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Stopped taking meds.

Breakfast either toast wholemel bread or cereal. Porridge or cocoa pops, Dinner is usually a sandwhich. Cheese, egg or corned beef. With the cheese, i melt it first in the microwave and pour off the fat before putting it in me sarnie. Tea last night was bolognaise. Mince cooked seperatly so i can drain off fat and instead of pasta i have rice. If i do have pasta then it will be wholewheat. Even tried taking up hommous on oat cakes :silent: YUK!
 
Lots of bread there mistee, and coco pops have lots of sugar. Breakfast for me is mini shredded wheat. Same carbs as other cereals, but lowest sugar of any. If you have a sandwich, don't worry too much about the fat - it's the carbs that get you! Lots of us have Burgen soya and linseed bread from tescos or sainsburys, less carbs and lower "GI" (means the carbs don't spike your sugar so much). Rice isn't a great swap for pasta, they are both starchy carbs. If you have to have rice, small portion and use basmati (lower GI again) Wholewheat pasta is good if you have pasta, but again, pasta not great! A couple of boiled new potatos with those foods would be better. (Mince with new pots is good) Salads should feature a lot, and fish with no batter or breadcrumbs is good.
 
It was the doctor who told me to have some of the foods i have. She is sounding worse by the minute. I do eat a lot of Tuna salads though. Do you know if i am meant to ask to see a Dietician or will i automaticly be refered? I wish i never had to eat. It's gonna be hard work and boring/bland by the sound of it. :(
 
Hi

My advice ref testing would be to generally do it no more than once a day unless you want to find out what specific foods do for you. I tend to do my testing 2 hours after the (main) evening meal. Morning testing can give confusing results due to the so-called glucose dump by the liver to give you energy for day. It's very worrying that your nurse and GP are giving you conflicting advice and prescriptions. If the metformin isn't giving you any stomach problems then normally the prescription is increased towards maximum if your HBa1C is still higher than it should be. If you are not overweight then Gliclazide is often prescribed instead of or as well as Metformin in an atempt to prod the pancreas into producing more insulin; again this being increased if your BS is still too high. If your own testing or the annual HBa1C readings are higher than they should be then you need to review your meds with the GP or nurse.
 
You are very lucky Mistee although you may not think so! very lucky to have fond this forum so soon after diagnosis.
You say you have no weight to lose and feel fine. I know where you are coming from I was the same when I was diagniosed - quite by accident.

In some ways I think it is harder because if you can lose a litle weight quickly you can see some point in it all. As others have said your body is used to runnig on higher levels it will take some time to adjust. It can takeQUITE some time - it did with me.. I felt much better when ny levels were higher.

I also think it takes longer for some who are not overweight to ge their levels down to a sensible level
This should be done slowly and carefully but you are running too high .

I was like you in that my levels must have been too high for some time. In an effort to get them down quickly I was given rosiglitazone a few months before it was withdrawn. I asked the doctor to change it but i seems, a little too late. The day after i stopped taking it and stated on glimepiride
my levels came down dramaicallly and immediately.
Unfortunately I also suffered a massive bleed in my retina and 4 years later they are sill battling to preserve my sight - I am at the hospital every two to four weeks.

I had only slight background retinopathy on dagnosis but suspect I had had high levels for some years before. had this not been the case I would not now be in this position. I was legally blind for the whole of last year but a cataract operation has helped a little . the cataract iself was caused by the treament which then made the original probllem worse. Its a minefield and all you can do to avoid this and other complicaions is to get your bg levels under control and keep them that way.

i think we all go through a period of denial - as i said particularly if the mediication seems to do little or even makes you feel worse..
Doctors and nurses are not usually speaking from personal experience concerning diet and tell you what they have been advised or trained to say.
It is up to you as an individual to find out what is the right way for you to eat. you can only do this by testing as advised above.

