i'm andrew type two on glimmepiride 6mg and never afraid to tell my gp they get it wrong. if you maintain a relatively healthy life style and your readings go up then tell your gp your medication needs adjusting don't agonise over it. i refuse to use the thumb prick test its a pretty c**p test for type 2's not injecting insulin but the strips cost the nhs a fortune and there's bu**er all you can do about high readings if you have cut out sugar anyway. so thats me.
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new loud and annoying
- Thread starter nickcave1
- Start Date
daisy1
Legend
- Messages
- 26,457
- Location
- Switzerland
- Type of diabetes
- Type 2
- Treatment type
- Tablets (oral)
- Dislikes
- Cruelty towards animals.
Hi Andrew and welcome to the forum 
Here is the information we give to new members. I hope you will find it useful. Ask as many questions as you like and someone will answer you.
Here is the information we give to new members. I hope you will find it useful. Ask as many questions as you like and someone will answer you.I can understand frustration with testing -especially during the early days before getting used to it.
Nick, a lot of people on the forum are very pleased to have access to testing strips, which is sometimes a battle to get hold of, as it has allowed a good number of us to establish good diabetes control and it's fair to say -give some of us our lives back.
CarbsRok is rightly points out that the recommendation for people on glimepiride to test before driving as glimepiride can bring on hypoglycaemia, which can be very dangerous if this happens.
[Apologies if I'm telling you things you things you're already aware of]
Nick, a lot of people on the forum are very pleased to have access to testing strips, which is sometimes a battle to get hold of, as it has allowed a good number of us to establish good diabetes control and it's fair to say -give some of us our lives back.
CarbsRok is rightly points out that the recommendation for people on glimepiride to test before driving as glimepiride can bring on hypoglycaemia, which can be very dangerous if this happens.
[Apologies if I'm telling you things you things you're already aware of]
Dillinger
Well-Known Member
Hello Andrew,
This site will hopefully be a godsend to you; the point about testing blood sugar is that it is the only way that you can see which foods to avoid; diabetes is a slippery and tricky ****** and you need to be constantly vigilant about what types of food you eat (and when you eat it too). It's not just sugar, as I'm sure you know; it is all carbohydrates. How much you can have will depend on how much pancreatic function you have left. The ideal would be to get good control with minimal medication rather than just ramping up the pills and potions when things aren't in line. How do you do that? Well, read on - all the information is here.
Testing is pretty much universally considered on this site to be essential for all diabetics; irrespective of type. Because the first principle of diabetes control is managing blood sugars levels and you can't do that by guess work.
As an aside Nick Cave is a rather wonderful man don't you think?
Best Dillinger
This site will hopefully be a godsend to you; the point about testing blood sugar is that it is the only way that you can see which foods to avoid; diabetes is a slippery and tricky ****** and you need to be constantly vigilant about what types of food you eat (and when you eat it too). It's not just sugar, as I'm sure you know; it is all carbohydrates. How much you can have will depend on how much pancreatic function you have left. The ideal would be to get good control with minimal medication rather than just ramping up the pills and potions when things aren't in line. How do you do that? Well, read on - all the information is here.
Testing is pretty much universally considered on this site to be essential for all diabetics; irrespective of type. Because the first principle of diabetes control is managing blood sugars levels and you can't do that by guess work.
As an aside Nick Cave is a rather wonderful man don't you think?
Best Dillinger
xyzzy
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 2,950
- Type of diabetes
- Other
- Treatment type
- Diet only
- Dislikes
- Undeserving authority figures of all kinds and idiots.
Hi Andrew
You sound really angry but like Dillinger says you've got a good name!
Of course you can choose to control your db anyway you want to, so up your meds by all means. In the end you'll likely need to go on insulin. At that time just try and make sure you're fit and healthy and not overweight as the rates of strokes and heart attacks for T2's on insulin who are overweight is appallingly high. On average it can knock around 10 years off your life if you haven't been careful and of course before then if you haven't been controlling your sugars very well you'll likely be blind or have had amputations and all those other high blood sugar problems. There's lots of research papers to show all of this so ask for them if you want or talk to your doc about it as he'll know too. What's your current HBA1c? Did you know that every 1% its above 6% it near enough doubles the risks of those things happening. So at 9% you're 8 times more likely to get one of those complications than someone with a 6% HBA1c. Those complications do happen, regularly, they can't be denied as how else would some smart guy have worked out the chances of getting those complications if he hadn't counted up the carnage?
