newly diagnosed

Which Novartis medication is that? and when do you take it?
Hana

Hi Allan,

To answer some of your questions:
Glucose 301 mg/dl - this is high. A healthy level would be around 120.
Triglycerides 575 mg/dl - this is dangerously high and why your doc has prescribed a statin
HDL 30 mg/dl - this is dangerously low - another reason for the statin and also the fish oil supplement.
CRP 5.01 mg/dl - C-reactive protein is often used to test for heart disease risk but I'm afraid I don't know what a healthy level would be.

You are absolutely right about testing. You need to do this if you are to find which foods or food types have detrimental effects on your BS levels. In general terms all the starchy foods are extremely high in carbohydrate (and it is carbs that your stomach converts into glucose, giving raised blood sugar). So by reducing your carb intake you should see an almost immediate reduction in your BS. What many have done is to cut out the starches altogether (bread, rice, pasta, cereals and potatoes). Then gradually re-introduce them one at a time and test to see what effect they have.

It is often said, but nonetheless true, that different foods affect each of us in different ways. For example rice and pasta send my BS rocketing, potatoes slightly less so, cereals less again, and bread hardly at all. Others have found the opposite is true in their cases. So it really is a matter of experimenting to understand your own body better.

One thing to bear in mind is that cutting out starches does not mean that you will be eating a zero carb diet. There are carbs in all vegetables, salads, cheeses, milk and, unlike starches, they come with healthy vitamins and minerals as an added bonus. In Greece you should find an abundance of very healthy vegetables all year round to go with souvlaki, yiouvetsi, stifado and my all-time favourite, kleftiko.

Hi Allan

Welcome to the forum.

You only give a figure for your HDL cholesterol and triglycerides. What as your total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol?

Regards

Pavlos

Hi Allan

As far as my dedication goes I will say that fear is a pretty strong motivator. Anyway, if I can do it, I think anybody can.

From the information provided it looks like you have to manage two separate conditions diabetes and high blood lipid levels, particularly high triglycerides. Both diabetes and high blood lipid levels increase the risk of heart failure so for people with diabetes, stricter lipid levels apply than for the general population. For most people with diabetes, target levels are:

LDL cholesterol: <100 mg/dl
HDL cholesterol: >45 mg/dl for men and >55 mg/dl for women
Triglycerides: <150 mg/dl

You can take these steps to help achieve these targets:

- Work with a dietitian to develop your own meal plan.
- Use less oil, butter, margarine, and other fats when cooking. Use olive oil instead, plenty of that in Greece
- Choose low-fat dairy products.
- Eat small servings of meat, fish, and poultry.
- Eat more fruits and vegetables.
- Choose whole-grain bread and cereal.
- Try to exercise for 30 minutes most days.
- Follow your health care provider’s instructions for taking medicine.
- If you smoke, get help to quit.
- Lose excess weight.

At the same time to control your diabetes you need to avoid refined carbohydrates such as sugar and limit starchy carbohydrate intake such as pasta, bread, rice etc.

Trial and error combined with frequent testing of your blood sugar levels will teach you what food works for you. You should check first thing in the morining, before every meal and two hours after every meal. For the majority of healthy individuals, normal blood sugar levels are as follows:

First thing in the morning, before breakfast: 80 to 120 mg/dl
Before other meals: 80 to 120 mg/dl
2 hours after meals: 140 to 160 mg/dl
Before bed: 100 to 140 mg/dl

You should be careful that in trying to reduce your carbs to control the diabetes, you don's end up consuming too much fat and in particular saturated fat, which will increase your cholesterol and triglycerides.

Anyway as far as I can see you have a head start on most of us as you are retired and so hopefully suffer less stress and have more time to exercise, your wife is a Chef and so hopefully can cook for you and make sure that you eat the right things and you are in Greece so you can enjoy the sunshine, healthy barbeques etc ..... but I would not overindulge on Kleftiko (too much fat).

Regards

Pavlos

Hi Pavlosn.

