Samm38, if your blood sugars were already elevated above a certain level (e.g., above 13.5), exercise will cause them to climb even higher. You have already received some excellent advice in this thread. One’s diet is the key to better blood sugar levels for both T1s and T2s. A 24-hour fast can often provide some insight into whether a low carb diet, in conjunction with increased activity/exercise, will lead to the results desired. A “fast” in this context means lots of filtered water and no more than 600 calories from non-starchy vegetables (no other carbs from any other source) for the entire 24-hour period. The fast will provide some indication whether an ongoing selective diet will provide you with the improvement desired. The frustration that you are experiencing only adds to the stress factor and stress will definitely drive your BG even higher. You won’t get any direct medical advice in a forum but good diabetes control essentially centers on something called
self-management. Your healthcare providers can only provide advice, medications, and guidance but you have to live with the disease 24/7. Therefore the responsibility (and burden) for properly managing diabetes falls directly on your own shoulders (typically, 90% patient and only 10% health providers).
In my own personal situation, after well over 4 months (going on 5) struggling with complications that continued to worsen despite major changes in my diet (ultra low-carb), exercise (10K walks 5-6 days per week), and multiple oral medications, I decided that insulin would be the best course for me. However, my doctors insisted that I continue with using oral meds alone (after changing the prescription yet again in an attempt to find something that might work). To settle the uncertainty, I finally had two (2) separate C-Peptide blood tests performed with results that came in at the very bottom of the reference range. Because I was a retired pharmacist/chemist, I chose to start insulin on my own (Regular and NPH insulins can be purchased without a prescription here in the States). That was twelve years ago. I have been complications-free for over a decade now by all lab tests, symptoms, and measurements.
This is NOT a recommendation for you or anyone else to go this route. In my own situation, I was confident that with my education, background, and experience, it would be a safe route for me to pursue personally. My endocrinologist never commented on my “non-compliant” course of action but did watch with keen academic interest as to how things would work out for me (he is a research endo and teaches at a major university). After one year of my having started insulin, my endo commented that I was “in the top one percent of all his patients in terms of blood sugar control” as well as all other health markers (the clinic has 3,000 patients). He also praised me for having successfully adopted
Dr. Bernstein-like principles to normalize my blood sugars.
This article on Jenny Ruhl’s
BloodSugar101 website may help provide greater insight into the potential use of insulin for Type 2 diabetes and provide you with information needed to discuss the matter more intelligently with your own physician. In his monthly telecasts, Dr. Bernstein stated that approximately ninety percent (90%) of his Type 2 patients are on insulin but some can reduce or be weaned off their doses
after becoming stable and reasonably well-controlled. If you are not familiar with
Dr. Bernstein, you can start by reading free chapters from his
Diabetes Solution book at
this link. Be sure to start with the Preface (“
My Life”) and carefully go over chapters
Nine and
Ten in Part Two. Just keep in mind that good blood sugar control is a journey, not a destination. Don’t hesitate to come back to the forums often if/when you encounter obstacles along the way and need explanations or opinions.
