- Messages
- 5
- Type of diabetes
- Type 2
- Treatment type
- Tablets (oral)
- Dislikes
- Negative people :)
Hello everyone,
First I'm going to copy/paste the introduce yourself post above and give you my story after, just to keep it all together. This is going to be quite long winded so please bare with me if you can.
*DISCLAIMER* There are some medical issues in my story that may be off putting to some, please keep that in mind.
________________
- What is your name? Alex
- How old are you? 33 (34 next week!)
- Are you male or female? Male
- Which country are you from? England
- Which city/area do you live in? Swindon
- Are you religious? No
- Pick three words to describe your personality. - Caring, Thoughtful, Nerd.
- Do you have any pets? No
- Microsoft or Apple? Microsoft all day long
- Which sport(s) (if any) do you like/play? Not anymore, ex rugby/boxing/kickboxing.
- Do you get angry easily? Yes, will explain more in depth below.
- Do you have any tattoos or piercings? If so, where? Nope
- List your five favourite musicians/bands. Difficult for me to do, I like A LOT but my go to will always be Deadmau5, the guy is awesome.
- What would you say your favourite music genre is? Probably house of all variations.
- What is your favourite flag? Don't really have one
- Ever gone camping? As a kid
- Ever been in love? Still am.
- Ever used fake tan? I'm ginger, I'd look super weird tanned, nope!
- Which countries have you visited? England, Wales, America, Holland, Cyprus.
- Favourite city? London, so much culture, I've had some fun just exploring a few times, some lovely places.
- List your five favourite TV programmes. I don't really watch TV all that much, but I recently watched the whole season of "See" on AppleTV, that was absolutely epic.
- List your five favourite films. Good Will Hunting, Pulp Fiction, Hero (Jet Li Epic) are my top 3 of all time, but love A LOT of movies.
- Are you wealthy? Absolutely not.
- Do you work? If so, as what? Not currently, when I am mentally and physically feeling strong again, I will.
- List the subjects you study/have studied. GCSE's, programming basics, python programming.
- What do you like most about yourself? I like being a logical thinker and problem solver, I look at as many solutions/options before coming to a conclusion, I think thats what I like about myself the most.
- What do you like least about yourself? My belly, even though its shrunk, I can't see it like that when I look down.
_______________________
Alrighty, so here we go.
I'm Alex, currently 33 (34 next week 7th Aug). As of today I weigh 16st, 2.5lbs and my mmol/l is 7.3. This is an all time low for me which is mainly why I'm here sharing my story.
When did I find out I was diabetic?
I was roughly 21 when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I weighed roughly 24-25 stone and my eating habits included eating a tin of condensed milk, regularly, as a yoghurt replacement. I'd buy Dairy milk hot chocolate powder, to eat the powder. I would go to buffets and eat multiple plates of food, full large plates. I was an ex doorman/security at the time and I used to work on multiple places but the worst place was Subway. They would open until 3.30am so everyone who came out the clubs/pubs that night could eat after. I would eat a footlong sub prior to my shift, and another one at the end and sometimes 2. Always meatballs with double cheese, the worst. I literally had some of the worst eating habits you could possibly imagine and not have a care in the world, I had NO diabetes awareness or that this was going to risk my life as bad as it is. If I drunk, it'd be easily 16 pints + shots, then food in between as well as after. I smoked cigarettes from the age of 14.
What happened?
Well! Turns out I ended up getting a fungal infection under my foreskin. No matter how much I kept clean, it would NOT go. My sugars were way too high and every time I urinated it would leave too much sugar from my urine under my skin and the fungal infection fed on this. This caused tightness, sores, cuts. I was constantly itchy, in pain and I didn't know why. I went to the doctors due to this and that's when I was told I was a diabetic. On top of this, I was told at this rate I would have a heart attack if not die by the age of 30, all my levels were that bad. Blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, heart rate... all extremely high.
Both my kids were very very young and the thought of them not having a dad to grow up with scared the **** out of me. I couldn't do that.
So, I made changes. I walked more, I stopped with the takeaways, cut back on half the **** and stopped with the extreme like eating an entire jar of chocolate spread or my tins of condensed milk (they were so good, but so bad.).
This allowed me to drop right down to 20st and I got my sugars down a bit. But I wasn't in good shape still, I was still completely obese, I was still eating a lot of bad stuff and sat around the 20st mark for a while.
