Hi T2 from doctor yesterday over the phone, having another blood test a week on Friday, doctor quoted a level of 50, this means nothing to me. I’m 58 feel relatively fit, I had what I thought was a good diet, no prior warnings, did not feel unwell, the result came up from my yearly blood test, this has come properly out of the blue and I’m trying to understand things.
Any advice would be most welcome!!
Hi Paul and welcome to the forums. You're pretty much where I was about four years ago - diagnosed with an A1c of 50. There is quite a lot of information on this forum, and the personal experiences of people who've been through it helped me enormously in the beginning.
The good news is that it's relatively straightforward to reduce your blood glucose levels and get back to "normal levels". This worked for me by adopting a low-carb (~20g carb/day) way of eating. This means replacing most of the carbohydrate in the diet with protein and fat. I'd suggest eliminating sugar, bread, pasta, root veg, pastry, rice, fruit - all of which are high in carbohydrates and sugars. If you've avoided symptoms so far that is excellent, and reducing your BG means you have a good chance of never having any.
The bad news is that if you've got to a level of 50, it means you (like me) have got a problem managing the carbohydrates in your diet. Your body is not processing them properly as fuel, and the excess glucose is hanging around in your bloodstream or being converted to bodyfat. High blood glucose levels of themselves cause physical damage to the small blood vessels and nerves, which can lead to neuropathic pain (in feet particularly) kidney issues, eyesight problems, etc.
I'd recommend getting hold of a blood glucose meter, and testing before food, and two hours after eating. That will show you exactly which foods affect your glucose levels most - these will be carby foods, of course, but many people react differently. I can't tolerate flour at all, but I'm not too bad with beans or lentils. Your mileage will vary.
The other thing I'd advise is to try to forget everything you think you know about healthy eating. The standard NHS advice (which is still relatively new) is to "base all meals around starchy carbohydrates". This approach is fortunately changing, but slowly, and many NHS people were trained before the futility of high carb diets was well known. This is really not good for anyone with T2, and would probably result in higher and higher BG levels.
