Modern Diabetes Treatment in an Ancient System

As a Type 2 lack of knowledge in a lot of HCP's leads to some pretty horrendous advice. If you hang around here for a while you'll discover that loads of Type 2's have used low Carb and Keto diets to control their condition very well me included as well as a fair few Type 1's. The HCP advice tho is usually follow the eatwell guide which is more carbs with every meal than I eat in a whole day.
I find it quite frustrating and try my best to educate wherever possible but its quite hard to change ingrained opinions even hen you have the evidence of your own figures to show them.

Sorry hello and welcome by the way.. (forgetting my manners).

Hello and welcome. What I have gained from this forum, is the ideas needed to try out all sorts of things, and test and test again until I find out what works for me. The results have been good and thats what I wanted. The medical fraternity seem very fixated on advice that is nothing like what I and many others on here do. The first thing I was told, was that as a type 2 I do not need to test my blood glucose levels. Oh really? I don't think so! I would have been nowhere now had I not ignored that. It sounds like you are finding ways that work for you, long may that continue!

Hi. Most of us have observed this. There are two key reasons. One is that the food industry and pharma have a big influence on the researchers which in turn affects PHE (Public Health England) and the NHS overall; their views are skewed by commercial interests. The Eat Well Guide was largely produced by the food industry with little health input. The second reason is poor training for GPs and nurses. My diabetic GP who had just come off a diabetes training course at a well-known university didn't know that T1 could come on outside of childhood and hence couldn't believe I was anything other than T2 despite my symptoms. The end result of all of this is be prepared not to trust without question your GP/Nurse or any government body. Without Dr google we would be lost.

My Dn did not know that Metformin taken long term could affect the absorption of vitB 12 and yet she is allowed to prescribe it. Neither did she know the role that vitB 12 plays with Diabetic neuropathy. As a recently diagnosed T2 I found this just staggering. Reading some of the T1 threads, I was even more shocked at the low level of advice or guidance given to newly diagnosed T1s. None of us should have to resort to the internet to learn what the professionals should, by rights, know already.

Welcome to the forum, glad you have got a handle on your T1 and well done.

Unfortunately this seems to be a global phenomenon. There is a general lack of understanding and appreciation of the natural and cyclical process of ketosis or any desire to understand it. Any discussion of ketones in the context of diabetes(whether type 1 or 2) from mainstream healthcare providers and diabetes association around the world seems confined to ketoacidosis and its avoidance.

Personally, I think (hope) that it's going to get better in a couple of years. Recently I listened to Joe Rogan's podcast where he interviewed Dominic D'Agostino, one of leading proponents of the keto diet. He's seen evidence that low carbing not only helps cognitively (you're not as tired after meals) but it also can resolve cases of epilepsy that don't respond to medication and help with a host of other diseases, including diabetes as we all know.

So hopefully the evidence of the benefits of low-carb diet will keep coming in and will be so significant that the medical community at large will be forced to acknowledge it, rewrite their century old textbooks and change the way they treat diabetes.

One of the frightening and totally unsupportive things told to Type 2s on diagnosis is that the disease is progressive and we will be on insulin sooner rather than later.

There's plenty of American alternative medical people online that say they can and have reversed type 2 with diet alone, and I'm reading stuff now about type 1. The thing is no doctor will ever give you this advice because basically the medical professionals are drug dealers, and only push pharmaceuticals on us. Imagine if you found out you could reverse diabetes from eating certain foods? Imagine how much money would be lost?

It's the same in my profession as a counsellor, more and more people are coming to us to work through there issues rather than taking medicines, and strangely enough (or not depending on how you see it) the government has been struggling to regulate my profession! Imagine the money lost by pharma if they did?

Dars said:

There's plenty of American alternative medical people online that say they can and have reversed type 2 with diet alone,

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There are plenty of T2 members on this forum that have done just that.

Oh thanks, fairly new here, so still getting use to things and posts

Hi and Welcome. I am a t1 and it seems to me that I am on my own wuth regards to anything outside the current orthodoxy. I can get my co morbidities (eyes, kidneys and heart checked though I have 1 sided discussions re the relevance of my 7% total cholesterol) but keto is not on the diwticians' menu and the diabetologist has no advice on food but has offered me statins and metformin! Both declined as she coukd not tell me how they would help my risk.
I think there is a growing body of evidence that low carb is safe as well as effective. If the clinicians can also get over their dogmatic fear of fat in light of this new evidence and because there are pioneers out there will be change!

In the UK we as diabetics get free prescriptions and when pen injectors were introduced the maker's went into my local hospital and arranged to supplythe devices so making their brand of insulin the obvious choice

keating99 said:

Hi all.

New to the Forum but not to diabetes.

I just would like to ask people here what do they think of the level of knowledge displayed by the diabetic treatment teams they visit?

I ask this out of frustration. In recent times I was trying to come up with ways to better manage my Blood Sugars and discovered the low-carb/keto diet. This was a revelation for me as the level of control is crazy. I don't get the BG spikes anymore or I don't require crazy amounts of insulin anymore, and I RARELY have a hypo! Yes keeping your BG level optimal reduces hypos because the trend in BG moves very slowly up/down so it's very easy to predict.

