The head cannot take this!

MissMac

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So....I have posted elsewhere but just thought I would try and ask.....I was told over the phone that I have diabetes after my fasting glucose was really raised and the more I read the more panicked I am becoming really! All I was told was to "watch my sugar intake and drink lots" until I am seen by the GP on Tuesday...totally helpful I don't think! Oh and also a "I hope I haven't ruined your weekend" well yeah, you have... I didn't plan on spending it in tears!
Anyway I digress, having done some reading (cannot handle too much just now) it seems my fasting hyperglycemia is above anything related to Type 2 or maybe I am just not understanding enough. The fasting was 15.9 and I had hardly eaten the night before so it was well over 12 hours of fasting...what are your thoughts? I am so not dealing with this at all, people are being great but I feel like I am in this little bubble of self hating at the moment (LONG story on that one).
Anyway, I would be intrigued to hear any thoughts from those of you who are not as pathetic as me!!!!
Thanks in advance
Jules xx
 

Snapsy

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Not pathetic, @MissMac - it's no wonder you're feeling overwhelmed. Hope you're okay. It's a lot to take on board, and although it's a big shock right now you will find that things will begin to make sense once you get seen by the GP who will be able to confirm a diagnosis and start you on some treatment.

Be kind to yourself. And welcome to the forum - you will find a lot of support here.

:)
 
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MissMac

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Hi,
really not feeling ok if i am honest....seems I have awful mornings because it's like I wake up and I forget then it hits me...like this morning....was really hungry and the only cereal I had was so sugar loaded....I just sat with a cup of tea and eventually just burst into tears. Held back. Then I just decided, sod it I will eat some, if I hadn't of pushed for this result I would never have known so what the heck. Then once the dog was walked my head was doing somersaults and by the time I got back I had to call my mum and out came the anger frustration and fear :( Then I seem to be a bit better but cannot think of anything else but cannot bear to read anything else as I never get the answers..I know I am being impatient!! The nights I just sit here and am so loaded with questions and fear and again my mood snaps....the oh so supportive partner sat here stuffing his face with crisps and once again I am hungry and have been for hours though have eaten.
Right now, if honest..I feel like getting in the car and just driving back to my mum's (250 miles) and not leaving ever...of course taking the dog with me. Feel so angry I cannot even begin to explain it without using expletives!!! xxxx
 

AndBreathe

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So....I have posted elsewhere but just thought I would try and ask.....I was told over the phone that I have diabetes after my fasting glucose was really raised and the more I read the more panicked I am becoming really! All I was told was to "watch my sugar intake and drink lots" until I am seen by the GP on Tuesday...totally helpful I don't think! Oh and also a "I hope I haven't ruined your weekend" well yeah, you have... I didn't plan on spending it in tears!
Anyway I digress, having done some reading (cannot handle too much just now) it seems my fasting hyperglycemia is above anything related to Type 2 or maybe I am just not understanding enough. The fasting was 15.9 and I had hardly eaten the night before so it was well over 12 hours of fasting...what are your thoughts? I am so not dealing with this at all, people are being great but I feel like I am in this little bubble of self hating at the moment (LONG story on that one).
Anyway, I would be intrigued to hear any thoughts from those of you who are not as pathetic as me!!!!
Thanks in advance
Jules xx

A fasting blood glucose of 15.9 is certainly higher than a normal person, or where you'll want to run it for the longer term, but there have been many like it, and many higher too, so don't panic. In fact, having gone back through my results, my fasting score at diagnosis was 15.6, so I'm pretty much matching you there.

You're not pathetic. Initially, everywhere you turn there's more information, on more things than you ever thought and it is impossible to take it all in. Trust me. We've all been there, to a greater or lesser extent. Take it steady. You'll start to pick up the basics, and that's enough to get you going.

I haven't read anywhere why you had the blood tests done. Were you having symptoms, or were you tested routinely? I had had absolutely no symptoms and my blood test was done because my blood pressure was a bit high, and Hey Presto!

It's not all gloom and doom. Many people have great health outcomes post diagnosis. Me? My blood glucose numbers are improved to such an extent that my medical records now who my diabetes as resolved..I trimmed up and am now super slim, my blood pressure is great and I'm extremely well.

Don't just look at the gloom and doom. Try to be patient and do some reading. You can make a difference you know.
 
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urbanracer

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So you go to the quack on Tuesday and he tells you that you're not diabetic. He says the lab made a mistake, you breathe a sigh of relief, you leave the surgery and you carry on with your life.
Or you go to the quack on Tuesday and he tells you that you're a diabetic. He gives you a prescription of insulin, you leave the sugery saying to yourself, oh **** it, and you carry on with your life.
My point? Diabetes may be a game changer, but it's not the end game.
(And BTW, high blood sugars can affect your moods. Sometimes, just being aware of this is key. If you're feeling unusually tetchy with your partner, make sure it's you talking and not the high sugars.)
 