Then what happened?
A few things. 1) I landed a really good job in 2011 and it was roughly 9 miles away. They had a cycle 2 work scheme where you could get a grant and buy a nice cycle if you were to cycle to work. So I did. In 2013 I got a really nice Felt road cycle bike and I cycled everyday to work. Around 90miles a week it worked out and this was great, the weight was starting to fly off. 2 months of this I dropped to around 18stone. Then I changed my diet and went SUPER clean.
I lived on plain scrambled egg for breakfast (no salt, butter, milk etc), some sort of fish and salad for lunch, and some sort of chicken dish for dinner.. and water / plain black coffee. That was it, I did this for about 5 months.
On top of that, I went boxing training for 2-3 days a week doing intense training and workout.
I even then had the confidence to go out running!!! This was unheard of for me, but I would go running for a few miles at the weekend.
I dropped to an adult personal record of 15st 10lbs. Thats my lowest recorded weight. I'm 6'2" and you can imagine the response I got for dropping nearly 10stone from a lot of people who hadn't seen me for a good few years.
Well, that was the end of the good for a while. That year, my best friends dad passed away who I was SUPER close with, my other best friend took his own life. Me and my partner split up due to her not liking the changes I made, we got through this in the end don't worry
From there I basically said f this. I never did gain the weight like before, I physically can't eat like that, but I certainly didn't eat good.
My sugars were bad again and a couple years later and being back to 18stone, I wasn't looking good. The foreskin issue happened again, to the point I had to go hospital. I won't go into detail but its resolved.
Then in 2017, 3 amazing people, Ricardo Defazio (Fitness), Siobhan O'Connell (Nutrionist), Richard Jones (Meditation) gave an opportunity of a lifetime to 13 lucky people to do a "Swindon's Biggest Loser". They would train us, educate us, and most importantly, help us channel our minds to stay focused. I got accepted into this after passing an interview and I committed to them with every ounce I had in me. I dropped back down to 16stone again. I will never forget the opportunity they presented and I will never forget everything they taught me in terms of the training, what to eat and the meditation/focus.
The problem is, when I achieve these goals and I get your sugars down to an awesome level, I get this false sense of security like I beaten this and I'm fine to enjoy life as I used to.
Then started the REAL problems.
Although I've never bumped higher than 18 stone again, I still ate poorly. I was no longer motivated to exercise as I was and I was working hard.
Around September 2019, I started getting sharp pains in my feet and muscle cramp/tightness in inside of my feet. Since then this has progressed to constant pains in feet and toes, cramps in my calves and now terrible tendonopathy in my lower legs. On top of this, I have constant swelling (edema) that is at stage 4 in my lower legs / feet. The pains in my legs is called peripheral neuropathy? I struggle to walk on a daily basis, I struggle to sleep on a daily basis and all I get told from my doctors is, reduce your sugars.
In the past year I have gone through the following medication:
amitriptyline - Made me sick all the time.
they changed it to duloxetine - this made me impotent and depressed.
I'm now on something called Pregabalin which they're slowly increasing the dosage but right now it isn't stopped my nerve pain enough. I'm at 100mg twice a day for now.
I also take co-codamol (over the counter), ibuprofen, metformin and blood pressure tablet that I can't think the name of right now.
I'm taking this super serious and 2 months ago I was at 16.5mmol/l. I've only just received my own personal blood test checker and its put me at 7.3mmol/l! I've dropped from 17st 8lbs to 16st 2lbs and its all through dieting alone and minor exercise using a VR headset. (Beat saber). I also quit smoking just over a month ago.
I am still in a lot of pain and it is driving me insane but I'm trying my best to stay positive. I've got another doctors appointment on wednesday to see where to go from here. My next diabetic check will be in august.
This isn't the only issue I have though. I'm now also at Stage 2 of Retinopathy. My eyes have fluid leaks in them but around the outsides and not in the middle, if I didn't make these changes now I'm going to hit Stage 3.. I'm being monitored by the eye clinic at my hospital.
The point of my story is - please take your health serious. Everything thats happening to me is scary and the only way I can stop this getting any worse is by being as clean and healthy as possible. I've left my bad habits too long and too late but you may not have to.
I don't want this to get worse, at all. I don't want to lose my feet, and I don't want to go blind.
