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Rant!!!

My parents fed me exactly the same cereal and diet as they fed my two sisters who are NOT diabetic! My husbands parents let him eat so many sweets as a child that all of his teeth fell out and, again, he is NOT Diabetic.

You can believe what you want to believe but no diet at all is responsible for triggering an autoimmune disease, simple as that.

Not too sure about the stress thing, my consultant mentioned it but to be honest there is probably more than one trigger and I would be inclined to believe it is most definitely physiological and NOT anything to do with diet!


Diagnosed with GD in 2010, Completely disappeared postpartum. Re-diagnosed December 2012 with type 1.5 diabetes, age 26, BMI 23 currently controlled by only Metformin, 500mg twice a day.
 

You said I hadn't mentioned stress so I have now told you about the lack of it.

I test as often as required without reaching obsessive, usually 6-10 times a day depending on driving or activity levels.

I agree there are many people who don't control it, my cousin is a classic example and we all worry about her. But it's not her fault she's diabetic either.
 
Like I said, I wasn't claiming to know about your case. And of course, I cannot claim to know for sure about my own case. I only said that I was confident about the major causal factors in my case.

I've also said, twice, that we are where we are. I'm not too worried about what caused diabetes in me, to be honest. But I'm very concerned about my diet. And if anyone is diabetic, I think they should be enormously concerned about their own diet and about their control of their blood-sugar.

And there's nothing wrong with being obsessive about it, either - just so long as one isn't PATHOLOGICALLY obsessive, of course.

One has to decide for oneself what is, or isn't, pathological. I'd say a blood-sugar test of once per waking hour, on average, isn't pathologically obsessive.

But it's pathologically EXPENSIVE if you're only using the meter-read testing sticks. And it's a waste of NHS resources.
 
That's your opinion, my doctor considers my 10 a day obsessive. I consider it necessary!

If you're waking 20 hours a day how do you get any sleep?!?

I have enough confidence in my control to test less. Each to their own on that one!
 
My last HbA1c was 4.9%. (This is an edit: I'm afraid I was guessing; my actual result was 4.6%.)

What was yours?

Ps. If you were using the highly economical visually read strips, your doctor wouldn't be so fussy.

Pps. I said I test UP TO 20 times per day. Sometimes I test 2 or 3 times in fairly quick succession, for various reasons.
 
michaeldavid said:
My last HbA1c was 4.9.

What was yours?

Ps. If you were using the highly economical visually read strips, your doctor wouldn't be so fussy.
Click to expand...

I'm using the strips that HE prescribed me as HE is my doctor.

My hba1c was taken 7 weeks after diagnosis and so is not indicative of my control as a large proportion will be from my previously high BG. However it had more than halved in the time since diagnosis so if that's not an indicator of things going the right way then what is!

Many people on here and medical staff would say and hba1c of 4.9 would be unsafe as you are at regular risk of hypos. So, personally, I am aiming for a safe figure of 6%, my consultant says he will thrilled if I achieve 6.5%. Everyone has their own targets based on their own bodies. You can't just compare because it isn't a like for like comparison
 
If you look at my earlier post on this thread, at 9.19 this morning, you'll see I expressed a lack of confidence in diabetic experts' advice. Bearing that in mind, it sounds like you are doing really quite well at controlling your condition.

Before I discovered (for myself) the highly moderating effect of rye bread on the blood-sugar (spelt bread is very good too), and before I adopted my own insulin regimen (contrary to the advice of the likes of Professor Mike Sampson at the Elsie Bertram Diabetes Centre in Norwich), and before I was testing my blood-sugar in a quasi-obsessive fashion, I was having regular hypos. Now, touch wood, I hardly ever have hypos. And if I do, they're far easier to catch before they become serious - my blood-sugar never CRASHES. Moreover, and in particular, I can go to bed at night and sleep safely.

I'm afraid the average doctor, and all the diabetic experts I've come up against, do not give good advice with regard to diabetic control. In particular, they seem to assume that diabetics should eat as though they weren't really diabetic at all: ie. the orthodoxy is that diabetics should eat breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner like everyone else. The insulin regimen that the experts recommend is in accordance with that dogma.

So what you say about "people on here and medical staff" does not surprise me. And I know they're wrong.
 
I'm in no mood to argue with you, you have your own opinion.

As I am not a qualified doctor I am goi g to trust the advice of my DSN and consultant who regularly prove they have my best interests at heart.

On that note though, it does seem that many type 2s have sub-standard care compared to type 1s and that is unacceptable!
 
I think the care for all is pretty sub-standard. And yet I've no doubt that doctors and medical experts generally do indeed have their patients' best interests at heart.

