Pour the unhappiness out / From your too bitter heart / Which grieving will not sweeten

Hi. This post sounds so desperately sad. You shouldn't bar yourself from anything. Just be sensible of portion sizes. I'm a type one diabetic and have been for 17 years. I don't have perfect control. I do not, however, ban any type of food. Life is too short to be miserable. Eat healthy and have a balanced diet but don't stress over it.


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wow thats depressing lol

hi and welcome

im not as ellequant as you im afraid but i have been diagnosed a year almost to the day, am my experience is one of this.....

i am healthier than i ever imagined possible, i have all my toes and see perfectly, i am fiiter than most people 20 years younger than me, i eat like a king, unilke the junk food i used to eat, i have more energy than ever, im 43 and intend on a long and happy life

downsides? yup! you have to control what you eat to a degree whichever dietary path you choose (low carb is my choice) there are many ways to skin that cat, if you want to gorge on unhealthy sweet or heavy carb laden food your sh*t out of luck, getting in some regular exercise is a great thing for us, but its a great thing for everyone db or no db, sacrifices need to be made, but these are the cards weve been dealt, there are many many worse things to get than db and we should count ourselves lucky to ONLY have this, this is just about a change in lifestyle NOT an end to lifestyle, many of us come to consider it a blessing in disguise once we get our heads round it, thats not to say if i could hit a button and be diabetes free i wouldnt hit but im convinced that by hitting it i would be shortening my life

at first it seems like you are in a dark dark place, but its when we are in the darkest of places that we are able to shine our brightest

the conflicting information is very unhelpful i agree, you will have to decide what to believe and who to listen to but you can try stuff and see how it works for you, the advice given on this forum is conflicting but in amongst it is all the info you could ever need, you just have to choose which bits sound right and who to ignore (me)

there are a couple of golden rules imho
1. reduce your carbohydrate (im not saying go low carb, that will be your decision later) just reduce the white bread, potatoes, rice, pasta and sugar for now, this alone could be enough, but will give you more time to come to terms with things and choose your path, and 2. if you dont have a blood glucose meter from the doctor then you must must must get one and self test your bloods through a finger prick test to see what your sugar levels are doing, have a good read of the forum, theres some clever people here (not me) that can help, and ask as many questions as you like.

appllogies if this makes little sense, im on my phone and its harder to type or edit

best of luck


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touchett said:

I was diagnosed with type II diabetes on January 27, 2014--something I had been trying to stave off these last few years with regular walks, and expunging things like white rice, bread, and pasta from my diet. Still, heredity did out. My GP has all the bedside manner of an espresso maker, i.e. none at all, and didn't really give me much in the way of guidance, except to write a prescription for Metformin, and to tell me that diabetics are at risk for amputations, blindness, and infertility.

I was tested again on February 6 by another doctor, with an HbA1c of 7.7, and a resting blood glucose of 7.0mmol--not ideal numbers.

The internet, for for all its plethora of information doesn't really fill me with hope. I am terrified by the contradictory information I am reading online. Some websites say I can drink milk and eat dairy products, others advise against it. The recommended carbohydrate servings provided by the Canadian and American Diabetes Association seem to be contradict the everyday experiences of Type 1 and 2 diabetics, who consume significantly less carbohydrates. There are conspiracy theories that the Canadian and American Diabetes Association work for pharmaceutical companies, forming a cadre that have no interest in curing diabetes. Obviously, all of this contradictory information scares and confuses me.

I read about diabetic socks, and never going barefoot. All I see are posts by people attempting to have the occasional Chinese take-away, pizza, sushi, or fish & chips, only to see horrible "spikes" and give up on the enterprise altogether. The more strident folks over at tudiabetes militantly shout down any notions of eating a waffle or tempura, or enjoying a gelato in Rome--a disaster they admonish. I happen to enjoy cooking, but have been living on slivers of chicken breast and lettuce for a week, out of sheer terror. For me, food forms a cornerstone of life, not junk food, but occasional pleasures like savouring a steak frites before an opera, or enjoying popcorn at the cinema. I only just turned 31, and in a very visceral sense, it feels I've already died. It's not been two weeks since my diagnosis, and I'm already tired of life.

