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Newly Diagnosed and overwhelmed

Beccahn

Newbie
Messages
1
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hi all,

As the tile suggests, I'm newly diagnosed...6 days ago..and pretty shell shocked.
I’ve had issues with Inflammation and iritis for the last year, having lots of blood tests which came back negative. On my last appointment with my eye consultant, she noticed micro-aneurisms at the back of my eyes and ordered blood tests for diabetes.
Hba1c came back as 98.
GP took fasting bloods at 18, with sugar in my urine and confirmed type 2.
My GP is lovely, she’s prescribed 0.5 Metformin, rising to 1.0 next week and has booked me in with diabetic nurse, organised ecg and further blood pressure tests, written to cardiology department for tests as I have poor cardiac health in the family BUT I feel utterly bewildered by it all.
I’ve scoured this site and others trying to absorb as much as possible about lchf diets but am so confused about the right level of daily carbs to aim for as it seems to range from 20-200.
I’ve gone out and purchased the Accu-Chek mobile as I want to get a handle on it all as soon as possible.
First test after breakfast yesterday Bg was 18.5.
Fasting this morning was 12.3.
2 hours after breakfast was 12
3 hours after dinner was 15.3.

Am I going in the right direction?

Any help and as advise would be so gratefully received.
 
Hi Beccahn, you’ll get plenty of good advice here. I had a similar experience to you, optician recommended the BG test with similar results but a tad higher Hba1c at 126 back in June. My FBGs were 17. My Hba1c was down at 67 and a daily average of 8 by late August by low carbing, less than 30g per day. I’m not a doctor so hesitate to say it but I’d test test test before eating and 2 hours after to find out what foods push up your BG. Ideally 2 hours after eating your BG should be no more than 2 points higher. You’ll see lots of posts with FBGs of 4 -6 , don’t let them bother you. Mine are often on 9 in the morning but keeping them down to 6 to 8 for the rest of the day by low carbs and exercise means my average isn’t too bad. Ideally yours will drop quicker than mine. Good luck with what might be a slowish battle and ask lots of questions, the lovely people on here will answer!! And try to stay calm because stress raises your BG!
 
I forgot to answer, Yes you are going in the right direction, learning testing etc.
 
Firstly - you can do a lot to improve things in general by getting your blood glucose into the normal range - if you are lucky.
My Hba1c was 91 and at diagnosis blood glucose was 17.1, but I cut down on carbs from the moment of diagnosis and soon saw much better numbers.
It is something you need to fine tune for yourself, best done with a meter so you can check to see how you are doing.
Cutting out bread and potatoes, pasta, pastry, oats and rice is often a good start - and sugary foods too - that should make a big difference.
Hopefully you will be able to tolerate the Metformin, as some people have problems with the side effects.
 
Hello and welcome to the forum. Tagging @daisy1 for the info pack offered to all newcomers.

While I do not have the same added conditions as you (no heart or bp probs) my HbA1c was the same at diagnosis as yours and I was put on Metformin, too.

After joining this forum and looking at all the advice offered I changed my lifestyle and managed to get my HbA1c down to 43 in just four months and other members have lowered their A1c even faster.
I lost weight, too and my other blood markers returned to normal parameters. So, stick with us, we've all been exactly where you are right now and we know how it feels.

Have a wander around the forum and ask as many questions as you like.

P.S Well done on getting right up there and tackling this condition head on, especially with regard to getting a meter.
 
Hi Becca and welcome!
I see daisy1 has been tagged for her useful welcome info post.
Next I sympathise completely about being shell shocked by your diagnosis, in fact my first post here the night I was diagnosed was entitled “Shell Shocked”. I take Metformin and luckily tolerate it well, but it only helps a tiny bit. I started by reducing my carbs to less than 100 per day and after 6 weeks I reduced it further to under 70g. After about eight months I naturally reduced to under 50g/day and thats where I stay to maintain non diabetic HbA1cs. By reducing slowly I avoided carb flu, not real flu but a reaction you can get if you drop suddenly.
Here’s a link to show the numbers you are aiming for:
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes_care/blood-sugar-level-ranges.html
Don’t worry that you’re not there yet, it looks like you’re heading in the right direction. We often say here that it’s a marathon not a sprint.

Edit for typo
 
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Hi Beccahn, I started with an HBA1c of 102 and am now at 32, this was achieved by dropping my carb intake to a maximum of 40g per day. Good luck on your diabetic journey.
 
@Beccahn
Hello Becca and welcome to the Forum Here is the Basic Information we give to new members and I hope you will find it useful. Ask as many questions as you want and someone will be able to help.

BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED DIABETICS

Diabetes is the general term to describe people who have blood that is sweeter than normal. A number of different types of diabetes exist.

A diagnosis of diabetes tends to be a big shock for most of us. It’s far from the end of the world though and on this forum you'll find well over 235,000 people who are demonstrating this.