But I hope you will try the rye bread. I eat a lot in the morning especially. (I've just eaten a bowl of soup, and some muesli with fruit juice for lunch, in case anyone's interested.)

And please do get hold of some of those Betachek Visual testing strips: you can cut them with scissors. You can't do that with the meter-read sticks!
 
Michaeldavid

The visual strips sound wonderful. The method of testing blood sugar by visual strips was superceeded in UK many years ago by metering devices. I don't think they would be accepted by the DVLA as a timed record of readings for drivers on Insulin.

Regarding Diabetes T1 in my family, there is a strong genetic route for failure of the Pancreas. Whatever caused the failure is not known, but it is my belief that stress and food choices are symptoms rather than the cause of Type 1 in our family.
 
Indeed, I had a perfectly reasonable post deleted! I am fully aware that there are underlying issues that caused my T1 but perhaps if I hadn't drank my own body weight in alcohol on a daily basis at Uni it may not have been triggered. Maybe I'd have got another day, week, year, decade. That isn't mis information, it's simple honesty.

My main problem is the opening 'rant' states that people should not be able to express a certain opinion. When challenged on this the opening poster claimed it was just a 'rant' and he/she shouldn't have to justify it. But what if I chose to rant that T2 people are all to blame, you can't disagree because its just a rant.

This site should be an open and honest place to frankly discuss things, if you feel people are wrong or being offensive then ask them to justify it. If someone comes on and has poor control and doesn't know why we NEED to question their lifestyle in order to help them...

Or have I lost the plot?

Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 
Hi amber silva,

I just wanted to clarify that type 1/1.5 diabetes is not necessarily failure of the pancreas. In fact my pancreas is fine, It's my immune system that thinks its ok to go around murdering my beta cells that's the problem :-(


Diagnosed with GD in 2010, Completely disappeared postpartum. Re-diagnosed December 2012 with type 1.5 diabetes, age 26, BMI 23 currently controlled by only Metformin, 500mg twice a day.
 
Hi Elaine,

I was only stating what happened in my family

Regarding Diabetes T1 in my family, there is a strong genetic route for failure of the Pancreas. Whatever caused the failure is not known, but it is my belief that stress and food choices are symptoms rather than the cause of Type 1 in our family.
 
Hello Ambersilva,

Well, the visually read strips have never been superseded for me. (Though I do use meter-read sticks too, when appropriate.)

There is undoubtedly a form of reverse-Luddism involved in the thinking of experts, just as well as non-experts. Once again, I might mention what the professor at the diabetes centre I attend said when I pulled them out of my pocket, several years ago: "Oh! They're a bit old-fashioned."

They won't give you an electronic record of blood-sugar readings, of course. But clearly, you can also use meter-read sticks - as and when appropriate - if you need an electronic record.

I'm not a medical expert, but I know perfectly well that there are all kinds of diabetes. And there must be all kinds of causal factors involved in the onset of the different types.

As for my own case, I'm confident that the onset was swift: I noticed my blurred vision (due to high-blood sugar, I later learned), and I also noticed needing to go to the toilet quite a lot. This onset occurred during a period of stress I was experiencing. And partly on account of this stress, I was bing-eating sugar-laden food. That much I know, and nothing more.

I'm sure you would remember the BM strips, as they were called. They first became available very soon after I was first diagnosed, 30 years ago. And I remember very well the female specialist at Whipps Cross Hospital in London advising me to cut them in two. (I used to cut them into six!) Betachek Visual are pretty well exactly the same: with a good pair of scissors, each strip can be cut into five. (Sadly, that kind of practical advice is all too old-fashioned.)

They haven't been superseded if you don't want them to have been superseded.
 

I concur Elaine, of course Type 1 is nothing to do with diet, lifestyle, way of life etc :roll: It was my ex's fault :wink: as I became Type 1 a few months after he left me and our 2 children, it could of been the shock to my system of him leaving and being unwell with suspected Colitis as well, oh dear, what a year that was :cry:

RRB
 

Absolutely agree with both. I have 3 siblings all currently fit and healthy and I hope it stays that way!
 
I blame my husbands previous employer! He lost his job three months before our wedding and we had to go through a tribunal where I had to represent him by sitting in front a judge and cross-examining 5 managers from his work as we couldn't afford the legal fees...not to mention trying to afford the wedding with no money when deposits were already paid on everything!! This all happened May-October....I was diagnosed in December.


Diagnosed with GD in 2010, Completely disappeared postpartum. Re-diagnosed December 2012 with type 1.5 diabetes, age 26, BMI 23 currently controlled by only Metformin, 500mg twice a day.
 
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