I don't quite know what to despair about most: the fact that the pleasures of food are forever barred from me, that I must exercise slavishly, and eat the blandest of diets just to stay alive, or that every physician and nurse has told me it's a "progressive" disease, and that no matter what I do, I will deteriorate and need insulin.

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Welcome touchett! There's lots of wisdom in how the 2 prior posters before me replied to you.

I do think you are totally justified in feeling overwhelmed by the conflicting opinions on the Web. For every "answer" there is a refutation, and one person's health benefit is another person's health downfall. But, the truth is each person is unique and there is no one-size-fits-all (pun intended) for a health regime. Also, people on the Web have different agendas, profit not being the least of them. You are right in being skeptical.

What I've done is see this as an opportunity to give me the real 'push" that i need to live how i've always wanted to. I don't see my diagnosis of T2 DB as a death sentence, but rather a "wake-up" telling me it's time to stop futzing around and do what I've always known to be best for me personally, regarding my health.

Of course, at your age I might have felt much more restricted than I do now. You will see, though, that most of us eat a greater variety of good, delicious foods than we ever have, and we are always experimenting, within certain constraints, to see what we like, and how the food/drink fits into our life-styles.

Hang in there, and see you around!

touchett said:

If I sound desperately sad, it's because I'm sorry to say that I am. I do appreciate the kindness extended to me here, especially as most posters here I imagine, are British--I'm writing from Canada.

I realise it's unseemly to grieve over something as silly as Roman gelato, but I think it's those small, intangible details that make up life. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at a diabetic recipe for roast chicken, which exhorts you to discard all the skin---sound advice for a diabetic, to trim the fat, but there is something (besides the chicken) that reeks of death about that instruction. A bit like the advice I read to eat a pizza by picking out the toppings, and discarding the dough and cheese. It's not quite living.

I just attended a production of Cosi fan Tutte, and burst into tears when I saw the beautiful set made up of giant illuminated butterfly lanterns--I thought to myself that I might not be able to see this in the future. The very idea that a slice of pizza, or a cup of ice cream could cost me my sight, or that even after a long life of deprivation, that I might lose my limbs, and go blind anyway--that has been the hardest to bear.

There's this line from Alan Bennett's History Boys, where the Posner character remarks that "he's unhappy, but he's not unhappy about it". Well, I'm unhappy, and I haven't managed not to be unhappy about it.

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I'm an American, my friend, (and currently live in a region that's relatively close to you. ). Believe me, your feelings of dread about going blind (and not being able to see such phenomenal stage-design, vis Mozart's, Cosi Fan Tutti) is very well appreciated by me, and probably many people on here.
I too would be lost without being able to see and hear artistic beauty, and nature, as well.

In the more practical areas of concerns, I have already gotten a small taste of what not being able to trust my ability to properly walk could be like. Over the past month, I have not gone out of the house much because all of the snow and ice in the Arctic area I live in. I sometimes get scared due to the slight foot neuropathy I've been sometime experiencing , due to DB. I have also had some symptoms of blurry vision, which makes walking outside even scarier.

So, are your fears valid? Yes they are.
However, my symptoms decrease or, disappear, depending on what my insulin is doing.

My way of thinking is this, which may, or, may not work for you.
Americans and UKers are walking time-bombs regarding Diabetes, because of our poor diet. To cut to the chase, I surmise that those of us who are deemed "Diabetic" will, in the long-run, outlive and will have lived a better quality of life than those who were able to circumnavigate the actual Diabetes disease, but who still would have had a very poor quality of life, health-wise.

Insulin control and receptivity are key factors in maintaining good health, for ALL people, not only diabetics. It might not sound comforting, but there are people who suffer from all kinds of diseases other than Diabetes, and they would become healthy by doing exactly what we do.

We are automatically helping to prevent these other diseases from occurring by being forced into becoming cognizant of what our glucose and insulin are doing.

For those of us fortunate enough to have been properly diagnosed early on, we are ahead of the larger game. Attention is being called not only to our own proper insulin and glucose interaction, but, to all of the preventative measures we can take to weaken the potential for other diseases.

An example of how having the knowledge we have is very advantageous would be that we are warned that heart-disease can be a by-product of diabetes. Since we are aware of this connection, we are more apt to do the things necessary to prevent heart-disease than someone who is living an unhealthy life that can lead to heart disease, but has had no reason -- no scarey diagnosis--- to follow a proper diet as we do.

