Overwhelmed

Hi Misterdj and welcome to the forum

Here is the information we give to new members which I think you will find useful. I'm afraid I can't help you with natural and holistic remedies though although I am sure some members will come along soon who can help you with this.


BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED DIABETICS

Diabetes is the general term to describe people who have blood that is sweeter than normal. A number of different types of diabetes exist.

A diagnosis of diabetes tends to be a big shock for most of us. It’s far from the end of the world though and on this forum you’ll find well over 30,000 people who are demonstrating this.

On the forum we have found that with the number of new people being diagnosed with diabetes each day, sometimes the NHS is not being able to give all the advice it would perhaps like to deliver - particularly with regards to people with type 2 diabetes.

The role of carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are a factor in diabetes because they ultimately break down into sugar (glucose) within our blood. We then need enough insulin to either convert the blood sugar into energy for our body, or to store the blood sugar as body fat.

If the amount of carbohydrate we take in is more than our body’s own (or injected) insulin can cope with, then our blood sugar will rise.

The bad news

Research indicates that raised blood sugar levels over a period of years can lead to organ damage, commonly referred to as diabetic complications.

The good news

People on the forum here have shown that there is plenty of opportunity to keep blood sugar levels from going too high. It’s a daily task but it’s within our reach and it’s well worth the effort.

Controlling your carbs

The info below is primarily aimed at people with type 2 diabetes, however, it may also be of benefit for other types of diabetes as well.
There are two approaches to controlling your carbs:

• Reduce your carbohydrate intake
• Choose ‘better’ carbohydrates

Reduce your carbohydrates

A large number of people on this forum have chosen to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat as they have found this to be an effective way of improving (lowering) their blood sugar levels.

The carbohydrates which tend to have the most pronounced effect on blood sugar levels tend to be starchy carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and similar root vegetables, flour based products (pastry, cakes, biscuits, battered food etc) and certain fruits.

Choosing better carbohydrates

Another option is to replace ‘white carbohydrates’ (such as white bread, white rice, white flour etc) with whole grain varieties. The idea behind having whole grain varieties is that the carbohydrates get broken down slower than the white varieties –and these are said to have a lower glycaemic index.
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/food/diabetes ... rains.html

The low glycaemic index diet is often favoured by healthcare professionals but some people with diabetes find that low GI does not help their blood sugar enough and may wish to cut out these foods altogether.

Read more on carbohydrates and diabetes

Eating what works for you

Different people respond differently to different types of food. What works for one person may not work so well for another. The best way to see which foods are working for you is to test your blood sugar with a glucose meter.

To be able to see what effect a particular type of food or meal has on your blood sugar is to do a test before the meal and then test after the meal. A test 2 hours after the meal gives a good idea of how your body has reacted to the meal.

The blood sugar ranges recommended by NICE are as follows:

Blood glucose ranges for type 2 diabetes

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 8.5 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (adults)

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 9 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (children)

• Before meals: 4 to 8 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 10 mmol/l

However, those that are able to, may wish to keep blood sugar levels below the NICE after meal targets.

Access to blood glucose test strips
The NICE guidelines suggest that people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should be offered:

• structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review
• self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education

Therefore both structured education and self-monitoring of blood glucose should be offered to people with type 2 diabetes. Read more on getting access to blood glucose testing supplies.

You may also be interested to read questions to ask at a diabetic clinic

Note: This post has been edited from Sue/Ken's post to include up to date information.

misterdj said:

However i generally avoid medication for illness prefering to try and treat as naturally as possible. I have read a few papers on the success rates of increasing insulin production and reducing blood glucose through taking various foods or fasting. In the USA there are various adverts for forumlas that claim to reverse diabetes. As i said its all so confusing. Anybody had any dealing with natural or holistic remedies?

Click to expand...

Quite a few forum members control their diabetes through diet and exercise. It is a matter of discovering what suits you. It takes time to learn, especially what foods to eat and how things can be fitted into your routine, but these things are possible.

First thing to learn is what foods cause blood sugar to rise. Chocolates, sweets, biscuits, sugary drinks etc are all obvious but things like white bread, pasta, rice mashed potatoes etc are not so obvious. However, many of these everyday foods have wholegrain equivalents, brown rice, wholegrain bread and pasta and so on and even though they contain the same starches, they are unrefined and are released into the body more slowly. You have to discover what works for you.

Secondly, losing weight, especially visceral fat, which you can't easily see because it is laid between the internal organs helps to improve your insulin sensitivity. Bascially, your sugar stays in your blood longer than an otherwise healthy person because your insulin is somewhat ineffective. Helping it to be more effective is a major benefit and losing weight does this.

