Ney diagnosed

[TS86]

Hey all,

I joined this forum on behalf of my husband. Yesterday, our GP sent him to the hospital because his blood sugar reading was 20.4, and he had a urine reading of ++ for glucose. He hadn't been feeling well for the last few days with tiredness, extreme thirst, and headaches. Blood tests were performed at the hospital, alongside regular blood sugar testing, and he was prescribed metformin 500mg one tablet twice a day. The doctor told him his blood test results weren't back yet, but he had no doubt that he wasn't diabetic hence the medication, and he would forward everything to the GP - unfortunately I don't know what his recent hb1ac reading is. His previous one 4/5 months ago was 48, and he was diagnosed as prediabetic.

I'm not going to lie as I am worried about him. His blood sugar readings are still between 19.1 and 21.0, which I find scary. How long will he need to take the metformin for before his sugar levels begin to reduce? I had a look online, and it says 4-5 days? I'm not sure if he should call the GP tomorrow and explain his levels aren't reducing yet or hold fire until next week to give the medication time to work. #worriedwife

 

[jjraak]

Oh @TS86

What a worrying time for you .

Man is so lucky .

Right
48....not desperate but needs work

Sugars however far too high

From what I have learned Metformin not a big reducer, tho helps.

Seems like they are still hunting for the correct diagnosis

Best thing IF he wants BG down, IS diet.

Excuse me if you know this
But Type 2 diabetics
Which I think your partner might be

Have built up an intolerance to carbs.
Bread rice pasta potatoes.

A lot of many people's daily diet

And like any allergy, lowering or avoiding the irritant is advisable .

Hard to avoid food.... however easy-ish to avoid carbs

Check out low carb high fat diets.

Low carb ..Is what I do
High fat. .mmhh
I leave fat on meat &
Enjoy real butter , cream etc

So more low carb, better fats

I was at diagnosis 56 mmol HBA1c
Six weeks of starving myself I managed to raise it to 57 mmol HBA1c all by following govt/ docs guidelines...

Started LCHF , quite tentatively.
Once numbers came down got way more involved

Made me look at my blood record over the last 8 years pre diagnosis.

Until LCHF, little improvement despite going low cal low fat everything

6 month LCHF I managed to get back to near normal HBA1c..42.

Ate better then ever
Felt better then ever.

More energy
Less aches

AND
All my blood scores & ratios went from OMG.
To "Expected to live forever "
Ok ..ok...they said good or optimal.

But it was how it felt

Worrying times
Lucky man to have you looking out for him.

Diet...much better then pills .

See diet doctor visuals for better choices
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/visual-guides

Lower is better

 

[EllieM]

I'm not going to lie as I am worried about him. His blood sugar readings are still between 19.1 and 21.0, which I find scary. How long will he need to take the metformin for before his sugar levels begin to reduce? I had a look online, and it says 4-5 days? I'm not sure if he should call the GP tomorrow and explain his levels aren't reducing yet or hold fire until next week to give the medication time to work. #worriedwife

Hi and welcome to the forums.

It's quite common for T2s (if that's what he is) to have very high blood sugars for weeks (months?) before diagnosis. My guess (and I stress it's just a guess as I am not a doctor) is that your doctor may be aiming to put your husband on a higher metformin dose, or even some other medication as well, depending on the results of any blood tests that he had..

Metformin should help but it's not that strong a drug on its own, so depending on what your diet is like now then there may be scope for reducing the carbs in your diet to help a lot more.

This is my favourite link to T2 and low carb, Jokalsbeek's excellent blog
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog/jokalsbeek.401801/

Your partner was obviously given a glucometer. Do you know if he was given any way to measure ketones? (High blood sugars can be dangerous in the short term if accompanied by high ketones, but my guess is that they will have tested for this at the hospital.)

Good luck. My best wishes for your husband and for you. Having a supportive partner can be a big help to diabetic control.

 

[Ronancastled]

His previous one 4/5 months ago was 48, and he was diagnosed as prediabetic.

48, as you probably know now, is the diagnostic cutoff for diabetes, 42-47 would be classed as pre-diabetes

His blood sugar readings are still between 19.1 and 21.0, which I find scary.

His 4 months old HbA1c of 48 would have given him as average BG of 7.8 so somethings changed in that time period

How long will he need to take the metformin for before his sugar levels begin to reduce? I had a look online, and it says 4-5 days? I'm not sure if he should call the GP tomorrow and explain his levels aren't reducing yet or hold fire until next week to give the medication time to work. #worriedwife

The merformin will increase his insulin sensitivity slightly but with number like he's experiencing you need to be more aggressive with diet, the drugs never tackle the underlying cause which is a carb intolerance.
Low carb immediately is the way to go, add in some light exercise when able & build it up slowly over time.
Assuming the tests confirm he is a T2 then you should see results very fast, perhaps even a few weeks.
He's lucky to have you supporting him.

 

[Outlier]

Very lucky indeed to have your support. It's amazing what can be achieved with a low- or no-carb diet. Plenty of lovely food options available, but he has to do his bit and not "cheat" because he'd only be cheating himself. Honestly, it seems like the foot of a mountain at the moment, but it's all completely do-able. Have a good read on here, come back and ask whatever/whenever you want, and we are all here offering support plus real-life experience.

 

[Rowgirl]

Hey all,

I joined this forum on behalf of my husband. Yesterday, our GP sent him to the hospital because his blood sugar reading was 20.4, and he had a urine reading of ++ for glucose. He hadn't been feeling well for the last few days with tiredness, extreme thirst, and headaches. Blood tests were performed at the hospital, alongside regular blood sugar testing, and he was prescribed metformin 500mg one tablet twice a day. The doctor told him his blood test results weren't back yet, but he had no doubt that he wasn't diabetic hence the medication, and he would forward everything to the GP - unfortunately I don't know what his recent hb1ac reading is. His previous one 4/5 months ago was 48, and he was diagnosed as prediabetic.

I'm not going to lie as I am worried about him. His blood sugar readings are still between 19.1 and 21.0, which I find scary. How long will he need to take the metformin for before his sugar levels begin to reduce? I had a look online, and it says 4-5 days? I'm not sure if he should call the GP tomorrow and explain his levels aren't reducing yet or hold fire until next week to give the medication time to work. #worriedwife

Hi, sorry to hear about your worrying time. I too recently had blood sugars of between 18-22mmols.They didn't budge off those levels, whether I ate or not, so after multiple phone calls to the GP and 3 hospital visits, feeling very unwell and loosing weight fast, I was started on insulin. I felt embarrassed to keep calling the GP and diabetic nurses, but fortunately one of the diabetic nurses wasn't happy with the levels and pursued the endocrine team at the hospital. I'm still washed out but relieved my blood sugars have reduced. Good luck.