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Newbie in need of help :(.

Thanks xyzzy. I take it that's your dog with the shades you take for walkies :lol: . I have a few more questions. How many readings do you take per day and is it from the same hand/finger or do you alternate...and does it have to be from the fingers because that's going to get a bit painful ?

Yes, I never have buy microwave curry with the rice included as it's awful ! I have Basmati and I have found an alternative whole-grain Tilda Basmati and low carb biscuits - morning coffee and Fox's Moos . I already eat the malted milk anyway. No, I hadn't worked out the carbs so that was VERY helpful - wow. The Lasagna is 34 and the curry 11.25 !

I can download my glucose results on to my laptop and get a report of how bad (or good) it is and lots of other data. I sent a recent one to my GP so she has an idea of my current state. This for me is one of the worse things with diabetes care as I get so anxious because the readings are always high . I'm sure once I change my diet it will be so much better :thumbup: .

I think I have a good idea now as to where I am and what needs to change. Most of my food is cooked fresh and most of my carb intake has been highlighted and there are no 'extras' I eat in terms of snacks and treats etc. My GP always said I should get a dog, a Husky !
 
 
Lord Choc Ice said:
I have a few more questions. How many readings do you take per day and is it from the same hand/finger or do you alternate...and does it have to be from the fingers because that's going to get a bit painful ?
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You may feel the need to take lots of readings when you are new to this. That's ok because you really must find out what a particular meal does to your sugar levels. You don't actually have to test everything right now so you could get away with testing after a different meal each day and therefore only using two test strips per day. I say two test strips because you are trying to find what effect a particular meal has on you so testing before the meal and 2 hours after the meal is the procedure to find out what the rise in sugar level is. Also if the reading is greater than 8.5 you might like to make adjustments to that part of the menu for the future.

If you keep adequate records of what you learn then, in theory you don't have to learn it twice and you can have a day off testing when you are confident that a particular meal is ok. It is still tempting to test everything.

You do not have to use the same hand/finger and you should give your fingers a rest by rotating the testing sites etc. You can test on other parts of your body but you may need to modify your lancet gadget and you might have to have different target figures. Your meter booklet should explain that.
 
Lord Choc Ice said:
I take it that's your dog with the shades you take for walkies
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Yes that's one of them. We have two. The one in shades is a Spanish Pyranean and weighs in at 90kg. The other is a Leonburger who weighs around 65kg. When they decide its time for walkies we don't get much say in the matter :lol:

Testing is a personal thing. When I was first diagnosed then for the first 3 months it was a case of test, test, test. I was doing 7 tests a day so on wake up then 2 hrs after breakfast, before lunch, two hours after lunch, before dinner, two hours after dinner and 4 hours after dinner. Like I say I have a very competitive nature and kind of turned it into a personal battle between me and the evil disease. I won and at the moment I have the thing completely under my control but am always wary ...

Probably the most important readings are the two hour post meal ones. Nowadays I test three times a day a wake up then before and two hours after main meal. I know what I eat for breakfast and lunch are always safe as I'm boring and have the same breakfast each day and also rotate through a range of safe lunches that I worked out using my meter. Theoretically I also mostly only eat safe dinners too (you have to get out and enjoy things though) but I still don't want to give up daily testing. I have one of those personalities where I know that if I stopped testing I would soon be saying to myself "a little bit wont hurt" So the disease would get me incrementally so the daily tests keep me behaving. In the end my plan is to just end up doing a two hour post main meal test.

I rotate which finger I use. Always do the test on the side of your finger not the tip as otherwise over time you can lose sensitivity. I know you can use other parts of the body but have never tried.

Looking back to your first post on the thread I've just noticed you are taking Glic. This is an insulin stimulating drug so be a bit careful when cutting your carbs. Reducing carbs means you don't need so much insulin but the Glic doesn't take any notice and will still make you produce insulin so you could end up going low. I would gradually reduce your carbs over a period of days. Try and stabilise your levels using the medication you are currently on with that gradual carb reduction. When you've achieved that then you have a choice. You can keep your carbs at that level or you can reduce your carbs further but at that point you really should talk to the GP about reducing the Glic as further reducing on Glic may start sending your levels too low.
 
Hello Squire Fulwood and xyzzy.

Well it's been a really tough day with so much on the horizon, I'm quite discombobulated and I haven't been pe*ing much either which is a worry. It's all too much.

Squire Fulwood, yes I will take steps to eat less 'bad stuff' and better good stuff. I like the idea of the new potatoes too and I have already cut down my biscuit intake. Thanks for the advice regarding readings too, that makes more sense. At the moment all my readings are greater than 8.5...on average they're about 14. Two strips a day sounds much better than what I'm doing plus I only have a small amount left ! Actually they sell them on Amazon :lol: . It is somewhat tempting to test often inasmuch that I don't want to know the result but my head says I need to check and it always wins.