If you want to consider an alternative that has worked for me and many, many others on this forum of 35000 members then here's some info I've found useful to give new members. If you want to read where I get the info I recommend then look here viewtopic.php?f=2&t=28402 basically this will lead you to some official diabetic guideline docs for Sweden and America. Both countries have recently changed their dietary guidance for diabetics based on the latest studies available in the last few years. The information I provide to you below reflects that change so may be different to that provided in the UK by the NHS which still uses much older (40 year old) recommendations.
What worked for me and many other people on the forum is finding out that reducing carbohydrates is what really helps with blood sugar levels and controlling diabetes. So just to get things a bit clearer in your head that means drastically reducing or stopping eating anything with plain sugar in it like cakes and biscuits, sugar in tea and coffee and even pure fruit juices contain a lot of sugar. Importantly also try and at least halve starchy foods like rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, cereals and anything else made with flour. Replace those things with extra meat, fish, cheese, eggs and especially vegetables. Vegetables that grow above ground are best but most of us find carrots ok too. A small amount of fresh fruit is fine and I personally find fruits that end in "berry" to be the best. If you're ok with artificial sweeteners then things like diet coke are fine but obviously the non diet versions of drinks are definitely out.
You may or may not have been given guidance on testing your own blood sugar levels. Some GP practices are pro providing Type 2's with a meter and test strips and some are anti. I will warn you the anti ones can be very anti. Whether you get a meter or not is somewhat of a post code lottery I'm afraid at the moment. Most forum members would recommend you get a meter to test your levels as how else will you know you aren't eating things that can hurt you. If you don't know how to go about getting a meter just ask. Do not underestimate the damage diabetes will do to you if you ignore it and regularly exceed safe blood sugar levels.
There are long standing NHS (NICE) guidelines regarding safe blood sugar levels which state to be under 8.5 mmol/l two hours after eating any meal. Many of us see that as a bit out of date nowadays with 7.8 mmol/l being a better target to aim for. 7.8 is what the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) recommends as a lot of modern research shows that 7.8 is the number where if regularly exceeded bad things will start to happen with your body. Depending on how much risk you want to take some of us aim for even lower targets of around 6.5 as that would be the maximum that 19 out of 20 average non diabetics would reach. It will take you a while to get your levels down to those, it took me around 2 months but day by day and week by week it got better.
One thing I found worked really well is a thing called carb counting. This just means that you work out from the backs of packets how many grams of carbohydrates you eat in a day. If you want to do that but are unclear how then ask. The main rule is to include the total carbohydrate count not just the "of which sugars" value. A good target that most people would recommend is to aim between 120 and 150g of carbs a day. This is called a moderately restricted carbohydrate regime and would be one of the dietary options you would be recommended to eat by your doctor if you were American, Swedish or German as it's become standard practice within their health systems.
A benefit of carb counting is it will allow you to fine tune the amount and types of carbohydrate you can eat safely when combined with your meter as no two people are the same. You may find you have to adjust your initial grams per day down (like me) or you might find you can eat more. Some people on the forum cut their carbs to a very low figure of less than 30g / day called VLC or very low carbing. Again while this may seem extreme it is not necessarily a bad thing and other countries don't actively discourage people from doing it so for example the Swedes just say a person doing that kind of diet should just be helped out by their doctor to ensure they are still getting enough vitamins and calories and stuff like that. At those kind of levels AND if you are still producing enough insulin quite a few members discover they can give up all their medication if they want to. If you are wondering I still quite like carbs so eat around 65g / day on average, I'd love to eat a few more but then I wouldn't be able to keep my levels safe which to me is the most important thing.