There are people who have always had dangerously high, dangerously low, or seriously fluctuating BG levels who are experiencing medical problems, but their doctors have not have related these symptoms to be the result of an insulin/glucose problem. Personally, I think that the weird insulin activities I've had throughout my life, prior to diagnosis, has been the direct, and, indirect, cause of other health issues I've had.

So, in a way, I consider myself "lucky," especially since the systemic inflammation that causes premature "aging", and the diseases associated with aging, are obliterated by properly controlling insulin.

Hope this slant gives you some more food for thought, if nothing else. See 'ya 'round!

Dear Touchett

What you are experiencing and very eloquently expressing, is a very natural feeling of grief after receiving, so recently, what must feel like the devestating news that, at the relatively young age of thirty-one, you are a type two diabetic.

What is more. this is news that , given your family history, you have been long dreading and actively trying to avoid. So it is not entirely surprising that you have reacted to the diagnosis with a perhaps exagerated sense of apprehension and pessimism about the inevitability of a grim future to come.

You are fully entitled to grieve but be aware that your perspective may be somewhat distorted at the moment because of your grief. Allow yourself a period of grief, but as you will surely oome to appreciate soon, your life has not just ended at thirty one, nor will it be lacking of all the myriad little things that make this life worth living.

You are right that with diabetes come increased probabilities of serious health complications. However they are only probabilities and not certainties. Furhermore, we are not helpless in the face of these probabilities. These probabilities are based on statistics and those statistics are distorted because of high numbers of uncontrolled diabetics having a much higher probability of developing complications. Statistics show that for every point improvement in HbA1c score the likelihood of developing diabetic complications decreases by 10 per cent. So by keeping our sugar levels under control we can stack those probabilities in our favour, even if , regrattably, we can not eliminate the risk completely.

You are absolutely correct about the worryingly confusing nature of a lot of the information out there on diabetes treatment, partcularly on what constitutes a suitable diet for diabetics. The orthodox dogma put forward by nutritionists and the vast majority of the medical profession is that diabetics, like the rest of the population, should adopt the healthy plate approach to their diet based on a ratio of carbohydrates to fats to proteins of 55-25-15. This appears to contradict the empirical advise given by a lot of diabetics, based on their own experience of controlling their disease, of a much more restricted carbohydrate intake (in many cases translating to higher fat intake).

Surely, they can not both be right. Or can they? Could it be that there is more than one way of dealing with diabetes? Could it be that as we are all individuals there is no one-size-fits all solution to diabetic glycemic control? If that is the case, then what is important is to discover what works for you.

I suspect that at the moment you are trying to play too safe with what you eat, trying to hedge your bets by eating both low fat and low carb. But you are finding this unattractive and so you will be unlikely to stick with it long term.

Any regime you adopt for the treatment of your diabetes will be a compromise and as such a balancing of risks: the risk of diabetic complications against the enjoyment of food; the risk of side effects from medication against the risks of being out of control, the risk of adopting a diet that is so relaxed that you need ever increasing medication against the risk of adopting a diet that is so strict that you end up abandoning it before too long.

So how does one achieve this seemingly impossible balancing act?

The answer is through experience and education. You need to educate yourself about this disease in general and about your own body and how it reacts to specific foods in particular. To do the latter, arm yourself with a blood glucose meter and experiment with food by noting your glucose levels before and two hours after each meal - your after reading should not be more than 2 mmol higher than the before. Use this to adapt your diet accordingly and not only should you see your fasting levels gradually drop, but you may be pleasantly surprised about what you can still eat.

You state that you enjoy cooking. So see your diabetes as a challenge about how to adapt your old favorite meals and discover new more diabetes friendly things and ways to cook.

As I said, the future may not be as bleak as it now appears to you. Give yourself time and I am sure you will come to appreciate this. Spend a bit of time on this forum and you will meet plenty who, not only are they happily managing their own diabetes but are happy (some might even say too happy ) to advise others how to do the same.

I am sure things will work just fine for you.

All the best

Pavlos

pavlosn said:

Dear Touchett

What you are experiencing and very eloquently expressing, is a very natural feeling of grief after receiving, so recently, what must feel like the devestating news that, at the relatively young age of thirty-one, you are a type two diabetic.