I WILL STAY HEALTHY FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.
Thank you...
First I'm going to copy/paste the introduce yourself post above and give you my story after, just to keep it all together. This is going to be quite long winded so please bare with me if you can.
*DISCLAIMER* There are some medical issues in my story that may be off putting to some, please keep that in mind.
________________
- What is your name? Alex
- How old are you? 33 (34 next week!)
- Are you male or female? Male
- Which country are you from? England
- Which city/area do you live in? Swindon
- Are you religious? No
- Pick three words to describe your personality. - Caring, Thoughtful, Nerd.
- Do you have any pets? No
- Microsoft or Apple? Microsoft all day long
- Which sport(s) (if any) do you like/play? Not anymore, ex rugby/boxing/kickboxing.
- Do you get angry easily? Yes, will explain more in depth below.
- Do you have any tattoos or piercings? If so, where? Nope
- List your five favourite musicians/bands. Difficult for me to do, I like A LOT but my go to will always be Deadmau5, the guy is awesome.
- What would you say your favourite music genre is? Probably house of all variations.
- What is your favourite flag? Don't really have one
- Ever gone camping? As a kid
- Ever been in love? Still am.
- Ever used fake tan? I'm ginger, I'd look super weird tanned, nope!
- Which countries have you visited? England, Wales, America, Holland, Cyprus.
- Favourite city? London, so much culture, I've had some fun just exploring a few times, some lovely places.
- List your five favourite TV programmes. I don't really watch TV all that much, but I recently watched the whole season of "See" on AppleTV, that was absolutely epic.
- List your five favourite films. Good Will Hunting, Pulp Fiction, Hero (Jet Li Epic) are my top 3 of all time, but love A LOT of movies.
- Are you wealthy? Absolutely not.
- Do you work? If so, as what? Not currently, when I am mentally and physically feeling strong again, I will.
- List the subjects you study/have studied. GCSE's, programming basics, python programming.
- What do you like most about yourself? I like being a logical thinker and problem solver, I look at as many solutions/options before coming to a conclusion, I think thats what I like about myself the most.
- What do you like least about yourself? My belly, even though its shrunk, I can't see it like that when I look down.
_______________________
Alrighty, so here we go.
I'm Alex, currently 33 (34 next week 7th Aug). As of today I weigh 16st, 2.5lbs and my mmol/l is 7.3. This is an all time low for me which is mainly why I'm here sharing my story.
When did I find out I was diabetic?
I was roughly 21 when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I weighed roughly 24-25 stone and my eating habits included eating a tin of condensed milk, regularly, as a yoghurt replacement. I'd buy Dairy milk hot chocolate powder, to eat the powder. I would go to buffets and eat multiple plates of food, full large plates. I was an ex doorman/security at the time and I used to work on multiple places but the worst place was Subway. They would open until 3.30am so everyone who came out the clubs/pubs that night could eat after. I would eat a footlong sub prior to my shift, and another one at the end and sometimes 2. Always meatballs with double cheese, the worst. I literally had some of the worst eating habits you could possibly imagine and not have a care in the world, I had NO diabetes awareness or that this was going to risk my life as bad as it is. If I drunk, it'd be easily 16 pints + shots, then food in between as well as after. I smoked cigarettes from the age of 14.
What happened?
Well! Turns out I ended up getting a fungal infection under my foreskin. No matter how much I kept clean, it would NOT go. My sugars were way too high and every time I urinated it would leave too much sugar from my urine under my skin and the fungal infection fed on this. This caused tightness, sores, cuts. I was constantly itchy, in pain and I didn't know why. I went to the doctors due to this and that's when I was told I was a diabetic. On top of this, I was told at this rate I would have a heart attack if not die by the age of 30, all my levels were that bad. Blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, heart rate... all extremely high.
Both my kids were very very young and the thought of them not having a dad to grow up with scared the **** out of me. I couldn't do that.
So, I made changes. I walked more, I stopped with the takeaways, cut back on half the **** and stopped with the extreme like eating an entire jar of chocolate spread or my tins of condensed milk (they were so good, but so bad.).
This allowed me to drop right down to 20st and I got my sugars down a bit. But I wasn't in good shape still, I was still completely obese, I was still eating a lot of bad stuff and sat around the 20st mark for a while.
Then what happened?
