Eurobuff
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 358
- Type of diabetes
- Treatment type
- Diet only
Also, have you tried eating more fibre? I have a handful of nuts with most meals.
I can't answer your question about senna, but I would suggest you first consider upping your fluids. Many, many people find digestion gets a little bit "off" and slow when they start on lower carbing. Of course there could be a number of reasons for this, but one extremely common explanation is mild dehydration, and the solution is to up the fluids. Even if you think you're drinking plenty, try increasing it. You might be surprised.
Also, have you tried eating more fibre? I have a handful of nuts with most meals.
This was my greatest worry.
I had a full eye examine about six weeks after re-diagnoses of type 2 diabetes with a blood glucose of 282 mg/dL (15.7 mmol/L). I was quite the sight, pacing back and forth in the waiting room as I waited for the results. No retinopathy. Hearing this really brought my stress levels down. While my blood glucose levels settled into the 105 - 145 mg/dL (5.8 - 8.1 mmol/L) range after about a month - (with LCHF diet only, no medication) - my blurry vision took another month or two to clear up.
Buffdaddy123, keep doing what you're doing. It's good that you've added cycling. Diet got my blood glucose levels down, walking 1 or more miles daily, an hour or more after dinner, got my BG levels down further.
Thx for replies guys, i have continued to do what i was doing with my low carbs, a bit of cycling when possible and being quite strict with my food and have lost about 10lb since diagnosis two and a half weeks ago.
I also after talking with my nurse about my levels stopped the Insulin on the 30th of June and continued with my 500mg Metformin twice a day and have held my levels quite nicely averaging 5.0-6.0 after sleeping (i rise a little through the night) and then i gradually lower a little as the day passes, i even find myself dropping to the 4.0 late evenings so not struggling with too many spikes ...most likely the low carbs doing the job.
With regards to the blurring...mine has cleared up very well within a day or two of stopping the insulin it came back gradually and i found i could focus closer each day that passed, now it is perfect, this was also a few days after i started keeping reasonable levels..so i cant say if the insulin or my erratic glucose levels were doing it, but it is back to normal now, so be positive guys and thanks for all the help here.
You people are great!!!
Thank you![Big sigh of relief]...That's excellent news!
It's not unusual for people with type 2 diabetes to develop temporary blurred vision soon after diagnosis when they start to bring their blood sugar levels down. High blood glucose levels are thought to cause high glucose in the lens of the eye which changes its refractive index. As this generally occurs over months or years in type 2 diabetes, the person gradually gets used to it and doesn't realise. Once treatment is commenced, the blood glucose comes down fairly rapidly but the glucose levels in the lens take a lot longer. As the glucose levels in the lens fall,the vision changes. The general advice is not to buy any glasses until the vision has stabilised, which can take a few weeks. In the mean time, depending on whether it's near or distant vision that is affected, some people can get by with buying ready-readers of varying strengths from the pound shop or similar. (If it's distance vision, it might be worth asking around your friends if they have any old glasses for distance that you can borrow.)Thank you all above especially buffdaddy for starting the post. The same thing is happening to me now. Loss of vision and vision blurred two weeks after being diagnosed with diabetes and lowering steeply blood glucose from 13 to 8. Mine has not gone away yet but it only has been a week so it is good to hear folks here saying they got their vision back. Apparently, this issue of complications of osmolarity in the eye with lowering of levels of glucose has been researched for example in Mechanism of worsening diabetic retinopathy with rapid lowering of blood glucose: the synergistic hypothesis. Jingi et al. BMC Endocr Disord. 2017; 17: 63. In this article with insuline not meformin as it just happened to me and others in this thread on metformin but the point being vision in this research overview got worse in many cases with rapid decline in blood glucose levels. Plus, I also found that some national EU labels of products with metformin do warn that once you take the medication and reduce your glucose blood levels you may get blurry vision. Despite this, the advice keeps on being the same by clinical professionals on this area: you were seeing fine we lowered your blood glucose levels to protect your vision when you are older, as an unbelievable negative trade off right away now your vision in less than a week in medication deteriorated immensely but that is a good sign, what was abnormal was before the good vision (??) with high blood sugar, and so reduce the blood glucose levels even further even though the concomitant steep loss in eye sight paralelled the steep drop in blood glucose. I really appreciate the fact that the above 3 people "came to the rescue" here with advice about deteriorating - blurred vision after blood glucose levels drop fast after diabetes diagnosis due to meds-life style changes (this when lowering BG was supposed to prevent vision loss). If you and more people can elaborate on this issue would be great. Frankly, I am scarred and dont know what to do. I talked with my GP and diabetologist and they are puzzled. The diabetologist did mention osmolarity changes but says it doesnt see this happening frequently. Well it happened to me and I shared this and other threads or even general advice that recognizes this as an issue in labels of medications for oral antidiabetics. As of now the diabetologist agreed with stopping the metformin and stick to the strict life style changes measures I have undertaken in the last two weeks since being diagnosed with diabetes, diet and walking twice a day for 30-60 minutes which already resulted in weight loss from 86 to 80 Kg, of course watching that BG (now at 8.1 mmol/L) doesnt go up too much now that the metformin is not there to help it lower. I really dont know what to do I took the metformin religiously for the past two weeks (500 mg every AM) plus did all the exercize to protect myself from injury from diabetes although I was feeling otherwise fine until then (except for being thirsty which is what prompted me to the BG test) and now in less than 2 weeks of doing the right thing according to guidelines of lowering BG I am actually very injured in my eyesight and suddenly. I hope as some of you say above that eyesight will indeed stabilize within a week to 6 weeks (not sure if that means going back to at least closer to normal before blood levels dropped or just stop from getting worse every day as of now two weeks into lowering BG)....