Here in the UK you may find your local doctor and nurse will also have no problem with a moderate carb regime but some very much still do and may well recommend you eat all the starchy foods I listed above in quantity with every meal. Again the choice is entirely yours. If you want to eat at that higher carbohydrate level then most diabetics have to accept sooner or later they will be on stronger diabetic drugs rather than diet only or on safe drugs like Metformin as otherwise they find they cannot keep in those safe blood sugar ranges.
Losing weight is important if you need to. The extra weight is a major cause of what's called insulin resistance. What that means is that the insulin you produce is being stopped from working properly by excess weight. If you lose weight your insulin resistance will begin to get better and of course losing weight is good for other things like your heart. Unfortunately don't think by losing weight you will be "cured" If you are very lucky you might find that with a reduction in insulin resistance your ability to eat carbohydrates may get somewhat better but how much better is really determined by how long you were running at high blood sugar levels as those high levels can and do destroy the very cells in the body that produce insulin.
Finally an idea of how long it takes to get your blood sugars under control. In me on a low carb and Metformin regime it took around 8 weeks. Each week I saw a gradual improvement. In some people it happens in days. We have had a couple of new members recently who cut their carbohydrates really low and got back to near normal non diabetic blood sugar levels in just about a week. From this take it that everyone is different!
Just keep asking questions it's what the forum is all about.
You sound really angry but like Dillinger says you've got a good name!
Of course you can choose to control your db anyway you want to, so up your meds by all means. In the end you'll likely need to go on insulin. At that time just try and make sure you're fit and healthy and not overweight as the rates of strokes and heart attacks for T2's on insulin who are overweight is appallingly high. On average it can knock around 10 years off your life if you haven't been careful and of course before then if you haven't been controlling your sugars very well you'll likely be blind or have had amputations and all those other high blood sugar problems. There's lots of research papers to show all of this so ask for them if you want or talk to your doc about it as he'll know too. What's your current HBA1c? Did you know that every 1% its above 6% it near enough doubles the risks of those things happening. So at 9% you're 8 times more likely to get one of those complications than someone with a 6% HBA1c. Those complications do happen, regularly, they can't be denied as how else would some smart guy have worked out the chances of getting those complications if he hadn't counted up the carnage?
If you want to consider an alternative that has worked for me and many, many others on this forum of 35000 members then here's some info I've found useful to give new members. If you want to read where I get the info I recommend then look here viewtopic.php?f=2&t=28402 basically this will lead you to some official diabetic guideline docs for Sweden and America. Both countries have recently changed their dietary guidance for diabetics based on the latest studies available in the last few years. The information I provide to you below reflects that change so may be different to that provided in the UK by the NHS which still uses much older (40 year old) recommendations.
What worked for me and many other people on the forum is finding out that reducing carbohydrates is what really helps with blood sugar levels and controlling diabetes. So just to get things a bit clearer in your head that means drastically reducing or stopping eating anything with plain sugar in it like cakes and biscuits, sugar in tea and coffee and even pure fruit juices contain a lot of sugar. Importantly also try and at least halve starchy foods like rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, cereals and anything else made with flour. Replace those things with extra meat, fish, cheese, eggs and especially vegetables. Vegetables that grow above ground are best but most of us find carrots ok too. A small amount of fresh fruit is fine and I personally find fruits that end in "berry" to be the best. If you're ok with artificial sweeteners then things like diet coke are fine but obviously the non diet versions of drinks are definitely out.
You may or may not have been given guidance on testing your own blood sugar levels. Some GP practices are pro providing Type 2's with a meter and test strips and some are anti. I will warn you the anti ones can be very anti. Whether you get a meter or not is somewhat of a post code lottery I'm afraid at the moment. Most forum members would recommend you get a meter to test your levels as how else will you know you aren't eating things that can hurt you. If you don't know how to go about getting a meter just ask. Do not underestimate the damage diabetes will do to you if you ignore it and regularly exceed safe blood sugar levels.
There are long standing NHS (NICE) guidelines regarding safe blood sugar levels which state to be under 8.5 mmol/l two hours after eating any meal. Many of us see that as a bit out of date nowadays with 7.8 mmol/l being a better target to aim for. 7.8 is what the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) recommends as a lot of modern research shows that 7.8 is the number where if regularly exceeded bad things will start to happen with your body. Depending on how much risk you want to take some of us aim for even lower targets of around 6.5 as that would be the maximum that 19 out of 20 average non diabetics would reach. It will take you a while to get your levels down to those, it took me around 2 months but day by day and week by week it got better.