A few things. 1) I landed a really good job in 2011 and it was roughly 9 miles away. They had a cycle 2 work scheme where you could get a grant and buy a nice cycle if you were to cycle to work. So I did. In 2013 I got a really nice Felt road cycle bike and I cycled everyday to work. Around 90miles a week it worked out and this was great, the weight was starting to fly off. 2 months of this I dropped to around 18stone. Then I changed my diet and went SUPER clean.
I lived on plain scrambled egg for breakfast (no salt, butter, milk etc), some sort of fish and salad for lunch, and some sort of chicken dish for dinner.. and water / plain black coffee. That was it, I did this for about 5 months.
On top of that, I went boxing training for 2-3 days a week doing intense training and workout.
I even then had the confidence to go out running!!! This was unheard of for me, but I would go running for a few miles at the weekend.
I dropped to an adult personal record of 15st 10lbs. Thats my lowest recorded weight. I'm 6'2" and you can imagine the response I got for dropping nearly 10stone from a lot of people who hadn't seen me for a good few years.
Well, that was the end of the good for a while. That year, my best friends dad passed away who I was SUPER close with, my other best friend took his own life. Me and my partner split up due to her not liking the changes I made, we got through this in the end don't worry
From there I basically said f this. I never did gain the weight like before, I physically can't eat like that, but I certainly didn't eat good.
My sugars were bad again and a couple years later and being back to 18stone, I wasn't looking good. The foreskin issue happened again, to the point I had to go hospital. I won't go into detail but its resolved.
Then in 2017, 3 amazing people, Ricardo Defazio (Fitness), Siobhan O'Connell (Nutrionist), Richard Jones (Meditation) gave an opportunity of a lifetime to 13 lucky people to do a "Swindon's Biggest Loser". They would train us, educate us, and most importantly, help us channel our minds to stay focused. I got accepted into this after passing an interview and I committed to them with every ounce I had in me. I dropped back down to 16stone again. I will never forget the opportunity they presented and I will never forget everything they taught me in terms of the training, what to eat and the meditation/focus.
The problem is, when I achieve these goals and I get your sugars down to an awesome level, I get this false sense of security like I beaten this and I'm fine to enjoy life as I used to.
Then started the REAL problems.
Although I've never bumped higher than 18 stone again, I still ate poorly. I was no longer motivated to exercise as I was and I was working hard.
Around September 2019, I started getting sharp pains in my feet and muscle cramp/tightness in inside of my feet. Since then this has progressed to constant pains in feet and toes, cramps in my calves and now terrible tendonopathy in my lower legs. On top of this, I have constant swelling (edema) that is at stage 4 in my lower legs / feet. The pains in my legs is called peripheral neuropathy? I struggle to walk on a daily basis, I struggle to sleep on a daily basis and all I get told from my doctors is, reduce your sugars.
In the past year I have gone through the following medication:
amitriptyline - Made me sick all the time.
they changed it to duloxetine - this made me impotent and depressed.
I'm now on something called Pregabalin which they're slowly increasing the dosage but right now it isn't stopped my nerve pain enough. I'm at 100mg twice a day for now.
I also take co-codamol (over the counter), ibuprofen, metformin and blood pressure tablet that I can't think the name of right now.
I'm taking this super serious and 2 months ago I was at 16.5mmol/l. I've only just received my own personal blood test checker and its put me at 7.3mmol/l! I've dropped from 17st 8lbs to 16st 2lbs and its all through dieting alone and minor exercise using a VR headset. (Beat saber). I also quit smoking just over a month ago.
I am still in a lot of pain and it is driving me insane but I'm trying my best to stay positive. I've got another doctors appointment on wednesday to see where to go from here. My next diabetic check will be in august.
This isn't the only issue I have though. I'm now also at Stage 2 of Retinopathy. My eyes have fluid leaks in them but around the outsides and not in the middle, if I didn't make these changes now I'm going to hit Stage 3.. I'm being monitored by the eye clinic at my hospital.
The point of my story is - please take your health serious. Everything thats happening to me is scary and the only way I can stop this getting any worse is by being as clean and healthy as possible. I've left my bad habits too long and too late but you may not have to.
I don't want this to get worse, at all. I don't want to lose my feet, and I don't want to go blind.
I WILL STAY HEALTHY FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.
Thank you...
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