Newly diagnosed type 2 with Ulcerative Colitis

JAC79 said:

I am totally thrown all over again as the diets for both diabetes and UC are so contradictory.

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Well not necessarily.. personally I have no experience of UC but found that all the gastric problems I had previously went away with an ultra low carb diet. So acid reflux, bloating and indigestion etc.
You are already cutting out grains which is great so if you base your diet around meat, fish, green veg and maybe dairy, if you are ok with that, you'll probably get major benefits.
I have read many anecdotal tales about people reversing UC with a carnivore based diet too.

edit to add here are some

https://meatrx.com/?s=colitis

JAC79 said:

Hi All

I was diagnosed with Type 2 last week and have now been given an increasing dose of metformin. I previously had gestational diabetes when pregnant with my daughter four years ago so I do have a little experience with diabetes.

Though I am finding this hard to get my head around, I have the added complication of having ulcerative colitis which was diagnosed last year. I am also on medication for this and I had to change my diet a fair bit to help with the painful symptoms (no onions, no garlic, no mushrooms, no wholewheat or wholegrain foods) and to be honest I am still finding my way with this, but now I have been diagnosed with diabetes, I am totally thrown all over again as the diets for both diabetes and UC are so contradictory.

Does anyone on here have any experience with this? how have you found a happy medium diet wise?
and what worked for you?

I am thinking that I will need to get a blood sugar monitor kit to see how different meal effect my sugar levels and see what works best while trying to stay away from painful foods.

If anyone has any hints or tips, I would love to hear them

I am feeling a little lost in all this.

Thanks,
Jo

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Hi Jo, Jo here,

The diet doesn't always clash. No grains/wheat, that's what we do too! Onions I rarely ever have now because those can be quite carby too, depending on the type. Carbs is what a T2 can't process properly (and all carbs turn to glucose once ingested). Since carbs are inflammatory, cutting back on them might actually help your gut calm down as well. https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html <-- this is what I wish someone'd told me when I was first diagnosed, it may help you find things you can eat with both conditions in play.

If there's anything we can do, let us know. Maybe tell us what you eat and drink in a typical day? Who knows, we might be able to help you tweak your diet. (Also add absolute NO's in there as well, so we don't suggest useless things. )

I think for you cutting out grains entirely would be a huge benefit.

Drop the toast. Swap your crisps for pork scratchings or cheese snacks. Google cheese snack recipes.

A fast breakfast might me egg and bacon or a cheese omelette.

Avoid potatoes, rice and pasta.

Lookup cauliflower rice. Cauliflower or celeriac mash makes a great topping for cottage pie.

Get a cheap spiralizer. Spiralize courgettes for a pasta substitute.

JAC79 said:

Hi Jo!

Thank you for getting back to me, i will look at your blog.
generally at the moment i will have two slices white toast in the morning, a chicken/tuna/salmon/prawn salad for lunch, maybe with a packet of crisps, some times nuts and seeds instead. then for tea an array of things, mainly chicken lots of cooked veg or salad and potatoes/past/rice. and i generally have a bit of chocolate after, but i have tried to cut this down recently (self confessed chocoholic!!)

I am happy for any suggestions and help. generally i really struggle to find anything i can eat quickly in the morning that isnt grain based. I used to love overnight oats, but this was before i was diagnosed with UC and it was affecting me quite badly.