So I was chatting with people in the health care industry and other type one diabetics and I get this "OH NO YOU HAVE KETONES". Yet they won't take the time to listen that I have those intentionally and the Ketone levels are miles away from a ketoacidosis level, and ketoacidosis won't happen when keeping BG optimal with small amounts of insulin, how is this hard to understand? I explain that I can get out of the Ketosis in a very short time with a few carbs and insulin and they still don't understand.

To me, it seems that they are taught a certain way to treat diabetes and not taught about the condition itself.

This is just one very small example I could think of but have ran into many more mind boggling examples before, I just said I'd mention the keto diet as an example. Has anybody ever been told to do something that you know isn't the best for you and so on? Is the approach to treat diabetes dated?

Thanks

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My GP told me that I had a hypo because I ate something sweet so my body produced too much insulin which caused the resultant low blood sugar ........I sat there with my mouth open....... (Type 1 since 1961---she must have thought I was type 2, perhaps....)? If that was the case my GP would have discovered the long awaited cure (eat sweet things so your dead and defunct pancreas will once again produce insulin)! I actually felt unable to correct my GP--after all I do need her on my side!!

I told the consultant I wanted to go back onto animal insulin & he told me I would end up in a heap on the floor & would need to be picked up continually by others.......having originally been on animal insulin for many years I knew this to be untrue. He also told me that hypos would be worse---where on earth does he get this info from...."human" insulin manufacturers, maybe? I also found out that "human" insulin has some amino acids taken out of it in the manufacturing process--mentioned it to the consultant who told me that all I needed to do was eat more meat to make up amino acids......did he think I was stupid? Insulin is insulin because of its make up of amino acids & works in the body, as it does, because of this arrangement so mucking around with "human" insulin is not a good idea.

I asked the GP why HBA1C uses a different measurement, now, to blood glucose monitors--she explained what an HBA1C was (which I obviously know). I asked again, using more simple language--she explained again what an HBA1c was. I asked again ensuring that I stated that measurements used for HBA1C & on BM equipment were once the same. She explained for the 3rd time what an HBA1C was.....I stopped asking then........

These are just a few things, there are many, many more--believe me. It never used t/b like that.

Oh & yesterday I saw a new DSN at the GP's & she actually asked me how much insulin I took--I was amazed because that is the 1st time in many years (20 or so) that I have been asked that question (at GP's or hospital) whereas, at one time, it was one of the first things asked at each consultation.........because of the link between blood sugars, cho eaten & blood test results....a no brainer really.........

I was also put on blood pressure tabs & statins quite a few years ago. Less than a week on statins & I felt weak & depressed so discontinued their use (have a cousin, 7 years younger than me, non diabetic who had had a 2nd heart attack so was put on statins--same thing happened to him & he said it ruined his game of golf--docs took him off them & told him--amongst other things--that this response runs in families). Teach dance as a GCSE subject and it was impossible to demonstrate with the level of weakness I suffered. Never had probs with cholesterol previously until they stopped taking 1 result away from the other but instead added both results together to give "total" cholesterol----however the % figure is the one that s/b checked before a prescription is given for statins--my % was within normal range. Blood pressure tabs I was also prescribed but was told by another medic afterwards that my blood pressure was low. Saw GP who doubled the amount I took & being compliant I took these daily. Then I fainted at my son's (he is a paramedic). He took a BM which fell within normal range then took my blood pressure which was dangerously low. He wanted to take me to hospital--I refused so was told to stay on sofa with my legs above my head for the whole day & not to drive home that evening. My son later told me that I must have a particularly strong heart not to have had a heart attack or similar as a result of too low blood pressure. I no longer take either statins or blood pressure meds--took myself off both as they seemed unnecessary with negative contra indications. Had BP tested yesterday & it fell within normal range (at 64 yrs & after 56 years of type 1) Even when I was pregnant BP did not once become high--docs had me lying down, sitting up, standing up & each time took my BP. Then they tried several other BP machines & all showed good readings--then several docs & nurses came into the room & stood in different corners talking. I thought that something must be very wrong so attracted their attention to ask what it could be. One doctor came over & told me that as I had had type 1 for over 25 years, was pregnant, in 3rd trimester & above average age for a 1st pregnancy that my BP should go up easily---but they couldn't raise it at all !! My comment "That's good though, isn't it?" His response " It is but it's ruined our research!!!!" The diabetes consultant came into the room after the other medics had dissipated and tore the research up.....!!!!!

When I

NicoleC1971 said:

Hi and Welcome. I am a t1 and it seems to me that I am on my own wuth regards to anything outside the current orthodoxy. I can get my co morbidities (eyes, kidneys and heart checked though I have 1 sided discussions re the relevance of my 7% total cholesterol) but keto is not on the diwticians' menu and the diabetologist has no advice on food but has offered me statins and metformin! Both declined as she coukd not tell me how they would help my risk.
I think there is a growing body of evidence that low carb is safe as well as effective. If the clinicians can also get over their dogmatic fear of fat in light of this new evidence and because there are pioneers out there will be change!

Click to expand...

When I saw a dietician, for the first time in 50 years, she didn't even know how much cho was in a slice of bread---so basic it is untrue....!!! I had already told her that I took sandwiches to work--ones that I made myself then she said that it must be so difficult to work out how much cho was in sandwiches I bought in the staff canteen. The entire appointment was a bit of a waste of time......!!!!!!