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shocked and stunned

Hi @yorkshire_sam and welcome to the forum. It is usually a shock when you are told you are diabetic, but it's not to late to avoid it if you are pre-diabetic. I wish I had taken notice when I was pre-diabetic and swerved becoming fully diabetic. But I thought it was just the usual GP's scare story.

It's good in a way that you have been scared and are looking to change things. You should be able to lower your blood sugars back to non-diabetic range quite easily. Many of us on here have done so by adopting a Low Carbohydrate High Fat (LCHF) approach to eating. Exercise can help too, but what you eat is more important. You will obviously have realised you need to cut out sweet sugary food and drinks.
But you also need to cut out or lower intake of starchy carbohydrates like bread, potatoes, pasta and rice. Beer isn't good either.
Starchy carbs turn to sugar quickly in our bodies.

Have a read round the forum to see how lchf works and ask any questions you want. The people on here are friendly and supportive and you will get a lot of good advice.

Do you know what your HbA1c (blood sugar) test figure is? Below 42 is non-diabetic, 42-47 is pre-diabetic, and 48 and above is diabetic.
 
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hello! Shocked and scared is good. Use it to make changes. Fear made me lose weight and lower my bgl. Read around this site, have a look at some research and consider buying a meter. When you are ready come back and ask loads of questions.
 
yes use the fear to motivate yourself. you have the chance to prevent full on diabetes. lose weight if an issue, stop smoking exercise more and eat a healthy low carb diet, its really worth it to avoid the joy of pills or needles. i promise you will feel much better.
 
It was shocking news for me, and for many others who post on this forum. I was much further on than you, squarely in the "diabetic" range. As a pre-diabetic you have the opportunity to make some changes now, and the most valuable factor is education. You already know that, since you said you are busy trying to get as much info as possible! Excellent!

Some of us have managed to "reverse" our diabetes or pre-diabetes completely through lifestyle changes, and specifically a "low carbohydrate" diet. @Prem51 has already given you some information in his post, above.

You should have been given the results of a blood test called the HbA1c and there is information about this here: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/what-is-hba1c.html. This will tell you how far you have moved into the pre-diabetic range.

You can get more information about the range of "low-carb" lifestyles here, ranging from moderate to extreme: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diet/low-carb-diabetes-diet.html.

I also found this website, in particular, to be invaluable for low-carb information and recipes: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diet/low-carb-diabetes-diet.html.

I "reversed" my Type 2 diabetes in less than three months using this approach. Many other members of this forum have had similar results, i.e., within months.

Best wishes, and welcome!
 
Hi everyone
I was diagnosed as a prediabetic in August of this year. I was shocked but I found sites which you could reverse it, so I started to fight back. I went on a low carb high fat diet and have lost about a stone and a half, my good sugar level has gone down but I am struggling with the morning reading and very rarely get it be below 106mg/dl, I think that is 6? Can anyone help with advice please?
 
The good news is you are prediabetic so you have a chance of not becoming a diabetic. The bad news is it is now up to you of how you are going to deal with it, you can face it head on or stick your head in the sand. Some people do not get that choice so use this as a target, getting as much information as you need is a great way to start but might shock you of how much there is. I got diabetes when i was 3 and had no choice and the thickness of all my hospital notes could need a shopping trolley to push around. I am going to tell you a little bit of what i have gone through not to scare you but to show how you must do all you can not to become a diabetic. Like i say i was 3 when i got diabetes in 1979 and was given a 50/50 chance of living but i got through that up until the age of 18 i had many stays in hospital with my diabetes. At 18 i got told i needed laser treatment on both my eyes, i had that much treatment that the last 3 sessions they knocked me out and i still hold the record for the amount of laser treatment i had. The treatment left me in pain, headaches and i had to wear sunglasses when i came out of hospital even if it waas raining as the light hurt so much but the laser treatment did not work. This meant i had 5 ops on my eyes as blood vessels at the back of the eye burst and i could not see out of which eye it was, at 21 i got the all clear happy days. Then 3 months later i sent to a renal team and told by the time i was 30 i would need a transplant my whole world came crashing down, i had already suffered from depression and it got worse. Then at 27 my hands went numb on a night and they said i had carpel tunnel in both hands another 3 ops on hands and one on the elbow. I got to 30 and my renal function was steady at 20% so then i need a insulin pump to give me better control of my diabetes but they wanted me to go on a carb counting course for 5 day i said no they said no pump. In the end 1/2 a day course was enough but the team i was under could not get my sugars right, so after 6 months i moved to a new hospital and the consultant there got it sorted in 3 weeks. At the age of 38 i had a pancreas and kidney transplant done in a 7 hour op. This brought my sugars back to normal but showed how much the diabetes had damage my body, all my nerves are shot leaving me in constant pain, my bladder is enlarged, i have trouble with my bowels and i am still under a mental health team and for the last 4 years i have been bringing my 2 kids up. This is just a quick look of what has happened and even though i have a working pancreas the damage was already done. Please take my advice and try to not become a diabetic, no one likes it. On a lighter note i have threatend to put a doctor through the window on the second floor about 18 years ago and had many a row with the people who wanted to change my diet and was on my file at my first hospital as a difficult patient but my new hospital say i am no trouble at all. you have the chance to beat diabetes now do not waste it and good luck.
 
yorkshire_sam said:
just been diaganosed as prediabetic... not really sunk in yet, nor do I really know whats it all about so I am busy trying to find as much relevant info as possible
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as many have already said, the good news is that you are not yet diabetic, so you can still avoid the damage to your eyes, kidneys, hands and feet that leahkian describes. i was diagnosed t2 about 4 years ago, but because it seems i'd had it for about 5 years before diagnosis, my eyes and feet have been affected - not too badly, but i'd hate them to get any worse, so am doing everything i can to keep my sugar levels low. lots of friendly and knowledgeable support available on this forum - enjoy!
 
A year ago I was fully diabetic - but after cutting down on carbohydrates to the levels I used to use for weight loss then I have been fine for ages now - I got 'normal' at 6 months.
Yes it might be a shock to have to decline the starchy foods cut back on drinks and puddings - but it really is worth it to feel better - I am bouncing around like a Tigger, and feel twenty years younger - I am 66 at the moment, heading for 40.
There is a lot of advice about exercise and fasting - I did not find either helped at first - I had to wait for the lower carb eating plan to sort out my metabolism first, and after that I found that I was walking further and eating twice a day because that is what I felt like doing. It was not a long wait, as a low carb diet is a powerful influence for reducing the overproduction of insulin which is the usual trouble for type twos or those heading for it.
 
Thank you for your replies. Sorry to hear that some of you have really had a bad time of it. I have over the years seen people suffer with complications and have dreaded ever getting it myself but I intend to fight it and reading the encouragement on here as helped me a lot. Thank you all!!

I have not been given a Hba1c, so cannot tell you that. My fasting blood test in the mornings seems to be my stumbling block. I have cut out of my diet all potatoes, rice, spaghetti, biscuits, cake and bread as well as higher carb things. I try to eat under 30g of carbs per day. 2 hours after a meal I am normally down to 90 - 95 md/gl about 5 I think which I think is good.
 
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