As I said you are liucky to have found this forum. I wasn't so lucky .only found my way here last year
but it was a great help in getting on the right track. I had followed a low GI diet for years but this was no longer enough. i was amazed to discover the effect starchy carbs had on me. Now my levels are always in the 4s and 5s. It is well worth taking the time at fiirst to test and experiment.
You will find lots of help and support here,
Your nurse seems quite clued up too . thats the key - to find people you can trust to help you
 
I am so sorry for what you have been through. It has made me take along look at myself and think on about what else i can do. I must admit that at times i haven't taken diabetes seriously enough. I have been looking at it as though i had some sort of bug and now it has cleared up. Im on 1500mg of metformin and 160mg of gliclizide a day. Can you still be damaged with levels between 10 and 13? Those levels are so much lower than the 22 and 27 i was flitting with. I dont have any symptoms any more either
 
If the nurse and doctor are contradicting each other ask if you can have a meeting with both of them at the same time to help make a judgement on which one to actually listen to. That's what I did and decided that the nurse that could only say "That's type one diabetes for you" to every question asked
probably wasn't the helpfull. Good Luck
 
mistee71 said:
Can you still be damaged with levels between 10 and 13? Those levels are so much lower than the 22 and 27 i was flitting with. I dont have any symptoms any more either
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In short, yes. It won't hurt you short term, but long term it will do damage. Time to get serious on diet, meds etc
Good luck, I'm sure you'll do fine
 
mistee71 - bg levels between 10 and 13 are not good news, we all should aim for non diabetic levels or as close as possible
Have a good look around this website for further information http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/

So where do you start, ok let me give you some suggestions, replace those coco pops, most cereals are too carby, although some people are ok with steel cut oats, not made with milk but with cream (milk has lots of lactose = sugar, cream is better) or as Grazer suggested shredded wheat. You could also have the low carb staple of bacon, eggs, mushrooms and tomato, go easy on the bread though, its starchy carbs. Best option for bread would be Burgen Soya and Linseed, or you could bake your own low carb breads to try out.

Read labels on ready made products, get hold of Collins Gem carb counting book, its a small book so will be easy to take shopping with you, choose low carb veggies, eat nuts and berries (frozen berries are 3 for £5 in Sainsbury and Tesco at the moment).
Rice and pasta are generally not a good idea, only if eaten in very small quantities, Basmati rice is the best option there. Have boiled new potatoes instead of mash, they are lower in starchy carbs, if you have mash just a small portion or you could try mashing potatoes with cauliflower, sort of half-half, see if you like that, it would be lower carb.
Make mince with low carb veggies and herbs/spices, eat with a couple of new potatoes, make up shepherds pie, top with a cheesy cauliflower mash or half-half to get you used to it.
Make low carb soups, for example - fry an onion till golden, add low carb veggies, any you like, season with bouillon powder, freshly ground pepper, simmer veggies in a little water, then puree, add a good splash of cream, garnish with fresh chopped herbs = wonderfully creamy healthy soups that wont make you spike
Dont fear fat, starchy carbs are what you need to watch, use only the good fats, coconut oil, olive oil, lard, butter, cold pressed oils
Browse through the low carb recipes, you can probably serve most with a couple of spoons of basmati rice or with new potatoes, but you know you will find if you eat more fat and protein and less carbs you will feel fuller for longer.
I dont know how many carbs you can have during your day, this is where everyone is different, some need to go ultra low, some can take around 80, for me its 50 and it keeps my bg levels stable. Some people can take more if they are injecting insulin for example, so you will need to find your own levels and you do that by testing and adjusting your diet and/or medication.
 
less carbs and lower "GI" (means the carbs don't spike your sugar so much)
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Wholewheat pasta [GI = 37] is good if you have pasta, but again, pasta not great! A couple of boiled new potatos [GI = 56] with those foods would be better.
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Given that you apparently believe in the glycemic index*, and suggested that lower GI would be better, could you please comment on why you recommend a higher GI food here?

If you are concerned about BG spikiness you'd me much better off with adding a bit more fat than swapping starchy carbs for lower GI starchy carbs you don't like.

