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Still learning

Dave Brierley

Well-Known Member
Messages
49
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hi I'm still very new to this, I read all the labels and watch what I eat and test before meal and 2 hours after so all good there. Yesterday I had 4 boiled eggs for breakfast, then 10 sweets 4 hours later just to see how I coped with the sugar in the sweets, my bm's went up by 1/3 from 6.2 to 9.4 so i won't do that again for a while.

For tea I had half a chicken at 17:30 all was well I felt a little hungry at 19:00 but I had to go out, it was while I was at my daughters house I started to feel shaky and sweaty, I tested to find my glucose to be 4.2, so I had 4 bourbons and 3 quality street.

When I got home again I had a baked potato with lots of butter, beans and cheese, and a can of Guinness which raised my glucose from 6.3 to 7.1 2 hours later, although 4 1/2 hours after eating it was 11.3. By morning it was 8.0.

I made the wrong assumption that a full stomach was the key, only to go nearly hypo at my daughters because I'd had half a chicken, (fine) but no carbs for about 5 hours.

So still learning, this morning I've had 2 fried eggs on 2 slices of bread.

I went to the docs today to order a repeat script and asked if I could have the cassette for my accu chek mobile on script, the receptionists first question "was do you need it" my reply was "yes" she said that they do strips but not sure about the cassettes. My guess is they will say I don't "need" the strips/cassettes so I'll have to buy them, but I'll wait and see.

Merry Christmas to all.
Dave
 
Hi and welcome. I suspect your body is still learning to cope with lower carbs so you had what some would call a 'false hypo' although the low blood sugar was real. The body normally copes by pumping out gluose from the liver to stop you going too low. It should settle as your body gets used to burning fat as well as carb. Yes, you may have to buy your own strips/cassettes. You may want to source a meter that uses low cost strips.
 
@Dave Brierley

Hello Dave and welcome to the forum

Here is the information we give to new members and I hope you will find it useful. Ask all the questions you like and some members will be able to help.


BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED DIABETICS

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 130,000 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

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 & Welcome Dave, you seem to be on a bit of a roller coaster with your numbers and what you should eat or not including the drink.

You may be different and tolerate many other foods, but normally Potatoes, Bread, Rice, Pasta Biscuits Pastry are out or in very small portions.

The Bread usually has to be a wholemeal, something like Bergen, Hovis Seed Sensations, & LivLife bread which all have lower carbs per slice but most of us can only tolerate 1 slice at a time.

The baked potato if too large would send your sugars high I personally can only eat 1/2 small baked potato with all the skin. Eating the skin (fibre) will help you tolerate the carbs on the potato. Again the Baked Beans, even Low Cal would for me would be a NO NO, too much sugar and Carbs. The cheese your OK with.

I drink beer, but now in moderation, the Guinness will raise you blood sugar quite quickly normally then will sometimes bring it down quite considerably, but I think what has happened here is the heavy butter has held back the digestion of the baked potato & beans, only for the carbs to be turned into glucose much later, hence the 4 1/2 hr later high figures. You maybe need to speak with @Mike D , I understand he used to like Guinness but had to stop as it affected his sugars too much.

I t's a bit of a steep learning curve, but I'm sure you will get there, keep testing to check which foods you have to avoid or reduce the portion size.

Good luck

Neil
 

Hi Dave,

It is good you read the labels, but are you reading the Total Carbohydrates or just the "of which sugars"? It is the total carbs that you need to pay attention to.

Learning from your meter is the best way forward. You now know that a baked potato with baked beans is not a wise choice, and neither is the Guiness I'm afraid. Baked beans, even the low sugar ones, have too many carbs and spike most of us. In fact that whole meal was carb-heavy and you paid for it with your subsequent levels and following morning fasting.

The "no carbs for 5 hours" is fine. We don't need carbs, but we do need food. The chicken is good, but perhaps you could have had some veg with it, and maybe a dessert of yogurt or cream with berries. You wouldn't have felt hungry then. Next time you feel hypo symptoms, try a plain biscuit and a cup of tea with some milk. On Metformin you are unlikely to have a proper hypo and the plain biccie and tea should take the symptoms away. The sweets were very over the top.

Next time you have breakfast, try one slice instead of 2 slices of bread. What sort of bread by the way? If that still spikes you, bread is going to be a problem for you.

I wish you luck with a script for Accu Chek cassettes. They are very expensive and unless your doctor is enlightened he will not prescribe any (or enough).

Keep trying, keep using your meter and learning from it. Oh .... and have a great Christmas.
 
Thanks for the helpful replies, the bread was kingsmill white, but we are going to get Bergen which we usually have but for some reason we had white.
It's a real shame about the Guinness but expected, last time I tested before and after Guinness, It seemed fine so I'll test again, other than Guinness I'll have to go back to red wine.

When I read the labels I look at total carbs for 100g then think of the carbs as a percentage, Ie my fav, cornflakes 89% but Cherios (lunch today) 34%.

The info on the butter delaying the digestion of the baked potato and beans was new to me.

Thanks again and have a nice Christmas.

Dave
 
Dave a warm welcome to the forum.
 

Fats of whatever source will delay matters. They hold the spike down but prolong the rise. So for example instead of a spike of 9 you may get a spike to 7 but it will take a very lot longer to get back to where you were.

You will find any breakfast cereal is not a good choice. 34% is still very high. You need to look for under 10% (under 5% is ideal) and no breakfast cereals will give you that as they are full of sugar.
 

Thanks, @Bluetit1802 , you are a 'Busy Bee', or should I say 'Bird', was going to expand on it, but it sounded that he was off, anyway saved me a job.

Neil
 
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