One thing I found worked really well is a thing called carb counting. This just means that you work out from the backs of packets how many grams of carbohydrates you eat in a day. If you want to do that but are unclear how then ask. The main rule is to include the total carbohydrate count not just the "of which sugars" value. A good target that most people would recommend is to aim between 120 and 150g of carbs a day. This is called a moderately restricted carbohydrate regime and would be one of the dietary options you would be recommended to eat by your doctor if you were American, Swedish or German as it's become standard practice within their health systems.
A benefit of carb counting is it will allow you to fine tune the amount and types of carbohydrate you can eat safely when combined with your meter as no two people are the same. You may find you have to adjust your initial grams per day down (like me) or you might find you can eat more. Some people on the forum cut their carbs to a very low figure of less than 30g / day called VLC or very low carbing. Again while this may seem extreme it is not necessarily a bad thing and other countries don't actively discourage people from doing it so for example the Swedes just say a person doing that kind of diet should just be helped out by their doctor to ensure they are still getting enough vitamins and calories and stuff like that. At those kind of levels AND if you are still producing enough insulin quite a few members discover they can give up all their medication if they want to. If you are wondering I still quite like carbs so eat around 65g / day on average, I'd love to eat a few more but then I wouldn't be able to keep my levels safe which to me is the most important thing.
Here in the UK you may find your local doctor and nurse will also have no problem with a moderate carb regime but some very much still do and may well recommend you eat all the starchy foods I listed above in quantity with every meal. Again the choice is entirely yours. If you want to eat at that higher carbohydrate level then most diabetics have to accept sooner or later they will be on stronger diabetic drugs rather than diet only or on safe drugs like Metformin as otherwise they find they cannot keep in those safe blood sugar ranges.
Losing weight is important if you need to. The extra weight is a major cause of what's called insulin resistance. What that means is that the insulin you produce is being stopped from working properly by excess weight. If you lose weight your insulin resistance will begin to get better and of course losing weight is good for other things like your heart. Unfortunately don't think by losing weight you will be "cured" If you are very lucky you might find that with a reduction in insulin resistance your ability to eat carbohydrates may get somewhat better but how much better is really determined by how long you were running at high blood sugar levels as those high levels can and do destroy the very cells in the body that produce insulin.
Finally an idea of how long it takes to get your blood sugars under control. In me on a low carb and Metformin regime it took around 8 weeks. Each week I saw a gradual improvement. In some people it happens in days. We have had a couple of new members recently who cut their carbohydrates really low and got back to near normal non diabetic blood sugar levels in just about a week. From this take it that everyone is different!
Just keep asking questions it's what the forum is all about.
thanks for the replies just a few sorta bits about them.
i did ask about the accuracy of the thumb prick test before i decided not do them and the overall medical opinion i got was - useful to avoid hypos but very limited when readings are constantly high. the hospital tests are much more accurate and i accept that making modification to lifestyle based on 6 months is difficult. i think the test strips are at best a crude measure that can lead to despair when despite best efforts readings remain high. i constantly had readings over 12 but hospital readings of 6.9 t0 8.5.
i found glimmeperide a pretty useful tablet never had any ill effects or hypos and i gave up driving some 8 years ago not really in a response to diabetes but because of other medication.
am i angry about being diabetic not really i was annoyed by my gp's response mainly because he didn't explain about getting the prescription exemption certificate esp when i had 6 different prescriptions a month to pay for b4 diabetes.
does diabetes rule my life no i never had a sweet tooth i do miss chocolate at xmas and easter and i do buy low sugar stuff (mostly).
i accept i'm fairly lucky my body seems as one dr put it 'indestructible' so i refuse to take statins but still have cholesterol levels the envy of my friends and same with blood pressure ( despite my love of fatty foods esp belly pork and smoking).
