test your urine for ketones?
Click to expand...
The nurse I'm under at the surgery tested them every week for 4 weeks and said there were ketones in the urine but said nothing about it at all. I did ask her about it but she said I didn't need to think about it.
xyzzy said:
Have you been really low carbing for more than a few days. By really low I mean under 50g ish of carbs a day.
Click to expand...
Not yet. I had been told to eat more carbs and less protein which I'd been doing (and gaining weight and getting bloated). I'd not thought of low carbing until I joined here and saw how many people had had success with it. I'm starting Monday, all the groceries I need are coming tomorrow evening.
xyzzy said:
Are you an adult over around 40?
Click to expand...
I turned 30 in January.
xyzzy said:
Have you been losing weight prior to your diagnosis.
Click to expand...
Actually yes, without even doing anything. I went from (oh I hate admitting this...) 305lbs over December to 277-280lbs now. It's fluctuating really badly at the moment - I'm assuming this is my body saying "hi, I don't like carbs, stop it"?
xyzzy said:
Noticed you posted about thrush? Means its very likely you've had high blood sugars for a while.
Click to expand...
The emergency doctor I saw about the first bout of thrush I had (it had been going on for 3 weeks) said she would diagnose me on that alone because of how bad it was.
xyzzy said:
Are you even slightly overweight?
Click to expand...
I'm more than slightly overweight. I'm also disabled which doesn't help.


I'm just feeling a bit despondent now. The NHS Direct guy was lovely, helpful and really concerned that something wasn't right. The emergency doctor just dismissed me totally.
I do feel like finding a large jar of Nutella and seeing if my head fits into it.
 
chin up BF, you're in the right place for help

don't be ashamed to admit how big you are, I for one have been there, and I bet a lot of others here have as well.

Personally I would start low carbing NOW, and not wait for Monday. There are a lot of changes you can make very easily. Start with bacon and egg for breakfast - how's that for a Sunday treat?

You say that you're disabled. Without wishing to pry, is it possible for you to start doing a bit of very genle exercise? It really will help

Good Luck, and we're here!
 

The only reason I am unable to low carb right away is because I've got food in the fridge that would go wasted. It's not necessarily horribly high in carbs but I don't have much money to be able to throw it out.
Once the groceries get here, my hubby is taking all the cereals to work with him, along with any cereal bars, etc...thankfully we don't have any bread or pasta in the house. But tomorrow the "spring clean" of the kitchen starts, then the "spring cleaning" of me begins :lol:

You're not prying at all. I basically have to use a wheelchair outside the house for any distance - I have very severe fibromyalgia (bad enough to need a wheelchair and morphine for pain relief) and aside from moving around my flat (which I use a stick or balance on furniture, etc...to support myself) it causes me a lot of pain.
I have been looking at things like Tai Chi which I've heard is something that doesn't put too much strain on joints and muscles. What I'm hoping is that the wheelchair will help take the strain off of me so that while I'm at home I can start trying to slowly build up strength.
 
Hi,
Sorry to hear you are not getting help from the Doctor.
Keep drinking plenty of water and tomorrow have as few carbs as you can with what is available til your shopping arrives.
Have you any eggs? Can you have an omelette or boiled / scrambled eggs for breakfast. I have sugar free jelly and cream for breakfast often but you may not have them in stock. Even a bit of cold meat and cheese is ideal.
I have a real low carb day every so often to sort of detox as my levels gradually creep up and up else and it really helps to bring them down.

Keep us informed how you get on, don't worry about complaining to us.....we are all in this together and all have problems at some time or another (unless we are very lucky) so we know what it is like.

Don't give up, you'll win in the end.
Best wishes
Angie
 

Good luck with the low carbing, it's really easy once you get the hang of it, and I'm an ultra low carb'r

Exercise really does help, and even in a wheelchair there are some things you can try. If you log onto you tube and type in wheelchair exercises, your will find some there. They are very gentle, and you could see if by doing those, you can build up your fitness painlessly. I bought a treadmill. The first time I went on it, I managed 3 minutes at 0.5KM. I just used that as a starting point, gently building up. I can walk for around 2 hours with the dogs now, and have lost a lot of weight, which of course helps the joints.

