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Recently learned that my mother's type 2 diabetes has not been monitored for years ...

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Ember

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Hello All,
I do not have type 2 diabetes myself but I am posting because my mother has type 2 diabetes and I have recently found out her diabetes has not been monitored for years. I will be visiting her doctor very soon about this issue, but I wanted to find out from the boards what happens if someone leaves their type 2 diabetes untreated? And how often do you check your blood sugar levels?

A bit of background: My mother had a severe stroke years ago and developed type 2 diabetes shortly after. At that time, I lived at home and I regularly carried out my mum's finger-prick tests to monitor her blood sugar because my dad was not comfortable with the sight of blood and my mum couldn't do it herself due to paralysis from her stroke. At that time we controlled her diabetes through a healthy diet and exercise.

Then I moved away from home (interstate and overseas) and my dad arranged home visits from a blood nurse. Fast-forward to the present, and I am now back in my hometown indefinitely as my dad has been seriously ill and I am here to care for my mum while dad undergoes surgery. When talking with her blood nurse this week, I found out that my mum's blood sugar level is not checked: the blood nurse was only ever requested by the doctor to check her blood for warfarin levels. So basically it seems that my mum has not had her blood sugar checked in years.

My mother has been very overweight since her stroke, has suffered from depression and until recently often spent most of her days sleeping in bed. Since her depression, she became very inactive and gained a lot of weight. Initially after her stroke and before her depression, she regained her walking ability and walked very well, but now she has difficulty walking, and suffers from one swollen leg where she wears a splint/afo for ankle support. In the past when I had visited home, I noticed my parents always ate very healthy meals, but my mother would often indulge too much in chocolates and sweet biscuits after dinner, and the house was always overstocked with chocolate, biscuits and ice cream (which my dad doesn't eat so much of). When I talked about this to my father he told me that whenever he tried to reduce or deny my mother sweet things, she would scream at him and become very aggressive, so he would often give in to her. He previously said that her blood sugar was under control.

Sorry for the long post! I guess I would just like to find out more about the possible risks of not treating type 2 diabetes. I feel quite helpless as when I am not staying with my parents long-term, I can't really control what is going on with my mother's diet!

Thanks for reading :-)
 
Ember said:
I would just like to find out more about the possible risks of not treating type 2 diabetes.
Click to expand...
Not treating T2 diabetes is not a good idea. Left to itself it will lead to blindness, amputations, kidney failure, heart attacks and numerous other difficulties. It is a slow death. The good news is that with the right diet, aided by medications, as needed, all this can be avoided.
Do you know if your mother is on any diabetes related medications? She could be having an annual blood test (an HbA1c) which gives a broad picture of her health, with regard to diabetes, and medications may have been adjusted to this. (This isn't the best way forward, but it's what most health care professional consider to be adequate.) While excess weight and depression can be caused by diabetes, I would expect someone with runaway high sugar levels to be constantly thirsty, frequent urination and to have blurry vision as the most clear cut symptoms.
Sally
 
Have you tested your mums blood sugar level now .. if you did just how high is her blood sugar at the moment ?
 
@Ember

Hello and welcome to the forum :) To help you to help your mum, here is the information we give to new members and I hope you will find it useful. Ask all the questions you need to and someone will be able to help.

BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEW MEMBERS

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 over 150,000 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-and-whole-grains.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

LOW CARB PROGRAM:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/low carb program


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 bloodglucose 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.
 
Hi Emner,
Your story is similar to mine (mother with stroke but fortunately without paralysis).

The chocolate craving may indicate a magnesium deficiency since chocolate (cacao) is high in magnesium.
Do a search about chocolate craving reason.
I personally know a woman who have less craving since she is taking magnesium supplement.

Sometimes to have a sweet tooth may indicate some psychological problem or/and a nutrition deficiency. Concerning the last point, I recommend the book of Dr Furhman that talked in details about that problem and its resolution in many of his patients.

Concerning the blood sugar monitoring, i depends on when you live. For example, for type 2 diabetes, it is checked every 3 months (hba1C) according to the national recommendations in France. I m not sure about that but I am pretty confident that most western country recommend at least one blood check every year.

Please consult your national guidelines about that and if necessary print the paper and ask about her doctor about that.

I would just recommend to not let the diabetes of your mother being handled only by medical care. it is very disappointing. Read my story for more information. They will expect just the disease to get worse in complication and provide only palliative treatment (high blood pressure? Take this pil. Cholesterol? Take statins. Low iron? Take this 3rd drug and so on..yes a drug JukeBox ). Also a lot of doctor are following deprecated guidelines or with poor results.

Arm yourself with knowledge about that condition.

Most patients with excellent results or not diabetic anymore have take action by themselves (please consult the success stories section).

Last but not least, read the doctor Bernstein book. it is the Bible for head to toes for diabetic (literally!) . It covers everything.



Do not abandon them. Even if you do not live with your mum, support daily like I do. I ask her everyday by phone about her condition and what she ate today since I recommend a low carb diet for her and follow it as well to support her.

May God help you in this path.
 
Thanks for your replies everyone ^_^ I am seeing my mother's doctor in a couple of days, but I was told over the phone that she used to get a blood test every 6 months (which is apparently the standard here in South Australia, will confirm at the doc's appointment) but she hasn't had one for more than a year. I was advised that in the past it has been difficult to test my mum as she is known to break the fasting requirement for the blood test :-(

Actually, my mum went out with her carer today and came back with 6 packets of chocolate biscuits! (She bought them in bulk because they were on special, apparently) (>.<) The carer told me she tried to dissuade my mum from purchasing so many biscuits but my mum became angry and aggressive with the carer. This time when I'm staying at the family home and she asks me for chocolate or biscuits I replace them with a healthy alternative, but my dad and the carer tend to give them to her. This is an example of how hard it can be to control my mother's diet. Whether I am staying at home or not, supporting my mother is difficult when my father and her carer are basically pressured into facilitating so many chocolate purchases etc that she should not be having.

I will read up on the suggested reading above to educate myself & drive home to my parents the importance of monitoring my mother's diabetes, and will do all I can while I am staying with them.

In answer to questions above, my mother is not taking any medication for diabetes. She attends weekly physio and a singing group. My mum is often thirsty, she does need to go to the toilet fairly often during the day, but is particularly frequent at night-time (sometimes up to 4-5 times a night). I asked her about her vision and she says that it's blurry sometimes (she wears glasses when watching TV so I'm not sure if the occasional blurriness is diabetes-related or if she needs new glasses).

My mum's blood sugar will be tested at her next scheduled visit from the blood nurse this month, but I'm going to see about getting one of those home kits we used to use when I lived at home ...
 
Ember said:
I feel quite helpless as when I am not staying with my parents long-term, I can't really control what is going on with my mother's diet!
Click to expand...
Welcome Ember,

Sounds like a bit of a miserable homecoming for you! I suspect your mum is one of the people the health service has given up on, with the rationale: poor old thing, she's had a stroke, she's diabetic, she's going to die anyway, why waste resources on monitoring her decline, just give her another chocolate biscuit. And it sounds as if your mum has given up on herself to an extent and your dad feels helpless to help her without the right information and support.

How lucky they are to have you! If you can get over the role reversal of bossing your mum around (which I'd find incredibly difficult), you could perhaps give her a dose of tough love to make her see that if she carries on as she is she'll not only kill herself but do it in a way that's painful and humiliating for herself and all who love her; BUT that doesn't have to happen because if she takes control she can actually improve her wellbeing and prospects. If she is willing to grasp that then she can take the first steps while you're there to help and keep building on that foundation after you leave.

Best of luck,
Kate
 
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