* That is, extrapolating from measurements taken when an item is consumed in isolation to real world situations.
 
You
AMBrennan said:
Given that you apparently believe in the glycemic index*, and suggested that lower GI would be better, could you please comment on why you recommend a higher GI food here?
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With your great mathematical and scientific skills you might have noted the words "A couple" of new potatos. The Glycaemic load of that compared to a normal serving of pasta is lower. GI is also derived purely from experimentation on people. My own experiments show that a COUPLE of new potatos does far less to my BGs than pasta. Despite their low GI, wholewheat pasta is about 60 grams carbs per 100, (cooked weight) while new pots are 15 to 16. You do the sums. Whilst more accurately I could have spoken to Mistee about Glycaemic load, I was aware that I was talking to a newly diagnosed person struggling to get to get grips with diet, and aimed my comments at helping her in simple terms, not you.
 
WhitbyJet said:
Apologies I didn't mean to offend anyone. I only wanted to help.
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He wasn't referring to you I'm sure, he was referring to my reply to AMBrennan who can't post without being confrontational or critical
 
Thank you Grazer. Yes I have noticed that there are a certain few people who could do with a 6month residential course at charm school.
 
Hi Grazer,

It was both to AMBrennan and to you Grazer. The tone of AMBrennan's message to you was uncalled for, but your reply was also snippy. You are both better than that.

Sorry WhitbyJet if you thought that was at you. I will try to be more specific in future! (although I don't know why you'd think I would need to tell you to be more civil! You're a very polite poster.)
 
Wow. :roll: Good to see you have had lots of supportive replies Mistee, that is what the forum is REALLY all about. :wink:

I am 5 months diagnosed and am only now just starting to accept that this is a permanent state of affairs although I still chuck my toys out the pram on occasion! :lol:

Our resident sheep ( :D ) and WJ have given you good advice on grub, the one thing I would advise is to take your time making the adjustments (assuming you are back on the meds of course). I know that at this point in time I am unable to give up my pasta or rice so I just eat less! I have stopped eating bread which is not a major hardship for me as I found I felt very "dopey" after my morning slice of toast but you can adjust your diet to what suits you!
I love food with tons of flavour not boring stuff and there is honestly no reason why you can't eat that way..it just takes a a bit of practice.

This is the place I rely on for dietary advice, there are so many ideas and recipes even if you don't want to go low carb especially they are still good!

Give yourself some time..I'm sure you'll be ok. :)
 
Mistee,

I've just been on a DESMOND course organised by my surgery and it concentrated quite a lot on what to eat, etc. The same information is available in leaflet form. The doc could also refer you to a dietician (some would say should refer) for advice. So there is lots of advice out there and you need to get back to the doc or the nurse and get them to give you some help in this area.

I also just found out that some depression is common after diagnosis and that they should have given me a "state of mind" questionnaire to find out how I was coping. In my case, that didn't happen. You just need to be aware that it is a possibility (re being "fed up") and maybe ask about it.

I know it's difficult but you should really think of going back to the doc (or nurse if you think that would be better) and explain the difficulty you're having. They should be helping you with it.
 
Thanks everyone. I'm looking forward to what WhitbyJet suggested about couliflower cheese on top of shepherds pie instead of mash. That sounds just as scrummy and i am deffinately gonna get a carb counting book. My DN rang me a couple of days ago and appologised for leaving me on my own with it, I'm seeing her on the 25th and said she will refer me to the dietician, She also said she will do some blood tests. Does anyone know what that could be for? Well i must be doing some thing right. My sugars are now down to 7.1 :clap: However i do have a weakness. I love crisps. What would be the best of the worst to have and what am i looking for when buying something like this? I know on the back is says a measurement on the carbs but i dont know what is high and what is low. It will be a little while before i see the dietician i expect and what i learn from you guys is invaluable. I have aready learn't alot and thank you for it. X X
 
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