recently diagnosed t2 with hb1ac level of 53.
- Thread starter kris12
- Start Date
- Messages
- 3,582
- Type of diabetes
- Treatment type
- Diet only
Hi kris12 and welcome to the forums.
If you've just been diagnosed I guess no-one has explained blood glucose levels to you properly. "Normal" blood glucose (BG) is under 42mmol/mol. I'm attaching a graph that shows how most non-diabetic people are clustered around a BG of 38ish. For these folks their systems are working properly and keeping BGs around this level.
Those of us with T2 on the other hand have systems that are unable to control our BG and keep it where it should be. A basic explanation, simplified, is that this is usually put down to "insulin resistance" - we have plenty of insulin available but it no longer works as effectively as it should. The result is that the level of glucose in our blood long-term starts to edge upwards. This is linked to but not the same as the normal short-term rise in BG after eating anything carby.
The system in the UK (and most of the world) will automatically diagnose people with T2 once BG goes above 48mmol/mol. It doesn't and shouldn't prevent diagnosis being made earlier, nor does it mean that we won't get damage from high blood glucose earlier - high blood glucose in itself causes damage to nerves and capilliaries. I'm one of those who had some severe symptoms at BG levels of 43/44, caused by damage from high glucose. However these days it's rare in the UK at least for anyone to be diagnosed until BGs have gone above 48.
So - to answer your question - it's possible that your current BG level could be causing damage, and if so you might be seeing some symptoms. It's equally possible that you won't have any symptoms.
The good news is that there is something that you can do which can reduce your blood glucose levels quickly - put simply, because we can't handle glucose, we stop putting glucose in our bodies. This means cutting out or down on starches and sugars - all of which are carbohydrates and all of which are digested to glucose. It worked for me (without medication) and for many others on the forum - you might want to take a look at the "Success Stories" section for lots of personal accounts.
This forum is a huge resource, and helped me greatly in my early days. One thing I would suggest is that you try to forget everything you think you know about "healthy eating" - particularly anything you read in the media.
If you've just been diagnosed I guess no-one has explained blood glucose levels to you properly. "Normal" blood glucose (BG) is under 42mmol/mol. I'm attaching a graph that shows how most non-diabetic people are clustered around a BG of 38ish. For these folks their systems are working properly and keeping BGs around this level.
Those of us with T2 on the other hand have systems that are unable to control our BG and keep it where it should be. A basic explanation, simplified, is that this is usually put down to "insulin resistance" - we have plenty of insulin available but it no longer works as effectively as it should. The result is that the level of glucose in our blood long-term starts to edge upwards. This is linked to but not the same as the normal short-term rise in BG after eating anything carby.
The system in the UK (and most of the world) will automatically diagnose people with T2 once BG goes above 48mmol/mol. It doesn't and shouldn't prevent diagnosis being made earlier, nor does it mean that we won't get damage from high blood glucose earlier - high blood glucose in itself causes damage to nerves and capilliaries. I'm one of those who had some severe symptoms at BG levels of 43/44, caused by damage from high glucose. However these days it's rare in the UK at least for anyone to be diagnosed until BGs have gone above 48.
So - to answer your question - it's possible that your current BG level could be causing damage, and if so you might be seeing some symptoms. It's equally possible that you won't have any symptoms.
The good news is that there is something that you can do which can reduce your blood glucose levels quickly - put simply, because we can't handle glucose, we stop putting glucose in our bodies. This means cutting out or down on starches and sugars - all of which are carbohydrates and all of which are digested to glucose. It worked for me (without medication) and for many others on the forum - you might want to take a look at the "Success Stories" section for lots of personal accounts.
This forum is a huge resource, and helped me greatly in my early days. One thing I would suggest is that you try to forget everything you think you know about "healthy eating" - particularly anything you read in the media.
Resurgam
Master
- Messages
- 10,011
- Type of diabetes
- Treatment type
- Diet only
Well - I was diagnosed with HbA1c of 91 and seem to have survived, so I'd say its OK providing you do something about it.
My response was to eat a low carb diet and test to see what my blood glucose was after meals - altering what I ate according to the results I saw. That fixed things in 6 months, so for a very ordinary unexciting type 2, low carb would seem to be the way to go - as it was really easy to do and also resulted in losing weight equally effortlessly, I can't really fault it.
- Messages
- 1,286
- Type of diabetes
- Other
- Treatment type
- Tablets (oral)
You are only mildly diabetic. As others have said, your blood sugars would likely come down with some dietary adjustments, such as reducing your foods that are heavy in carbs, rice, pasta, breads , basically anything containing flour. Anything containing flour will send your blood sugars up and I haven’t even mentioned sugar. All carbs will metabolize into sugars.
At least your Dr’s surgery didn’t put you straight on to meds.
