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New here and have a few questions please

N

northern_lass

Member
Messages
8
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Hello all I’m new here and have a few questions, please, as I’m bit overwhelmed by the diagnosis at the minute.

I had blood tests done in hospital last week and one for diabetes came back 8mmol/l. What does this number mean, please, and how bad is it? I see it’s at the lower end but presumably at a level which is causing damage?

I was told that I have diabetes type 2 but an official diagnosis can’t be made without another blood test. I believe it was the HbA1c, reading some of the other posts. I was told that the second test needs to be done at my local medical practice but I wasn’t told when. How soon should I make an appointment to do this, please?

I immediately switched to a low carb, no sugar, higher protein, higher unsaturated fat diet. I bought a home monitor (which arrived today) and before food read 8.1mmol. How long with the new diet/lifestyle changes am I likely to start to see that number coming down?

I’ve read about DKA and I’m worried if the very low carb diet could cause this to happen to me?

Sorry for the long post, just struggling to process and understand everything.
 
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Hello there, welcome to the forum.
You come across as someone who has their head screwed on right and you've already taken some excellent first steps.
I'm presuming that the blood test that was done at the hospital (and that came back at 8mmol/L) was done after an overnight fast?
In addition to the changes that you've made to your diet have you also considered introducing some time-restricted eating and exercise?
 

Thank you so much for your reply and welcome. Yes, the blood test was done after an overnight fast.

I’ve tried time restricted eating but the most I can manage is about 15 hours fasting between meals because I’m on quite a lot of other medication which needs to be taken with food, at different times of day. I’m not sure if that’s long enough really for that type of fasting?

I also have limited mobility but do exercise as best as I can.
 

Diabetes Remission 17/9

Prof Roy Taylor on Diabetes remission.
nuvision.ncl.ac.uk
Have you considered a low calorie diet for weight loss ?
Hear all about from Professor Roy Taylor the 5 minute summary.

Our research has shown that:
• Type 2 diabetes is caused by a small amount of excess fat inside the liver and inside the pancreas
• It is a potentially reversible condition
• If a person has type 2 diabetes, they have become too heavy for their own body (nothing to do with the arbitrary concept of obesity)
• Weight loss of around 15kg is necessary for most people
• This can be achieved using a simple 3-step method: the 1, 2, 3 of diabetes reversal
• Type 2 diabetes is most easily reversed to normal in the early years after diagnosis
• How and why type 2 diabetes happens can now be understood
 
Thank you very much for your reply and links. I’m also keeping a strict eye on calories as well as low carb.
 
If you want the HbA1c to give a proper diagnosis, maybe hold off on the dietary changes until it's been done. You'll need the support given to a T2 if it is indeed diabetes, and if you wait a while till all your numbers are good, you'll not get any NHS help covered for diabetic check ups and whatnot. So... Put in the call, write an e-mail, whatever works, and request the HbA1c form and get it done as soon as you can, so you can start low carbing right after.

As for DKA, it doesn't usually happen to T2's unless there's some perfect storm of a whole slew of bad things happening all at once, so... Not something to worry about. It's more a T1 thing to get ketoacidocis, "regular" ketones aren't going to hurt you and are something quite a few T2's strive for.

You've got this. Get the HbA1c sorted and get back to good health soon.
Hugs,
Jo
 
If you can get into Ketosis, it is considered that approx' 12 hours is when your system switches to fat burning. So only being able to manage 15 hours, still gives you some leeway.
 
I agree with Jo; first, get your HbA1c sorted so you're officially diagnosed and eligible for the little medical support that is available. This IS important. Then begin to make some changes to your diet - you don't have to try and do it all at once; you've been signed up for the marathon that'll last the rest of your life, not a sprint that'll be over in a few months.

Firstly, I would try following Jo's advice in her blog (you can see the web address in her signature); it's short and simple, and following that advice has worked for many type 2s here.

Secondly, I wouldn't worry about fasting, time-restricted dieting, or even counting calories - just work on understanding which foods raise your blood sugar levels and which don't. For a lot of us, just swapping to a lower carb and higher fat diet has resulted in weight loss. In my case, I've lost 21kg in the last year without dieting - whenever I'm hungry, I eat - I just try to make sure it's not higher carb food. Later on, if you feel you still need to lose weight, then you can look at fasting etc.

Thirdly, feel free to ask however many questions you need to! This is a forum full of people who've had to come to terms with what you're going through now, and we haven't forgotten how little support is available from our Doctors or how little most friends and family understand.

And finally, despite what many armchair and even credentialled experts say, the science around the cause and treatment of type 2 diabetes isn't settled science, so you will hear divergent opinions about what you should do. Find out which foods cause YOUR blood sugars to rise too much and avoid them - we aren't carbon copies of each other, so there are some idiosyncrasies, e.g. chickpea flour doesn't seem to affect me too much, whereas various grain flours definitely do, so a slice of toast with butter raises my blood sugar too much, but a deep-fried bhaji or pakora is fine (as long as there aren't too many onions, another trigger for me). Eat to your meter is sound advice.
 
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northern_lass said:
Thank you very much for your reply and links. I’m also keeping a strict eye on calories as well as low carb.
Click to expand...
The NHs do a support programme for newly diagnosed diabetics to do while the window of opportunity is still open for reversal. (important to try low cal early on as it can work for 87% then, but not necessarily later). At the moment it's only available in some areas but you can look to see if it's available near you.

The NHS Low Calorie Diet Programme​


https://xyla.fra1.digitaloceanspace...1/p6238-xyla-lcd-f2f-patient-info-general.pdf
DigitalOcean
https://xyla.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com › uploads


PDF

NHS England » NHS Type 2 Diabetes Path to Remission Programme

NHS England » NHS Type 2 Diabetes Path to Remission Programme
www.england.nhs.uk
 

Thank you so much for your reply, Jo I’ve just phoned my medical practice after reading your reply, and have an appointment for Tuesday next week, for the HbA1c.

I really appreciate you explaining about DKA as well. I’m very pleased it’s not something I need to worry about.

Thanks again.
 
ajbod said:
If you can get into Ketosis, it is considered that approx' 12 hours is when your system switches to fat burning. So only being able to manage 15 hours, still gives you some leeway.
Click to expand...

That’s really good to know then, thank you!
 

Thank you ever so much for your really informative reply. I’ve just booked an appointment for the HbA1c next Tuesday.

I will look for the link in Jo’s signature in a moment

Well done on losing 21kg in the last year, that’s absolutely brilliant! That’s good to know about diet as I was finding it a bit overwhelming trying to monitor every single aspect.

I really appreciate that re asking questions and that you’ve taken the time to reply.
 

Thanks so much, I will look this up now
 
Your suggestion that this approach sustainably works for 87% of people who try it is not borne out by the very studies you link to:

"At 1 year, 68 (46%) of 149 intervention participants were in remission and 36 (24%) had achieved at least 15 kg weight loss."
"At 24 months, 17 (11%) intervention participants and three (2%) control participants had weight loss of at least 15 kg and 53 (36%) intervention participants and five (3%) control participants had remission of diabetes."
"In a post-hoc analysis of the whole study population, of those participants who maintained at least 10 kg weight loss (45 of 272 with data), 29 (64%) achieved remission; 36 (24%) of 149 participants in the intervention group maintained at least 10 kg weight loss."
Durability of a primary care-led weight-management intervention for remission of type 2 diabetes: 2-year results of the DiRECT open-label, cluster-randomised trial

This is not an 87% success rate...
 
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