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New Member to the club

H

Harvey51

Newbie
Messages
3
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Brown Bread / Brown Pasta / Celery / peanut butter
Hi,
Got the news that I have Type 2 yesterday. Needless to say I am gutted but determined to try and get it into regression ASAP.
Looking for suggestions and advice? Please.
  • Is it worth getting a glucose meter? If so what is the best option?
  • Any suggestions for snacks?
  • Not a tea or coffee fan and don't fancy just drinking water for ever. What do you suggest other than diet cans of pop?
  • How do people get on with the medication and have you managed to get of it via diet and exercise?

SO many questions and so little knowledge. Hope you can help?
Best wishes,
H
 
Hi. Yes, do get a glucose meter - an essential piece of kit for us. There are many different makes but choose one that has low-cost test strips. It's best to avoid snacking too much as it's a bad habit when many snacks are high-carb. Cheese, nuts and berries are good. Overall choose food and drink that are lower carb. It's best to use diet and exercise to keep your Blood Sugar and BMI in a good area. The most common med for T2 is Metformin. The plain variety can cause bowel upset for a while. Metformin SR (Slow Release) is better if you can get it. This med doesn't do that much but every little helps...
 
Harvey51 said:
Hi,
Got the news that I have Type 2 yesterday. Needless to say I am gutted but determined to try and get it into regression ASAP.
Looking for suggestions and advice? Please.
  • Is it worth getting a glucose meter? If so what is the best option?
  • Any suggestions for snacks?
  • Not a tea or coffee fan and don't fancy just drinking water for ever. What do you suggest other than diet cans of pop?
  • How do people get on with the medication and have you managed to get of it via diet and exercise?

SO many questions and so little knowledge. Hope you can help?
Best wishes,
H
Click to expand...
Hello Harvey, and welcome,

Let's see... Yeah, get a meter. It'll be the most valuable tool you'll ever buy. The Navii and Tee2 were the ones with the least expensive strips, I believe... They're not available where I am, but others'll know.

Suggestions for snacks...? Funny, you don't ask about the main meals. ;) But yeah, snacks... They're best left alone really, because every time you eat you get an insulin response, and you might want to give your pancreas a break. You're likely to be flooded with insulin your body is insensitive to, and every time you snack, you're basically not helping your body get more sensitive. That said, there's low carb snacks you could go for. Olives, hard cheeses, pork scratchings, cold cuts, devilled or plain boiled eggs, extra dark chocolate (85% or higher), pecans, walnuts, macadamia's, that sort of thing.

Far as drinks go, I pretty much drink water all week, in some form or another. You could infuse it by putting berries or somesuch in the water? I only have a cappuccino or something if I'm walking it off as I go. What do you like to drink? Maybe there are options?

Medication was a disaster for me. Unspeakably so. That's why i started looking for alternatives and ended up on a low carb diet. Or, well, first a low carb/high fat diet, then keto (which went further in carb restriction), and now I'm carnivore, which is almost zero carbs... I went a bit overboard because I had other conditions that fared better on almost zero carb, I could've stuck with keto and remained in the non-diabetic range on that. So yeah... Metformin wreaked havoc on my insides, gliclazide caused hypo's... Diet was the better option. I was diagnosed 5 and a half years ago, just about. And within a few months the GP took me off meds and I haven't really looked back since, as I've been in the normal range the rest of the time. https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog-entry/the-nutritional-thingy.2330/ gives you the basics, should you want to give diet a go.

Good luck eh. It is a blow to be diagnosed, but look at it this way: you know what's wrong now, and you can do something about it!
Jo
 
Drinks: I use a lot of herbal or fruit tea, but do check the ingredients, and remember your tastes will change as time goes on and you will get used to not having a sweet taste.
For cold drinks try adding a slice of cucumber to a jug of water and leave it for a few hours. Or the same with fresh mint or a slice of ginger, or combinations that you like.

Coffee with double cream is very filling

The occasional glass of wine or plain spirits can make you feel less deprived
 
Harvey51 said:
Hi,
Got the news that I have Type 2 yesterday. Needless to say I am gutted but determined to try and get it into regression ASAP.
Looking for suggestions and advice? Please.
  • Is it worth getting a glucose meter? If so what is the best option?
  • Any suggestions for snacks?
  • Not a tea or coffee fan and don't fancy just drinking water for ever. What do you suggest other than diet cans of pop?
  • How do people get on with the medication and have you managed to get of it via diet and exercise?

SO many questions and so little knowledge. Hope you can help?
Best wishes,
H
Click to expand...
Hi and welcome to the club. What was your HbA1c reading?

Definitely get a meter. It will tell you what your blood sugar levelis at that moment and you can therefpre work out the impact foods have on your system. @Rachox has a useful list - the main thing is that the price of strips will be vastly more than the cost of the meter itself. Test before and two hours after meals, and don't worry that your morning readings will stay high - they're usually the last to come down.
Snacks - for me - hazelnuts and almonds, pork scratchings, salamis, olives, cheese (low carb seed crackers from M&S help)
Drinks - I do drink the zero pop, also some red wine, and the occasional low-carb beer (Marstons Resolution)
Medication - never took any. Can't do much exercise either but cutting carbs out of my diet worked the trick for me.

This is very do-able with a bit of willpower. Best of luck!
 
Hi @Harvey51 and welcome to the forum.

Here’s some info on UK meters, and to be clear I have no commercial connections with any of the companies mentioned.


HOME HEALTH have the Gluco Navii, which is a fairly new model and seems to be getting good reviews, links to the strips and the meter:

https://homehealth-uk.com/all-produ...ose-meter-test-strips-choose-mmol-l-or-mg-dl/

There are also discount codes for when you come to buy more strips - "navii5" and "navii10" will give you 20% off purchases of 5 packs of strips and 25% off 10 packs of strips respectively.


Then they sell the older SD Code Free, details to be found here!

https://homehealth-uk.com/all-products/codefree-blood-glucose-monitoring-system-mmoll-or-mgdl/

Discount codes for the Code Free strips

5 packs 264086

10 packs 975833





SPIRIT HEALTHCARE have a meter called the Tee2 + found here:



https://shop.spirit-health.co.uk/co...e2-blood-glucose-meter?variant=19264017268793

with the strips found here:



https://shop.spirit-health.co.uk/co...py-of-tee2-test-strips?variant=19264017367097

Some members have got a free Tee2+ by phoning up to order, with a large order of strips they often throw the meter in for free:

Phone number 0800 8815423


With more expensive strips is their Caresens Dual, this one has the advantage of glucose and ketone testing in one machine, it’s to be found here:

https://shop.spirit-health.co.uk/collections/caresens-dual



If there is a choice of units of measurement then ‘mmol/L’ are the standard units in the UK, ‘mg/dl’ in the US, other countries may vary.


Don’t forget to check the box if you have pre diabetes or diabetes so you can buy VAT free. (for all meters and strips)
 
Hi & Welcome @Harvey51 - yes defo get a meter and in the early days it will tell you what is ok for you to eat and what is not. Have a look at jo's nutritional thingy again a great starting point for you ... many of us here have managed remission through diet and keeping active - I won't say it has been easy but for myself it has been do-able
 
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