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New diabetic

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trevm

Newbie
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Hi all, I am 42, my father is diabetic, 2 months ago i went for a routine pre-breakfast blood tests. 2 weeks after the test my doctor told me the results had come in and my blood suger level was 14.5 & cholestrol 4.0. I was shocked to be told I was diabetic as I did not see any of the usual symptoms such as excessive thirst and hunger. I had to wait 4 weeks for a hospital appt to do glucose test. I waited another 2 weeks for results from the doctor. Following this test my blood suger level was 8.5.
The doctor has now referred me to the hospital diabetic unit and I awaiting for another appt.
This process is taking time and I have not started on any medication.
I have purchased a machine and my normal pre-breakfast readings are between 8-9.
I understand it should ideally be between 5-7.
My questions are -
1) does normal treatment for newly diagnosed take this long before any medication is provided.

2) What natural foods and supplements will help in reducing blood suger levels. My research shows supplements such as cinnamon, gymnema sylvestre & chromium will help but I would like to know if anyone else has taken these with any success.

This is a wonderful forum and I look forward to hearing from you.
 
hi trevm
welcome to the club
you might not get any meds at first as they like type 2's to try diet and exercise first have you cut down on your carb in take as this is the best think you can do to lower your bg's i know this goes against what your gp has told you to do :? but it really is the best thing you can do for yourself along with as much exercise as you can fit in :o
your morning reading is usely the highest as your liver will dump gulcose in to your blood just befor you wake up there is a name for it but i have forgotton it :roll:
do you have a metiour test before meals and 2 hours after that way you can see what food makes your bg's go up
im always higher first thing 6.7-7.2 but most days by lunch time i get 4.5-5.0 then between 5.0-6.5 the rest of the day so keep testing :D
 
Thanks for your reply.
I normally do testing every couple of days sometimes daily.
I'm not into pricking my finger more than that yet...
However 2 hours after a main meal it's now normally around 15.
2 months ago when I first got the machine it was 22, and shortly after that 19.
Is that high?
I think diet has helped to reduce it.
 
regular exercise will help with insulin resistance and sugar levels far more than any suppliments.
if you can afford it then a treadmill is a good investment.
 
Hi trevm,

If I could offer you one piece of advice before you look at medication, it would be to cut out sugars, refined and starchy carbohydrates. These are the foods primarily responsible for raising your blood sugar, therefore the more you restrict them, the better your numbers should be.

A non-diabetics blood sugar will rarely go above 9, even then only after a lot of carbohydrate, so if you were to set that as your upper limit too, you'd do yourself a great favour. It may be possible to avoid the medications altogether if you can do it!

All the best,

fergus
 
Hi Trevm,

All good advice from Sami, Timo and Fergus. The only thing I would add is to emphasise that you need to experiment with cutting right down on the foods that are high in carbohydrate but don't provide much else, i.e. bread, pasta, rice and potatoes. You will get all the carbs you need (plus vitamins, minerals, fibre and essential oils) from fruit, vegetables and protein and those won't send your BS rocketing like the starch foods do. But you do need to test more to see which ones work for you and which ones don't. Once you have established that, then you can cut down the tests but at the moment you need more tests not less.

You also need to be careful of the claims made by sellers of herbal remedies. Many of the herbs, such as cinnamon, gymnema sylvestre and karella do have some proven anti-diabetic properties, but their properties are frequently overstated by the sellers. For example the standard medication to reduce insulin resistance is metformin. Gymnema sylvestre also does this but you would need to eat around 2 kilos to heve the same effect as one metformin tablet! It pays to research the products before you try them and I generally find Wikipedia is a good source of information.
 
Thanks all 4 replying. I appreciate it.
I do exercise on a regular basis. A change in diet (reducing a lot of crisps,chocolates,cakes) & exercising has helped a lot. My weight has gone down from 69kg to 58kg in 2 months.
So i'm now leaner, fitter but the BG numbers are still not.
Which was why I asked if there any supplements that work?
I am very interested in avoiding medication if possible.
 
I take cinnamon,about half a teaspoon in the morning with breakfast and cinnamon tabs with the rest of my meals.It does seem to have some effect because I ran out and my sugars were higher.
 
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