Xyzzy, holy moly those dogs are big . Yes, I have fallen into a boring routine regards breakfast....well all meals to be fair so now will be good to start anew. That's a great idea about testing from the side of the finger - why didn't I think of that ?! My fingertips could do with a rest. Yes, I'm on 3 glic BD and sometimes take a further one - on the advice from my GP if my readings are greater than 14.

I'm looking forward to getting a bit more exercise as my muscles have really atrophied. It' is kinda slow going as I have been so inactive and it's so easy to strain myself.

More question ; Will changing my eating times help and does not eating so far apart put the glucose reading up ? Finally, I have had 4 infections in the last few months and I'm on antibiotics for another two weeks - will this affect the readings too ?
 
On the meter: Don't know what meter you have but if its one with really expensive strips look to swap to using an SD Code Free. You can get it off Amazon or the healthcare.co.uk shop on eBay. The meter and 50 strips will cost less than £20. Additional strips are £5 for 50 so a lot lot cheaper than other manufacturers.

On the dogs: One of my targets was to weigh less than the Pyranean. Did that a while back

On eating times: Well I find I am most insulin resistant (spike easy / take a long time to come down) in the mornings and least at tea time / early evening so I tend to do a very low carb breakfast and lunch and do my carbs for dinner. Others such as Grazer on the forum are the other way around to again its a case of testing to see what suits yourself. Infections can raise BG's significantly. I had the flu vaccination and a pneumonia vaccination on Saturday morning and my levels have been elevated since then but finally seem to have normalized this evening. Not sure if antibiotics raise your levels.

One further thing and don't want to depress you but if you decide to low carb and find it isn't helping your levels after say a week or two then you should return to the doc as the honest answer is it could be indicating you pancreas is producing very little insulin even with the help of the Glic. If that's the case then there are other medications the doc can try although again the honest answer is insulin maybe your best option.
 
Grr, don't you just hate it when you type a reply, get logged out in the meantime, then lose your reply !

I have a MyLife Pura X meter. The test strips are £20 on Amazon but I think I can get them on prescription now.

Yes I am insulin resistant too . I started my low carb diet yesterday so I am really hoping it works. I have so many web-pages open comparing the foods and calories and carb count - nightmare. I was disappointed to see that the differences between whole grain bread, brown rice etc were not as great as I'd hoped. I'll have to keep looking. Had my blood-test today too and just pray it's better than last time. I also had my flu jab when I had my previous blood-test which was actually my first ever flu jab ! I didn't want one but the headlock didn't help my protestations .

I'm sure my infections didn't help at all but I should have realised something was going on. I have a further two weeks of antibiotics - I just love spending all day on the toilet !

I read this yesterday which really resonated with me;

"I do think that as T2 creeps up on us slowly, the natural compulsion for the body is... I feel weak.. I need food. And then we unconsciously choose the food that we THINK will give us an energy boost and because the T2 is developing, it becomes more and more useless. So we come to think.. I like so and so, and actually those things are highly sugary!"

This is just how I was feeling and in my stupidity ate bags of those McVities Mini Cheddars. I assumed that my hunger was a good thing .

I hope I don't have to go on insulin but that is obviously in the forefront of my mind. It would not be good, I've seen transplant patients struggle to control their diabetes levels whilst taking medication for the transplant.

I'm doing my exercise slowly at the moment as it's been so long and hurts my legs ! My step routine is not so much step on step off but waddle on fall off :lol: .
 
Just got my blood test results and the glucose reading has come down from 28 to 11.2. I know it's still high but wow, such a good result in comparison. Mind you, the (on-call) doctor said it was nothing to worry about :? .

However, they want me to do another test as my blood protein level was very high .
 

That is a huge improvement, well done! You might find it a wee bit difficult at first until you adjust to your new diet. Cut yourself a little bit of slack, just don't go overboard. Once you find alternatives to all the foods you love (and you will, we all have) then life becomes so much easier. With a low carb diet, the weight will drop off, that will also help your BG levels. So you are doing all the right things for your health, not just your diabetes. I doubt there is a single one of us, who didn't "EEK" initially, but as the days go by and as you are eating to your meter, the sense of achievement will push you along. Soon you will be the one dishing out advice instead of asking for it (I know I was an asker, I am now a giver ). Just remember to check before you eat then +2 hours, it really won't take long before you know all your 'safe' foods.

Good luck, and keep us informed and keep asking questions. Jo.
 

Thanks for that Jo . I was so shocked I was waiting for the surgery to phone back and say they got it wrong !

I have found a few alternatives to foods. I find the bread the worse thing to change. Sainsburys Harvest Whole Grain is nice but I'm not so keen on the Burgen. I have cut down to two slices though. The brown rice is awful :lol: . Instead of an Oasis drink a week I now have Irn Bru sugar-free which has a trace of carbs compared to 20g for the Oasis. I also will have a curry now instead of the lasagna. Been having new potatoes too ! It's a big change but the sooner I get into single figure glucose results the better.
 