What is more. this is news that , given your family history, you have been long dreading and actively trying to avoid. So it is not entirely surprising that you have reacted to the diagnosis with a perhaps exagerated sense of apprehension and pessimism about the inevitability of a grim future to come.

You are fully entitled to grieve but be aware that your perspective may be somewhat distorted at the moment because of this grief.
Allow yourself a period of gief, but as you will surely oome to appreciate soon, your life has not just ended at thirty one, nor will it be lacking of all the myriad little things that make this life worth living.

You are right that with diabetes come increased probabilities of serious health complications. However they are only probabilities and not certainties. Furhermore, we are not helpless in the face of these probabilities. These probabilities are based on statistics and those statistics are distorted because of high numbers of uncontrolled diabetics having a much higher probability of developing complications. Statistics show that for every point improvement in HbA1c score the likelihood of developing diabetic complications decreases by 10 per cent. So by keeping our sugar levels under control we can stack those probabilities in our favour, even if , regrattably, we can not eliminate the risk completely.

You are absolutely correct about the worryingly confusing nature of a lot of the information out there on diabetes treatment, partcularly on what constitutes a suitable diet for diabetics. The orthodox dogma put forward by nutritionist and the vast majority of the medical profession is that diabetics, like the rest of the population, should adopt the healthy plate approach to their diet based on a ratio of carbohydrates to fats to proteins of 55-25-15. This appears to contradict the empirical advise given by a lot of diabetics based on their own experience of controlling their disease of a much more restructed carbohydrate intake (in many cases translating to higher fat intake).

Surely, they can not both be right. Or can they? Could it be that there is more than one way of dealing with diabetes? Could it be that as we are all individuals there is no one-size-fits all solution to diabetic glycemic control? If that is the case what is importand is to discover what works for you.

I suspect that at the moment you are trying to play too safe with what you eat, trying to hedge your bets by eating both low fat and low carb. But you are finding this unattractive and so you will be unlikely to stick with it long term.

Any regime you adopt for the treatment of your diabetes will be a compromise and as such a balancing of risks: the risk of diabetic complications against the enjoyment of food; the risk of side effects from medication against the risks of being out of control, the risk of adopting a diet that is so relaxed that you need ever increasing medication against the risk of adopting a diet that is so strict that you end up abandoning it before too long.

So how to we achieve this impossible balancing act?

The answer is through experience and education. You need to educate yourself about this desease in general and about your own body and how it reacts to specific foods in particular. To do the latter, arm yourself with a blood glucose meter and experiment with food by noting your glucose levels before and two hours after each meal - your after reading should not be more than 2 mmol higher than the before. Use this to adapt your diet accordingly and not only should you see your fasting levels gradually drop, but you may be pleasantly surprised about what you can still eat.

You state that you enjoy cooking. So see your diabetes as a challenge about how to adapt your old favorite meals and discover new more diabetes friendly things and ways to cook.

As I said, the future may not be as bleak as it now appears to you. Give yourself time and I am sure you will come to appreciate this. Spend a bit of time on this forum and you will meet plenty who, not only are they happily managing their own diabetes but are happy (some might even say too happy ) to advise others how to do the same.

I am sure things will work just fine for you.

All the best

Pavlos

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Wow ... what a beautifully written piece... and so well explained! I do hope that /Touchett is feeling more at home with his new found condition.

Couple of us barefooters on here and l have a fantasic poddy who so long as my ffeet stay as they are see no reason not to.

l love dairy high fat prodycts

l eat lindt chocolate 90%

Head to low carb forum recipes...dare you not to drool and as you enjoy cooking the rule is you have to add (l just made up the rule)

Same section in low carb diets look for chocolate paradise

Welcome to the loon bin....erm sorry serious world id conspiracy bad spelling abad grammar and diabetics

Andy12345 said:

we should count ourselves lucky to ONLY have this, this is just about a change in lifestyle NOT an end to lifestyle, many of us come to consider it a blessing in disguise once we get our heads round it, thats not to say if i could hit a button and be diabetes free i wouldnt hit but im convinced that by hitting it i would be shortening my life

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Nicely put! It really is the best way to eat for a healthy life for anyone

I have to agree that there are far , far worse things we could have .