It's not unusual for people with type 2 diabetes to develop temporary blurred vision soon after diagnosis when they start to bring their blood sugar levels down. High blood glucose levels are thought to cause high glucose in the lens of the eye which changes its refractive index. As this generally occurs over months or years in type 2 diabetes, the person gradually gets used to it and doesn't realise. Once treatment is commenced, the blood glucose comes down fairly rapidly but the glucose levels in the lens take a lot longer. As the glucose levels in the lens fall,the vision changes. The general advice is not to buy any glasses until the vision has stabilised, which can take a few weeks. In the mean time, depending on whether it's near or distant vision that is affected, some people can get by with buying ready-readers of varying strengths from the pound shop or similar. (If it's distance vision, it might be worth asking around your friends if they have any old glasses for distance that you can borrow.)
The above process is completely unrelated to diabetic retinopathy which takes years to develop and does not affect vision in the early stages . However, because type 2 diabetes can remain undiagnosed for years, it is possible that someone's vision could be affected by diabetic retinopathy by the time they are diagnosed. In the UK, as soon as someone is diagnosed with diabetes, the GP refers them to the screening programme so they can be seen within 3 months of referral - it is important to attend this screening.
Hi OwenHi Catinahat, when you say you experienced the same do you mean with the close up vision blurring from dropping quick...did it subside after time?
And thanks for reply, been overwelming this first week, and i have got upset a couple of times, thats why i was just hoping someone else lost there close vision temporary to make me a little at ease,
I am now going to cut my carbs down a good deal and hope i can get the numbers down into the 6ish area.
And adding my second Metformin to my intake from today..
Nice to have found a great forum like this.
I was terrified some time ago as shown above and I just want to give the good news to people who find this post so that they too have hope when they are terrified that their vision. For some very strange reason no one warns newly diagnosed people with high blood sugar that if their BG drops suddenly that affects the osmolarity of the lens of the eye significantly. As such there is a 100% chance of blurred vision to the point of 6 diopetries worsening of the vision, The degree of temporary loss of vision is correlated to how aprubtly your BG drops (there is many studies published about this especially in Japan and rest of Asia) Idiots and irresponsible (there is no other term) diabetologists endocrinology as soon as you are diagnosed put you into in medication and drop your BG significantly and within a week by pilling on medication without even giving you time for lifestyle changes which would gradually lower BG, they dont tell you nothing of what you will happen to your vision. One day 1-2 weeks after starting to drop BG suddenly you arrive at work and you cannot see nothing. It then takes 4-10 weeks for you to get to normal. In my case I went as low as 6/36 meaning only at 6 meters could I see what a normal eye can see at 36 meters until I got back to my usual 20/20 (6/6 meaning I see at 6 meters at a normal eye sees at 6 meters) after 4-8 weeks. So for 6 weeks I felt like an invalid that couldnt even drive with no warning at all and I see in this foruns many people complaining of the same. Good news is that it indeed almost got close to normal but presbyopia which was very mild before the sudden drop still got a bit worse and it did not came back to fully normal.
Thank you so much for this. We are going through this with my husband at the moment. He has anxiety and depression, so you can imagine how scary it is. Unfortunately, we suspect he has had diabetes for some time, so it is possible he already has retinopathy and it has worsened. He has other visual stuff going on, rather than just the focus problems. We are now over 3 weeks since his diagnosis and no improvement. We see an optician this afternoon, not for a prescription for lenses, but for a diabetes eye health check. He is terrified.
Please don't forget that we're all people like us.its great that there are people around like you kind folks on here to help people like us x
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