Thirdly, exercise helps insulin sensitivity. The process of exercising releases hormones which help your body's insulin, so it works better. The effect is short lived, a couple of days, so frequent short periods of exercise, 'walking off a meal' for example, is better than a couple of weekly workouts at the gym.

Fourthly, certain foods help by either helping the insulin function or by slowing down the conversion of carbohydrates into blood sugar. They are varied, from fresh lemons to cinamon. I take one teaspoon of cider vinegar whenever I have a meal which includes something like white bread or white rice. I normally use portion control on those sort of things but I still love a freshly baked roll. Raspberries, blueberries, blackberries go well with low fat yoghurt and skimmed milk smoothies and are claimed to reduce blood sugar over time. Some people swear by pulses. Several spices are meant to reduce blood sugar. It can be fun learning what works for you.

It is however much easier for a doctor to simply prescribe metformin. He hasn't the time to lead you through the whole process. Lots of people here though will, there is even a good cookbook on the site to download. My diabetes alert came with a 9.8 FBG but now, 9 or 10 weeks later, my average pre meal reading is 5.6 and my average post meal reading is 6.5. I have watched it come steadily down from the 9s and 10s through the 8s and 9s down to the current level. I now get a shock if I see a 7.3 sometimes. And I still eat well.

Hi. The key as you may have gathered is the right diet and Daisy's post give s a lot of information on this. You could waste a lot of time and money on snake-oil cures or 'natural' remedies; don't bother. I've had diabetes for a good few years now and have seen nothing that is proven to help other than a suitable diet, exercise, medication if needed and the luck of the genes you were born with. Do try a suitable diet first together with exercise. That may bring your sugars into the right region; currently they aren't too bad. Metformin is a good and safe drug so don't worry if you need to take it after trying just the diet. I'm afraid you can't fight diabetes but you can take control to reduce it's impact but you will need to accept that one day meds will be needed but you can delay that point.

Hi Misterdj.

I was also diagnosed Two weeks ago with type 2. I am taking 2 Metformin a day and in less than two weeks I am feeling better than I have in a long time. The dreadful tiredness has almost completely gone.

I have to say I believe there are far worse things to be diagnosed with and if we do as suggested by our medical professionals this can be controlled. Its great to know there are places like this where you can chat with fellows of this not so exclusive club.

As a general rule of thumb I have been informed that if you look at packaging and see the Carb value is for example 30g then if the total sugar value underneath is a third of 30g or less then it is generally ok. I am trying not to worry about this too much but I am exercising as much as possible. I am going for a very fast 30 min walk every day and feel great for doing so.

There is an American lady who has written cookery books for all types of problem including Diabetes . Have a look at the Great Taste No Pain Website.

Hope you will soon feel less overwhelmed
Jacktr :wave: :wave:

I felt the same about herbal and natural remedies and several options are supposed to help, i have tried a few in desperation and unfortunately got no results from the ones I tried, cinamon is supposed to work, I tried it for several weeks and gave up as no improvement and i dont like it enough to use if for fun.

Hi

Have been reading this post with interest, How many carbs do people recommend? I also am confused and desperate to bring BG down before I have to go on insulin. roblem:

I've been trying acupuncture which has started to help it was interesting has he told me I had low liver energy and low kidney energy (different from the conventional theory of energy) I had 5 treatments and noticed a difference. I've had a three week break as the therapist was away but going back to get it back in to balance.
There is evidence to suggest that diabetes type 2 is linked to chronic inflammation in the body due the body being intolerant to gluten which ties in with the low carb method of dieting for diabetics.
Also a low gut flora creates dysbosis which plays a role in diabetes and a good probiotic capsule helps to replace the good bacteria. This also is linked to the thyroid functionality which tends to be common in diabetes. So there's lots of avenues to explore. The best is to find a therapy that works for you.

Reflexology also is good, prior to treatment I could start with a reading of 10.5 and end the treatment at 5.7...speaks for itself

Hope that helps

Heather


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

hi,

it can be very overwhelming at first, I think possibly many of us felt that on diagnosis, esp. those who had very little help or info from their HCP's! There's lots of very good info on this forum and website, plus several good books around.

Speaking of which I found a book this weekend called "Overcoming Diabetes - The complete complementary health program" (American publisher) by Dr. Sarah Brewer. It was heavily discounte in a shop called "The Works" at only £2.99!