On the forum we have found that with the number of new people being diagnosed with diabetes each day, sometimes the NHS is not being able to give all the advice it would perhaps like to deliver - particularly with regards to people with type 2 diabetes.

The role of carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are a factor in diabetes because they ultimately break down into sugar (glucose) within our blood. We then need enough insulin to either convert the blood sugar into energy for our body, or to store the blood sugar as body fat.

If the amount of carbohydrate we take in is more than our body’s own (or injected) insulin can cope with, then our blood sugar will rise.

The bad news

Research indicates that raised blood sugar levels over a period of years can lead to organ damage, commonly referred to as diabetic complications.

The good news

People on the forum here have shown that there is plenty of opportunity to keep blood sugar levels from going too high. It’s a daily task but it’s within our reach and it’s well worth the effort.

Controlling your carbs

The info below is primarily aimed at people with type 2 diabetes, however, it may also be of benefit for other types of diabetes as well.

There are two approaches to controlling your carbs:
  • Reduce your carbohydrate intake
  • Choose ‘better’ carbohydrates
Reduce your carbohydrates

A large number of people on this forum have chosen to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat as they have found this to be an effective way of improving (lowering) their blood sugar levels.

The carbohydrates which tend to have the most pronounced effect on blood sugar levels tend to be starchy carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and similar root vegetables, flour based products (pastry, cakes, biscuits, battered food etc) and certain fruits.

Choosing better carbohydrates

The low glycaemic index diet is often favoured by healthcare professionals but some people with diabetes find that low GI does not help their blood sugar enough and may wish to cut out these foods altogether.

Read more on carbohydrates and diabetes.

Over 145,000 people have taken part in the Low Carb Program - a 10 week structured education course that is helping people lose weight and reduce medication dependency by explaining the science behind carbs, insulin and GI.

Eating what works for you

Different people respond differently to different types of food. What works for one person may not work so well for another. The best way to see which foods are working for you is to test your blood sugar with a glucose meter.

To be able to see what effect a particular type of food or meal has on your blood sugar is to do a test before the meal and then test after the meal. A test 2 hours after the meal gives a good idea of how your body has reacted to the meal.

The blood sugar ranges recommended by NICE are as follows:

Blood glucose ranges for type 2 diabetes
  • Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 8.5 mmol/l
Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (adults)
  • Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 9 mmol/l
Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (children)
  • Before meals: 4 to 8 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 10 mmol/l
However, those that are able to, may wish to keep blood sugar levels below the NICE after meal targets.

Access to blood glucose test strips

The NICE guidelines suggest that people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should be offered:
  • structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review
  • self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education

Therefore both structured education and self-monitoring of blood glucose should be offered to people with type 2 diabetes. Read more on getting access to blood glucose testing supplies.

You may also be interested to read questions to ask at a diabetic clinic.

Note: This post has been edited from Sue/Ken's post to include up to date information.
Take part in Diabetes.co.uk digital education programs and improve your understanding. Most of these are free.

  • Low Carb Program - it's made front-page news of the New Scientist and The Times. Developed with 20,000 people with type 2 diabetes; 96% of people who take part recommend it... find out why

  • Hypo Program - improve your understanding of hypos. There's a version for people with diabetes, parents/guardians of children with type 1, children with type 1 diabetes, teachers and HCPs.
 
Lots of great advice above I won’t repeat but totally agree with.

One thing to be aware of is if your bgl drops fairly quickly, and it probably will on lchf, your eyesight may be affected in a temporary way. The eyeball has adapted to high glucose levels and takes a while to catch up and readjust as it goes down. So don’t buy new glasses till it levels off a bit.
 
Hey, welcome!