For the majority of healthy individuals, normal blood sugar levels are as follows:
First thing in the morning, before breakfast: 80 to 120 mg/dl
Before other meals: 80 to 120 mg/dl
2 hours after meals: 140 to 160 mg/dl
Before bed: 100 to 140 mg/dl

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Those numbers are for a Diabetic I presume ? As we use mmol/l I converted them using our calculator on the main pages here.
Fasting..................4.4 to 6.6 mmol/l. (NICE guidelines....between 4 - 7 mmol/l.)
2 hrs after meals......7.7 to 8.8 mmol/l. (NICE guidelines....no more than 8.5 mmol/l.) Type 2)
If you can get the post meal levels lower then so much the better ?

Hi Cugila

The glucose target levels I quoted, were obtained from the following link to the www.diabetes.co.uk site and refer to a healthy individual so I am reading this as being to a non diabetes sufferer.

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes_care/blood-sugar-level-ranges.html)

I appreciate that in the UK mmol is the usual unit of measurement but as Allan is in Greece and he used mg/dl in hi original message, I felt that leaving the targets in mg/dl would be more useful.

Thanks for converting and clarifying.

Regards

Pavlos

Hi Pavlos.

Yes, I know about those levels here. Trouble is we are a contrary bunch. We tend not to stick to guidelines. :twisted:

As for the mg/dl. I know. It just get's confusing for any newbies. The amount of times we are asked what is mg/dl ??? That is why we try and stick with UK numbers on a UK site and tend to leave the poster to do the conversion, saves us having to do it as well ?

Great informative post you made BTW. Seems you have got a real handle on your Diabetes ?

Cheers.

cugila said:

......Great informative post you made BTW. Seems you have got a real handle on your Diabetes ? ................

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I agree with that wholeheartedly Ken. Pavlos sure is tuned in and obviously got things all sorted out. A great addition to this forum - welcome Pavlos!

Hi Allan - welcome to you too!

I must say from your numbers I wasn't expecting you to say what you did about your weight.

Perhaps you maybe could start by giving us an idea of what your diet has been?

Certainly, I'd start by advising you to cut right back on any starhy carbohydrates - i.e. cereals, bread, potatoes, pasta and rice etc. Doing that usually has a big effect on Type 2s such as me and you.

Best wishes - John

Hi Allan

Losing 20Kg without dieting is a big drop in weight. I know that uncontrolled diabetes is meant to cause weight loss but I am no expert on the matter so I can not tell you if a fasting blood glucose like yours of about 300 mg/dl (16.6 mmol/l) will give rise to such a drop. Perhaps as you control your glucose better the weight loss will stop.

I believe I read somewhere that gaining more muscle is meant to help T2's utilise insulin better so that may be a good way to go.

By the way, have you had a HbA1C test done? That is useful as it gives you a measure of your average blood glucose level over the last three months. As you have only just been diagnosed and started treatment, it may be a good idea to get one as a point of reference.

Also I am sure someone will correct me on this but I believe it takes a couple of weeks for the diabetes medication to take full effect so bear this in mind as you start to self monitor glucose levels.

Regards

Pavlos

Hi creative.

I would probably put this down to the drop in your Bg levels ? When you start to drop from high numbers you can get all sorts of symptoms, much as you described. It should wear off though after a while when your numbers settle down. Don't try to drop the numbers too much at once. Little steps.

Great work so far, keep at it. Can you remember all that ?

Hi Allan

Well done on your progress so far.

I too suffered from some blurred vision initially but my eyesight is back to normal now. As I had been warned to expect this by my doctor, I was not too worried. Apparently, the fluid in our eye lenses also has glucose disolved in it, and as our blood glucose level drops so does the concentration of glucose in the eye fluid, which affects the shape of the eye lens and thus affects our vision.

As glucose levels stabilise the blurred vision should go away though.

Regards

Pavlos

Great news creative,

You sound to be on the right track to a major improvement. The improvement in blood glucose levels usually comes along very quickly once you change your diet.

Keep telling us details of your progress.

Best wishes - John