i'm not trying to convince anyone to take a similar life style to mine but i think trying to live a life based on a thumb prick test is a waste of life UNLESS you suffer from hypos and with all diabetics demand your blood tests, eye and feet checks so u can make informed decisions about your life.
nick cave is a musical god
i did ask about the accuracy of the thumb prick test before i decided not do them and the overall medical opinion i got was - useful to avoid hypos but very limited when readings are constantly high. the hospital tests are much more accurate and i accept that making modification to lifestyle based on 6 months is difficult. i think the test strips are at best a crude measure that can lead to despair when despite best efforts readings remain high. i constantly had readings over 12 but hospital readings of 6.9 t0 8.5.
i found glimmeperide a pretty useful tablet never had any ill effects or hypos and i gave up driving some 8 years ago not really in a response to diabetes but because of other medication.
am i angry about being diabetic not really i was annoyed by my gp's response mainly because he didn't explain about getting the prescription exemption certificate esp when i had 6 different prescriptions a month to pay for b4 diabetes.
does diabetes rule my life no i never had a sweet tooth i do miss chocolate at xmas and easter and i do buy low sugar stuff (mostly).
i accept i'm fairly lucky my body seems as one dr put it 'indestructible' so i refuse to take statins but still have cholesterol levels the envy of my friends and same with blood pressure ( despite my love of fatty foods esp belly pork and smoking).
i'm not trying to convince anyone to take a similar life style to mine but i think trying to live a life based on a thumb prick test is a waste of life UNLESS you suffer from hypos and with all diabetics demand your blood tests, eye and feet checks so u can make informed decisions about your life.
nick cave is a musical god
snowy_barks
Active Member
- Messages
- 39
nickcave1,
I am interested in what you mean by "hospital readings"? Is this Hb1ac sugar level? If it is then that is your avg over a much longer period.
Also, I am sure that you are aware that your BG level is very dependant on when you last ate, if are getting your BG checked in the hospital 3 or 4 hours after eating it is not totally surprising that it was pretty low.
By the way, in my opinion fatty foods aren't that bad for you and do not effect your cholesterol too much. It is carbohydrate that does the damage both to diabetics and non-diabetics.
[mod edit]
I am interested in what you mean by "hospital readings"? Is this Hb1ac sugar level? If it is then that is your avg over a much longer period.
Also, I am sure that you are aware that your BG level is very dependant on when you last ate, if are getting your BG checked in the hospital 3 or 4 hours after eating it is not totally surprising that it was pretty low.
By the way, in my opinion fatty foods aren't that bad for you and do not effect your cholesterol too much. It is carbohydrate that does the damage both to diabetics and non-diabetics.
[mod edit]
[mod edit] yes i mean the hbac the fasting test readings, the reading i am told is the most accurate regarding type 2 diabetes and the one your doctor and or hospital use to assess change or modify your medication as it gives a pretty good indication of levels over the proceeding months. it seems strange you say eating a fatty diet has little effect on cholesterol levels but whatever carbs you eat they have a massive effect so eating chips is no worse or better than a bowl of porridge but as you say this is your 'opinion' much like my view on thumb prick tests is my opinion with in my case my statement that this is my view not a guide or scientific fact for other diabetics.
[mod edit]
[mod edit]
snowy_barks
Active Member
- Messages
- 39
[mod edit]
I suggest that you spend sometime reading the information on the forum and this may help you in the long run.
Regarding the chips and porridge comparison, the porridge is better for you than the chips, but this is down to the longer time it takes to turn into glucose in your blood sugar and not due to the fat content. If you really want to have strong opinions educate yourself before trying to ridicule others and accuse them of wasting their lives.
Good luck for the future I hope you have the time to listen and read about your chronic illness, so you can make the most of your life, testing or not testing.
I suggest that you spend sometime reading the information on the forum and this may help you in the long run.
Regarding the chips and porridge comparison, the porridge is better for you than the chips, but this is down to the longer time it takes to turn into glucose in your blood sugar and not due to the fat content. If you really want to have strong opinions educate yourself before trying to ridicule others and accuse them of wasting their lives.
Good luck for the future I hope you have the time to listen and read about your chronic illness, so you can make the most of your life, testing or not testing.