It is a shock, isn't it... For me it felt like the floor opened up beneith me when I saw the readings on the meter. (Our cat's diabetic, I'd borrowed his meter to check myself. So I was alone, and I knew what it meant. Oh my, I cried so much that day!). In those first months all I really needed to hear was that it'd be okay. How was almost secundary, I just wanted the hopelessness to go away. So... You'll be okay, and you're off to a flying start. The low carb thing, it's different for everyone, as we all have different levels of insulin-resistance, insulin-response, liver dump etc.... But you've already got the tool that'll tell you where you need to be, carbwise. As someone else mentioned, test before a meal and 2 hours after first bite. If you went up more than 2.0 mmol/l, the meal was carbier than you could process back out. Otherwise, yay, a keeper, a meal that can be repeated! It does mean doing a lot of testing right at the start, but once you know certain meals agree with you, you can just guesstimate. I started at about 75/80 grams of carbs a day (I was advised 125, but once I saw what it did to my BS I scratched that), then decided to keep going lower... I have to admit, when I try to stick to a modertely high target, I lose count. So going keto (so low in carbs that your body enters ketosis, meaning it starts burning fat instead of carbs for energy), was really the thing to do for me. No miscalculations anymore, I just go for the lowest possible carbs, and I still rather enjoy what I eat. Which is also key, because it's a diet for life... If you start eating more and more carbs, the bloodsugars rise all over again, and you don't want that. So it has to be a sustainable, pleasurable eating-experience, this diet! So figure out what's low carb, AND what you like to eat, what it does for your bloodsugars and such... If you chose to go really low really fast you can feel flu-ish for a while as your body switches from high carb to low or even keto, but keeping hydrated and adding salts (for the dehydration) will help until it passes. Yay for coconut milk and bone broth, loads of electrolytes in those to make it easier. But that's all when you're hitting 20 grams of carbs or less... Could well be you're fine on 80, or 120. Your meter'll tell you. Yeah, I know, i'm going a bit fast... You might want to check dietdoctor.com or Dr. Jason Fung's books for more elaborate information, but for right now: High carb foods are spuds, fruit, rice, cereal, pasta, bread, corn... All of those will make your bloodsugars peak. Low carb stuff, that will most likely also positively impact cholesterol, weight, bloodpressure etc, are eggs, meat, fish, above-ground veggies, cheese, butter/ghee, nuts, olives etc. Meals could look like this: Full fat greek yoghurt with nuts, coconutshavings and a few berries. Two or three eggs with bacon, cheese, mushrooms, couple of cherry tomatoes, or some sausages. Green salad with a can of tuna, mayo, capers, olives and avocado. Green salad with lukewarm goat's cheese, vinaigrette and cherry-tomatoes. Meat or fish with cauliflower rice with bacon and cheese, herbs for flavor. It all sounds very fatty, and yeah, it is, but as it turns out it's the carbs that turn to glucose, which in turn gets stored in fat cells, that make us big ladies.... Dietary fat doesn't add anything to our hips, as it turns out. Better yet, it slows down the uptake of any carbs you do eat, so reduces the sugar spike and insulin response. (Which is good.).

It is a lot to take in. For me, the goal was to go diet-only because metformin didn't agree with me, and I discovered when treating T2 with meds alone, it is a progressive disease... With a diet change it can actually go into remission. (And it has.) Three months after diagnosis I was off the diabetes meds as well as off the statins for my cholesterol. My bloodpressure's actually low. And oh yeah, I lost 25 kilo's, while having bacon once or twice a day. Miracles never cease.

Good luck!
Jo
 

You’ve done well Jo
 
I'm in a similar situation how do I cut out carbs but still eat enough
 
Lancers said:
I'm in a similar situation how do I cut out carbs but still eat enough
Click to expand...

We swap carbohydrate for a different fuel, healthy fats and we make sure we're getting enough protein.
Healthy fats and protein satisfy our hunger but there are veggies that are a lot lower in carbs that we can have, too. So cabbage, cauli, broccoli are great for us but spuds , sweetcorn are not so great.
There is an app (and a book of the same name) called 'Carbs and Cals' which is a great resource for learning which carby foods to avoid, which to cut down on and which treat as though they are devil-food
 



Wow, I am newly diagnosed as well and thank you for so much info. set out in a way I can understand. Hope to join in more when I get to terms with it.
 
Hi Christine,
Welcome to the forum, the best place to get advise! Hope your glucose levels will go down soon.

All the best.
 
Hi @Beccahn.

Yep, it is a shocker, ain't it.

For me it was almost a month of trying to get my head around what had just happened, before i finally started to settle in my mind, that it was not the end of everything, just the beginning of a new direction on my lifes journey..

I think the only silver lining in finding out.... IS that you can now begin to do something about it,
and you've made a great start getting the Meter.


Btw, Congratulations on finding this forum, i have found it an amazing source of info, from those who have tried x,y,z and who then honestly pass on the good, and warn about the not so good, and where you'll find links to many sites, that can set out in a manner even i can understand, exactly what is happening AND ways to reduce/manage our condition.

I can't match everybody' else's comments and advise on here, as i too am learning from them and slowly coming to terms with the fact this isn't a diet, as i always considered one to be, but a genuine lifestyle change,
( which has taken a bit of getting used to, if i am honest, )

but the up side, is my health and numbers have improved, the starting conditions i found myself in most days have eased considerably, all thanks to all the members offering up all that lovely advice.

I would however, offer the fact that Food has now begun to once again seem interesting and i no longer am in the dark about WHAT to eat and what are BETTER choices of food.

To that end i found the diet doctors, infographics on a variety of foods, very help and illuminating.in making better choices.(scroll down beyond what to eat and drink, and check the 'Visual Low Carb Guide' ..
THAT seeped into my stupid brain far more then all the words i had read.)

I wish you well on your journey,
you've had a hell of a shock, but you seem to have made a good start in picking yourself up, and dusting yourself off, judging by that original post, there's steel inside us all we never knew existed, long may it continue.

I started out lost and alone, as i guess we all do, but here, i found a considerate, caring community, offering real world advice,
when it's most needed,
And when the storm is at it's highest, and we seem miles from safety, these guys reeled me in,gave me hope and showed me that storms don't last forever, and the Sun still shines down on us.

i'm sure you'll find the same..

Best wishes.
 
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