Good luck with it all. Keep posting and boasting about your lovely low BG's, your weight loss and your fitness.
 
Right...

So I would give the gp one more chance as early as you can get next week and point out although you are overweight you are showing many symptoms of LADA or what's called Type 1.5. The symptoms are constant ketones in your urine, weight loss, thrush and your age. T2 at 30 is very young. Simplistically LADA is where your pancreas is slowly giving out so you end up more like Type 1 than Type 2. Ask for a c-peptide test and a GAD test to confirm. People like Paul1976, Phoenix and Smidge plus loads of others are all LADA so don't worry they're not that bad My nephew was diagnosed LADA last year aged 43. I could of course be entirely wrong and you may well be plain Type 2 like me. Around 3% of T2's are diagnosed incorrectly and end up Type 1.5 and I'll warn you it can take a while for gp's to understand what's going on let alone persuading them to pay out money for the tests. If you get nowhere with the gp then A+E will be your best bet.

In the meantime keep monitoring your levels and if they begin to really rise and constantly stick in the high teens or 20's get yourself to A+E as you could be putting yourself at risk of a thing called DKA which is dangerous. It's always difficult to advise that you should start to cut your carbs down now because that will likely reduce you levels a bit and if your doctor is an idiot even if you tell him you've cut your carbs some of them don't even realise this can reduce levels.
 
Can I just say that you guys are awesome thank you for all the replies, I really do appreciate it.

You know, I actually have sugar free jelly pots in the fridge. I'd not thought of having something like that for breakfast at all.
I do have some strawberries as well which I may chop up. Not too many, though :lol:

I've just tested the ketones again and it's not quite pale enough to be 4 but not dark enough to be 8.

Part of me really wants to cut out the middle man and go straight down the A&E route just because I know that my doctor and the nurse will keep putting me off until I've seen the consultant; which is not for about 6 weeks.
I will sleep on that decision tonight and see what's going on tomorrow.

@Defren - thank you for the idea about the YouTube wheelchair exercises; that's something else for me to look into as well so I can go well-armed to my doctors and shove everything at them, lol
 
I found while I was unable to move that the rubberbands you can get for exercise were good. They cause you to both stretch against them while contracting to control them. You can get them in various colours and they'll be colour coded depending on how hard they are. I am not very familiar with fibromyalgia, but I had sort of migrating pains - some days I was very good at using my working leg, sometimes it was my arms which had a good day, so I liked that they were both gentle and versatille (did I get that word right, I wonder...).
 
I'd not even thought of using resistance bands! I'm pretty sure Argos sell them fairly cheaply so that's definitely something to look at and I'm sure I can find some gentle exercises only to do with them.
Thank you, Mileana!
 
Also blind faith, you may find that with low carbing your fibromyalgia is much improved. Search here search the web for low carb diet. You don't have to eat meat but if you do make sure its quality. Fish is a very good 0 carb full of omega 3's and if you can shop in Aldi or Lidl a helluva lot cheaper than the big supermarkets.
 
I love Lidl for shopping sometimes.
They get things like reindeer, moose, veal....all of which I've had now :lol:
Actually for people low carbing give moose leg a try - it is so full of flavor and very low in fat (goes very well with a red wine and raspberry jus...)

Today marked the sort-of start to low carbing.
I did try eating the no added sugar jelly pot I had in the fridge and got halfway through when my brain told me that I don't like that for breakfast, lol I had 8 small strawberries as well and now I'm eagerly waiting for my groceries to be delivered.
 
I tend to struggle with breakfast tbh, but find that a couple of spoons of greek yoghurt with about 10 blueberries goes down the best if I'm feeling delicate I crumble a quarter of a "breakfast biscuit" over the top which adds about 2g of carbs but give me a teeny taste of something a bit more "normal".
 
I've just had something very nice if you like yogurt for breakfast.

I stewed a quarter of a cup of rhubarb with a bit of sweetener (I used Truvia) and about 3/4 teaspoon of ginger.
I had three teaspoons of Onken low fat natural yogurt and spooned the rhubarb over that.
 
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