Thank you xx

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@xfieldok pointed out all the pitfalls in your diet already, so I'll second that. For breakfast you're better off having eggs with bacon, cheese, etc... Takes just a moment to make (I kept thinking it'd be "forever", but eggs are done in the blink of an eye, especially when scrambled). Or you could just boil a bunch ahead of time and keep them in the fridge. If you want easy in the a.m., full fat greek yoghurt with a couple of berries, (the frozen ones are cheap and easy to keep on hand). Maybe some nuts, or coconut shavings added in? That is set up pretty fast too. Chocolate? Get 85% or darker and you'll still get to have it. I don't know how I'd manage without it. (I had a quarter of a Lindt bar today... Extra dark doesn't require much to give you your fill of choccy requirements). Forget any kind of toast, potatoes (and yes, that does include crisps), pasta, rice, corn and cereal. There's a load of other foods out there that you'd do a lot better on, both with the diabetes and the intestinal issues. And thankfully, it's a diet that doesn't include a lot of foods that taste like cardboard, so it should be relatively easy to keep up. Just go for the good stuff. Meats, fish, poultry, above ground, non-starchy veggies (Some of us are okay with pulses, some aren't. Your meter'll tell you, though the skins might already make them a no-go area for you with the UC), and I'll mention the extra dark chocolate again to make you smile, cheeses, olives, that sort of thing. Careful with spices, but knock yourself out with herbs (spices are fine with T2, but not so much with the UC). Go over your grocery list online and see what the carb content is (total carbs, not "of which sugars"), and decide on what stays and what goes. Find alternatives to your usual brands, or go for something entirely different for a snack. (I never knew celery sticks with a bit of hummus could be bliss, though it might be a bit too fiber-y for you?). That saves you going to the store and spending 2 hours reading labels and coming home with nothing but bin bags.

You'll figure it out.
Jo

Half the battle is learning the lingo. If you like pizza lookup fat head dough.

Fancy chocolate cake? Lookup keto mug cake, ready in 90 and a dream with double cream.

If you are ok in the kitchen, sweet or savoury muffins. Just put keto first in the search. Useful to keep in the fridge for grab and go.

Granola bars are a good bet. Search the recipes. Obviously don't use oats or dried fruit.

No need to suffer from deprivation eating like this.

Hi and welcome. My wife has had UC all her life from teenager to her 70s now although it disappeared 5 years ago. She found nothing in her diet influenced her UC and her consultant agreed with that so only restrict what you know affects your UC and beware general advice from others. Also note that she had steroids in various forms over the years in addition to the standard asacol or similar and when they stopped working her consultant tried azathioprine and it worked wonders. May not work for everyone and does suppress the immune system but the upside was amazing. Back to diabetes I suspect there is a lot in common diet-wise so don't despair. Keep the carbs down and see what actually works for you.

When I read the list I thought - well it is going to be easy to make a big change there - we are so encouraged to have carbs carbs and more carbs throughout the day - getting rid of them made me feel so much better, and so much younger too (I am 69 but have gone back to work )
As I told my husband, I feel like a 40 year old, I just haven't managed to catch one yet. About half an hour later he looked in 'you were joking weren't you?' I think I worried the poor fellow.

Fasting is usually the last number to come down. It will in time.

I get my sharps box on repeat prescription. You don't need a sharps box for lancets and test strips as the lancets always have a protective cover for the needle after use and can be binned with other household rubbish,

JAC79 said:

Hi,
I thought I would write a little update. I have now started a low carb high fat diet, the diet doctor website has been a godsend thank you

I have also started testing my blood glucose levels to try and get my head around what works and what doesn’t for me.

I have a few questions- for those testing themselves - where do you get your sharp boxes from?

And second - I have noticed so far that my blood sugar shoots up overnight so my fasting glucose is over 10 whilst before I go to sleep it is usually between 6-7 - I have read about the liver dumping sugar into your system to give you energy whilst fasting but what is the best was to get this reading down? I had the same issue when I had gestational diabetes and ended up on insulin because of it and I really don’t want to go back there-
Can anyone help?
Thanks
Jo

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I usually get a sharps bin from the pharmacy, when I give them the old one they hand out a new one. But that's here in the Netherlandsl you could call or e-mail yours and ask. And your liver thinks your blood sugars should be higher, that's why it keeps dumping as high as it does. As you low carb your liver'll get used to the new normal, just takes a while. (could be anything from 3 months to a year) It will happen though. If your rise after a meal is no more than 2.0 mmol/l, or even under, then your liver'll follow suit too.