Yes it is serious but it is, usually, something we can help ourselves with, which is important.

If you want to try to stop it 'progressing and ending up on insulin' then work out how you will tackle that.

Look around at all the success stories we have


Cara

I spotted the poetry, and I cannot match it but I do like this, which was written by a child with diabetes. It may not be Walace Stevens but I think it is better!


Sweet sugar grass
and lollypop trees,
Honeycomb beetles
and soft toffee bees.
Lakes made of icing
with gingerbread keys,
and marshmallow swans
slowly floating in the breeze.

Warm purple butterflies
of Turkish Delight,
and liquorice kittens
awake in the night.
White chocolate fairies
with sugary wings,
Listening to cream bluebirds
as they sing.

Poppies made from cherry lips
and marzipan daisies too.
Buttercups of caramel
a slowly melting goo.
Roses made of strawberry laces
and of candy cane,
the glorious sight of morning dew,
made of candy rain.

All of these things I cannot have
for I am diabetic.
Although I do not mind at all
for sugar is pathetic!

carraway said:

I spotted the poetry, and I cannot match it but I do like this, which was written by a child with diabetes. It may not be Walace Stevens but I think it is better!


Sweet sugar grass
and lollypop trees,
Honeycomb beetles
and soft toffee bees.
Lakes made of icing
with gingerbread keys,
and marshmallow swans
slowly floating in the breeze.

Warm purple butterflies
of Turkish Delight,
and liquorice kittens
awake in the night.
White chocolate fairies
with sugary wings,
Listening to cream bluebirds
as they sing.

Poppies made from cherry lips
and marzipan daisies too.
Buttercups of caramel
a slowly melting goo.
Roses made of strawberry laces
and of candy cane,
the glorious sight of morning dew,
made of candy rain.

All of these things I cannot have
for I am diabetic.
Although I do not mind at all
for sugar is pathetic!

Click to expand...

oh my word... that is brilliant... a pleasure to read. I must commit it to memory for those moments when I feel weak and about to give in to ssshhhhugar

I sympathise diabetes is grim but people with diabetes dont have to be. I love my food but I respect the fact that because my body doesnt deal with glucose properly I have to watch what I eat but I look on this as a challenge I love roast dinners but I have roast celeriac and swede and maybe 1 small roast potato loads of veg .Stir fries are great I even sometimes add a bought sauce such as green dragon chilli and garlic but I take about 1/2 of my portion out of the pan before adding the sauce I add loads of fresh garlic and chilli to dishes and add herbs and spices to anything I think may be bland Even going out for a meal doesnt have to fill you with dread ask for extra veg smile and say you dont tolerate carbs very well its suprising what you can get! This Betes thing can be beaten
CAROL

As a lot of us are on a low carb HIGH fat diet....what recipes do you have...you can cook adapt. My cooking skills limited to burning water my other half cooks and loves it. God knows why it is torture. I am an eater.

Mum passed last yr 86 diabetic around 35yrs her problem was severe depression not diabetes. What hell does it matter how you die so long ad the quality of life is good.
You need to quit carrying on as you are and get a grip on yourself. Anyone here who deserves to wallow in pity is Kev and he sure as hell doesnt.
What happens when after all your hand wringing you get hit by a bus and it kills you.
My now deceased husband used to say..
If you always do what youve always done
You will always be what youve always been.

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You have a chance to live life to the full lots of advice here on this forum only you can live your life.

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The UKPDS Study* published in 2000, managed to quantify many of the benefits of reducing a high HbA1c level by just 1%.
A 16% decrease in risk of heart failure
A 14% decrease in risk of fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction (heart attack)
A 12% decrease in risk of fatal or nonfatal stroke
A 21% decrease in risk of diabetes-related death
A 14% decrease in risk of death from all causes
A 43% decrease in risk of amputation
A 37% decrease in risk of small blood vessel disease (eg, retinal blood vessel disease causing vision loss).
Now what I am trying to understand is this...

HbA1c was at the time of the study expressed as a percentage. By a reduction of 1% they meant from say 9% to 8% which in modern units is a reduction of about 10 mmol/mol.

Pavlos

This converter may help Pavlos

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/hba1c-units-converter.html