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OK, I'm somewhat confused...

L

Lussac

Member
Messages
9
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
Went to the doctors in early March and was sent for a full set of routine blood tests. All the tests were fine except the liver test came back high and also the blood sugar test. I discussed the results with the doctor and he said that the high liver levels might be the result of an illness that I had in 1978 and had left me with a damaged/impaired liver, When I lived somewhere else in 1994 I was sent for a liver biopsy as the count was high and that came back with impaired/fatty liver but not life threatening or likely to get any worse.

Anyway, onto the blood sugars. In March he said I might have diabetes I was given a prescription for the HBa1C test in three months which I've just had and it came back as HBa1c of 6.1 and the glucose as 7.1, these tests were fasting tests (not eating/drinking in the previous 11 hours). In March I purchased a CodeFree reader and testing strips which I've been using on a regular basis and this is where the confusion is arising. I used to test morning and evening and the tests were always the same i.e. much higher in the morning than the evening at around 6:30pm before dinner (morning up to 7.27 and evening the lowest has been 4.2 and the highest 6.0) . I've also been on the 5:2 diet and it seems to make no difference whatsoever whether I do the test on a fasting day or non-fasting day, the evening test is always much less than the morning reading at a max reading of 6.0. Why did the doctor say that the tests must be done in the morning after fasting when it appears that's the time when the levels are always higher?

I may have got the wrong end of the stick with this testing lark but if I'd only done the regular evening test then I would have been led to think that it was all under control and that my blood sugars were "normal".

By the way, I'm not overweight at all (11 st and 6'1", 32" waist) , have what was considered a very good diet, have no family history on either side of diabetes and no living family members (uncles, aunts and their siblings) with a history of diabetes
 
Most diabetics have what's called the 'dawn phenomenon' so expect the bs to be high on a morning. You should be testing just before a meal and 2 hours after, levels are then just starting to come down. What it means is if its high 2 hours after - the food you have eaten is affecting your blood. You can expect a higher reading if you have eaten carbs. Just testing for testing's sake doesn't mean anything, its the food we eat that has the most affect.
 
OK, that makes sense, so I should be testing before and 2 hours after my evening meal then as that's the only consistent meal throughout the day. With the 5:2 on fasting days (ours are Monday and Thursday) we eat nothing from 8pm Sunday until 7pm Monday the same on Wednesday/Thursday. Breakfast on non-fasting days is fruit tea and 30g of rolled oats with a sprinkling of cinnamon, lunch is usually a slice of home made wholemeal bread, cheese ,ham or sardines, cucumber and sometimes a small salad too and a cup of tea with milk. Evening meal tends to be meat with vegetables or fish with salad followed by fresh fruit salad and yoghurt/creme fraise. Since March we have cut out potatoes, white flour, white rice and any products containing these and anything that contains obvious sugar.
 
Sounds good, I would test before and 2 hours after the bread and rolled oats to see what affect they have. Some folk can manage oats, some cant. If you are making homemade bread how about making it with spelt flour, but of course test after that too. As for the fruit berries are the way to go. Just tweaking your diet will make a huge difference.
 
Ok, thanks for the encouragement. I was really getting quite depressed after 3 months of changing everything for virtually no improvement, not wanting to go out as there would be a problem with eating when being entertained/entertaining so I've become a bit of a recluse much to my wife's annoyance. We live in France and have quite a good range of fruits available on the property (raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, red currents, blackcurrents, gooseberries, blackberries, rhubarb, peaches, plums, cherries, apples and pears everything only in season obviously) as well as growing peas, beans, cucumbers, cauliflower and cabbage. The flour that we get for making bread is Farine de Ble (type 45 Wholemeal Flour?). I'm having to travel for a week starting tomorrow so lord knows how I'm going to manage with eating out with others all the time and think it's going to be a tough test to be sociable when I just don't feel like it and having to worry all the time about the menu on offer.
 
T 45 is a soft flour used for pastries and croissants. T65 upwards are strong bread making flours but strong wholemeal flour is T120.
In our local market we can get spelt and other specialist flours .
I find nut breads very good (I'm a T1 but some breads are just too fast for even rapid insulin to deal with) Surprisingly the supermarket does quite a good one made with almonds and multicereales. Pain de Sarrasin (buckwheat ) and pain de seigle (rye) also tends to be kinder on glucose levels.
Pain de campagne (that kept autocorrecting to champagne) isn't bad if it is made traditionally ( mix of rye and white flour made into a sourdough bread) For sourdough look for levain rather than levure (yeast).
 
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