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Quick thank you

M

magicol

Newbie
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4
Had my first appointment with practice nurse in clinic today, and just wanted to say a thank you to everyone for the information/ advice you all post - i felt very prepared and found the nurse to be pleasantly surprised .

Biggest suprise i got was that she recommended a low carb approach, rather than the official starchy carb line, and also advised self tesing to be best way to manage things going forward - even suggested i look on this site for meter giveaways..lol.

I have made all the basic changes - sweetner instead of sugar, semi-skimmed milk, low salt, reduced portions etc, but am dreading the thought of going low carb - doesnt seem to leave many food options if, like me, you really dont like veggies, nuts etc.

Still..onwards n upwards as they say..HBa1c next, then referalls to dietician, podiatrist and something she called an "expert" course..sounds good tho.

I ramble...so again thanks to all for the info and advice
Colin
 
Hi Colin

You have scored yourself a brilliant Diabetes Nurse - lucky, lucky you!!

I understand what you mean about low-carb not seeming to leave many food options, I'm a non egg eating vegetarian low carber... it does sometimes feel a bit difficult, especially eating out, BUT my HbA1c has gone from 9.3 in January down to 5.8 in April and I've lost 15kg/33lbs (I have a good chunk more to lose too!). So to me, most of the time, it feels worth the sacrifice and to be honest if I didn't have the weight to lose I could eat more carbs and keep my levels good too - but to lose the weight I need to carbs to stay LOW.

It took me about 2 weeks to get my head around giving up pretty much all carbs other than those in veg/vegetarian protein and I slid into it over those two weeks.

I think what *really* helped was that my diabetes nurse is *nothing* like yours - she wanted me on metformin (which I don't want to take if I can do it through diet & weight loss), pushed the ridiculous NHS 'eat lots of starchy carbs' **** and said not to test etc and said that I would NOT be able to do it without medication... so, being a tad stubborn, I decided to prove her wrong :D

It isn't an exact science - what will spike you one day, wont another and despite eating exactly the same food one day to the next your levels can vary a lot, that's what happens when nature is involved :crazy:

Good luck and feel very fortunate that you have such a great DN!!
 
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