Have not had chance to read it yet, so can't say if it's really good or not (but for £2.99 it's worth trying!). I just flipped through quickly lastnight, its' FULL of complementary/alternative helth info including reflexology, herbal medicine, magentics, acupuncture, Ayurvedic medicine etc. Also a lot of info explaining how Diabetes works from an 'alternative' perspectie. also spotted quite a few Recipes at the back too.

Hopefully you'll find all the support and info you need on here and other sources soon, and it will all feel a bit less daunting. Take one step at a time if you can, set yourself a few initial goals.. just as it's not good to have no information, it's also very easy to end up with info overload.

Good Luck! :thumbup:

Yes; I too was diagnosed with Type2 last week; was told to buy a BP monitor and to start on statins for Cholesterol. However I have to wait until Thursday before I see the diabetic nurse. I am off to Istanbul for a three day business event and feel very anxious about what I must AVOID to eat. I have yet to be told to buy a blood sugar level monitor but I now realise that I shall need this.
I am very grateful that this website and forum exists; it's conforming to know that there are folk will and able to offer advice.
Look for ward to hearing from you.

Regards

John
Tunbridge Wells
Kent

Hi JIS. As you may have gathered from the forum you need to avoid overlarge portion sizes and avoid high-GI carbs such as sugar, white flour-based bakery products, pasta, white rice etc. Common sense applies of course and nothing is banned. A lot depends on how advanced your diabetes is, hence the meter. I guess the biggest no-no is large, sweet deserts; this can be frustrating! Also avoid fruit juices as the fruit cells are broken down and hence quickly absorbed.

Brilliant. Thanks!
John

Quick note - I think that being told that you can take Metformin and not change your eating patterns may not help you to get a handle on how best to control your BG long term.
I would suggest using diet and exercise along with BG testing to get a handle on how your body behaves.
Then add in the Metformin and see what improvements that makes.
This assumes, of course, that you have enough control that it isn't vital that you go on Metformin immediately.

From your posts I would guess that 'liking your food' is going to be the biggest battle.
You say 'big portions of healthy food'.

I have found that protein helps me keep down portion sizes and stops me feeling hungry, whereas carbs just leave me wanting more.

It takes a few days to adjust but after that if you are lucky you can reduce your portion size without feeling constantly hungry.

You haven't yet said what you consider eating reasonably healthily.
Do you fancy posting a typical day's food?
If you are following the 'party line' from the NHS about loads of carbs, low fat etc. then this may not be as healthy as you think.

My view is that a healthy diet for a non-diabetic is not necessarily a healthy diet for a diabetic.

Diet advice seems to focus on weight loss through a 'healthy balanced diet' - and if you are eating an unhealthy unbalanced diet then following standard weight loss diets are probably a very good thing because weight reduction is often the best way to improve your BG control.

However once your weight is under control the diet can be reworked to improve the results for diabetics.
As you are only slightly overweight then you should be able to shift that in a reasonably short time.

Most of all, don't panic!

I think most of us rushed around for the first weeks and months after diagnosis trying to fix things immediately but looking back it is a gradual process where you adjust your lifestyle and your attitude to food and it takes a good few months to settle into a new way of life.

Don't expect too much too soon - that way you set yourself up for failure and could end up abandoning ideas which would really help in the longer term.

Cheers

LGC

Hi. What you should find is that you do get used to having fewer snacks and big carb portions. The body tends to crave carbs that are rapidly digested and wants more. As you reduce and smooth it out with low-GI carbs such as multigrain bread and so on that you do get used to it. You will wonder at the obese people around you in restaurants having so much more than you and it shows!

My diabetes nurse used this term which I find most helpful. "Whatever you eat, make it hard for the body to get at the sugar" ie Brown bread not white, poridge not cornflakes etc. Works for me, anyway.

Hi Petertremelling. Good advice from the nurse. I might generalise it a bit and say something like 'Whatever you eat, make it hard for the body to get at the carbs and convert them to glucose'.

I suppose we all feel overwhelmed when our bodies malfunction and all Western medicine is directed to treating the effects rather than the cause. I have been Type 2 for about 10 years, now taking two 500mg metformin and two gliclazide 80mg morning and evening. Eventually by not taking care with diet I was on the verge of having to inject. Got to grips with both diet and weight using the Michel Montignac diet advice. Google him and see. Off came TWO stone and down came the readings. Now fairly consistently normal readings except first thing in the morning when I am usually 9+ then OK during the day. Not too restrictive eating but a bit of a bore for whoever cooks. It is a low GI diet - Montignac invented it so far as I can see - not merely low carb. Stick to low GI foods and it works well. Good luck.