Hope this is not a stupid question but here goes. I know I should test 2 hours after eating but does this mean drinks as well ? I mean say I had a milky coffee with sweetner would that affect my readings ? This morning I was 8.1 which is the lowest for ages but just now it was 14.5 which is just about 2 hours after eating, taking my meds but still having a coffee.
 
Test after food, or you will have fingers like a pin cushion. A word of warning, milk is quite carby, so your milky coffee could well effect your BG. I love coffee, but I have a rather generous glug of cream in mine. Cream is a healthy fat and will help replace some of the calories you lose dropping carbs.

Well done on your progress, you're doing well, but do think about the carbs in milk. :wink:

I gave up on shop bought bread, and now make my own. It means I can keep it low carb, but also very wholesome. Much better than shop bought **** full of preservatives.
 

Thanks again Defren . I didn't realise that about milk, I like milk . Cream sounds a fair alternative. Yes, 'hopefully' the milky coffee put my BG up if you see what I mean.

Tell me about shop-bought bread... :!: . The first loaf I tried was Sainsburys Harvest Grain and that was OK really but then I tried the Burgen Bread and it went through me like a dose of salts - awful. I am now going to try Hovis Nimble Wholemeal bread which is 8.1g/slice of carbs. The Burgen bread is not much better than the white Kingsmill I was eating for in terms of calories it was 30 more but had 5g less carbs.

I'm not sure about making my own....yet . I've cut the pasta out which was easy as I only had it once a week. The brown rice was exactly the same in terms of nutrients as the white rice so I'm still looking into that - -cauli rice does not appeal to someone who detests cauliflower :lol: . Other than that it's been pretty awful :lol: . You'll have to forgive my gallows humour.
 
Hi there - I'm a bit late to the game, as I didn't see this posting until today.

For what it's worth, I eat six mini-meals per day. Each meal is between 200 and 300 calories, and I end up with around 1500-1600 / day. I also try to balance carbs / fats / protein within each (no easy task, that, lol) so I average 50% / 20% / 30% or thereabouts. I still need to lose about a stone to be in an average BMI range, but I'm getting there slowly but surely. I try to be sparing with the test strips, so I don't test before / after meals unless there's something unusual going on (a special dinner, or planning to eat out, holidays, etc), but my morning pre-breakfast BGs are usually something like 4.8, 5.0, in that region. So far, so good!
 

There are some bonuses to being diabetic, having cream in coffee is one of them.

The bread I make has no additives, no preservatives, no grain, no yeast, it is all pure and wholesome, using almond flour (ground almonds). It has seeds and things in so it is a powerhouse of goodness, and so easy to make.

I was lucky, I have never been a pasta fan, but I did eat rice, potato's etc, but since diagnosis I dropped the lot, quite like a hot potato :lol: Cauli rice is really nice and depending on what you add, doesn't have to taste like cauli at all. I love all veg except broccoli and butterbeans, so it's all good. Keep up the humour, we all need some and it doesn't matter what kind so long as we have some. :lol:
 
Its shocking that Lord Choc has been diagnosed for ten years but didn't know the importance of carb control. Doctors and dieticians are not doing a good job of education and this site is vitally important so we can help each other! In my experience here in the states, doctors seem completely disinterested in dietary solutions to disease and illness. Its all drugs, drugs, drugs. They roll their eyes and refer you to a dietician if you even mention diet or carbs. How is it in the UK? Anyway, thanks to all of you for helping!
 
I was never a huge fan of pasta either Defren. I like the lasagna and that's about it...OK, maybe some other dishes ( ) but lasagna is the only one I used to have weekly. I don't miss it as the curry (madras) is much tastier and lower in carbs . Maybe if the cauli-rice doesn't taste like cauliflower I could try it the once - I have seen several recipes too. I couldn't stop potatoes sadly but I can reduce my intake and I am using new potatoes now. I'm not so keen on veg - love meat though.

Humour is my escape and takes me away from the reality of all this. I have YouTube open constantly and watch comedies or outtakes which really cheer me up...usually whilst eating a plate of biscuits or kebab and chips ! See, now that was a joke .

Thanks frankweir. In my case I wouldn't blame the doctors or nurses - they were constantly telling me my triglycerides were high or I was too heavy or needed to lose weight. They never mentioned drugs. Weight is a very emotive issue with a lot of people so for me , turning a deaf ear was my defense mechanism. This is the first time I have be scared by my blood-test figures and just before it was too late by all accounts. My GP is exemplary in her treatment and hasn't wavered even when faced with such and enormous task of getting me to change the habits of a lifetime...and if she's reading this could you do me a prescription for test strips and lancets...stat :lol: .
 
I think the best thing is to make an appointment with the specialist diabetes dietician at your clinic. It's their job to advise you about how to a) lose weight, which will put less strain on your pancreas and this could improve your levels, and b) to avoid going high after meals.

It's good advice to reduce your carb intake, but I'm not sure cutting out healthy things like bananas, and other nutritious foods that have big health benefits, is the best idea. For one thing, bananas are good for energy because they are slow release and keep you full for longer. (Big banana fan here!!)

Hope it all improves for you!
 
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