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Mbaker

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Please try not to worry too much, many of us have been exactly where you are. Try to think of this as a starting point where your outcomes can be significantly improved. This site is an excellent route 1 resource for support, motivation and practical advice. Practically as a start chicken, fish, beef, lamb, bacon, eggs, spinach, kale, cabbage, mushrooms, leeks, salad, berries, cheese, unsalted nuts, green tea / tea, water are the types of food that might agree with you - ask your GP for a testing kit so that over time you can see what works; but as this quite low carb it should help get your figures going in the right direction, along with any intervention your Doctor may add. If you could avoid sugar, honey, bread, pasta, rice and potatoes (sweet potatoes are a good compromise), oranges, mangoes, pineapple.

January 2015 HbA1c 134, 98 kg
March 2015 HbA1c 59 (2 x 500g Metformin), exercise and diet
Dec 2015 HbA1c 41 (2 x 500g Metformin), exercise and diet, 92 kg
March 2016 HbA1c 42 (1 x 500g Metformin), exercise and diet, 92 kg
June 2016 HbA1c 42 (1 x 500g Metformin), exercise and diet, 92 kg
 
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Snapsy

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@MissMac so sorry you're struggling - but this is a big bombshell and these feelings are completely normal in these circumstances. Please please don't drive when you're feeling so angry.

If you're hungry, have you got some cheese to hand, or a couple of slices of ham, or some (salted or plain, not dry roasted) peanuts or something to snack on? These are all low in carbohydrate and will not have a large effect on your sugar levels. Could your partner put the crisps down, make you a cuppa and give you a hug?

I know it's hard but put the reading to one side for tonight, and try to get some rest.

This all feels massive right now, and anyone reading your posts will know exactly how you feel. You're not alone. Tomorrow - not tonight - have a browse of the forum and the main diabetes.co.uk site, and @daisy1 is sure to come along with all the information she provides to new members.

Breakfast tomorrow could be eggs, maybe?

Try to get some rest.

:)
 
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A

Avocado Sevenfold

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Hi @MissMac As someone said on the other thread, if you can normalise your blood glucose levels, there is a good chance your anxiety and mood will improve. This was certainly my experience.

I suspect your current rage and hunger is mainly due to insulin resistance and your blood glucose levels rollercoastering. Try to cut yourself a bit of slack and be kind to yourself.
 
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MissMac

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Hey again,
I'm not sure how to reply to AndBreathe directly but I had major symptoms and being a nurse kinda knew it was pointing towards diabetes, I went in the surgery with one of the symptoms I could not deal with on top of the others and asked for a test and told him why. The results were not meant to be back before a week and then saw a missed call from them the day after, they said I needed to make an appointment to discuss my results and the first one was Tuesday...I called them back again and said I could not wait that long and someone needed to call me and tell me what was wrong.
I could literally feel my blood boiling in my veins with anger and frustration when the partner person was sat here stuffing. My biggest concern is that I have a massive sweet tooth, everything I enjoy is gonna be bad for me and all the changes I am going to have to change everything, on top of that I am a really fussy eater..downloaded the 7 day plan thing and there's about 2 things on there I could stomach eating and that was at a push so am growing increasingly angry about the whole thing. I know it's going to take time to sort things out but it's really messing with my depresion and PTSD and I feel awful upon awful and even worse that I just keep banging on about it and am a misgog-it's not me!!! I don't wanna keep posting doom and gloom I am just at a loss as to what I do when my emotions are running so high and I feel so alone :(
 
A

Avocado Sevenfold

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The 7 day plan is not a rule book. It is just a suggestion. Have a look around the forum and see what other people eat. There is loads of tasty stuff.

You are not alone. You are here in what is apparently the biggest diabetes forum in Europe so that's a good start.

Your partner will not be deliberately trying to wind you up. Most people don't know about diabetes unless they or a loved one has it. Plenty of time to educate him or bin him so don't be hasty. You have had a big shock, but it does get easier.
 
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Winnie53

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The initial diagnosis is a shock. At times, my emotions were all over the place those first weeks and months too - (I have mild PTSD).

Reading Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution, 4th Edition (2011) gave me hope and an action plan. I bought a glucose meter kit and strips, cleared all the "no" foods out of my kitchen the same weekend, and was on the diet by the third day. Then I found this forum. That's all I needed.

Only thing I'd do differently today would be to buy the cheapest strips I could find with the meter that goes with it because I tested up to 8 times a day.

I can't find my glucose log at the moment, but my numbers were similar to yours when I was re-diagnosed with type 2 diabetes 17 months ago. I'm now in the "normal" to "pre-diabetes" range with lifestyle changes only, no medication. This despite having severe insulin resistance and a 35 year history beginning with hypoglycemia. It's not anyone's fault. It just "is". All that counts is what you do from this point forward.

The gift of diabetes is that it forces us to rethink everything we're doing. I'm in my mid-50's, my husband is in his mid-60's. I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it is to feel healthy again. With the support of this 24/7 forum, you'll get there too. :)
 
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Diakat

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Feeling angry is a perfectly normal response to diagnosis. It is like a grieving process.
Until you see the doctor and know more you could maybe take a look at the low carb food forum here which may help with good ideas.
If you have to feed your sweet tooth the blog diabetic good baking has sweet treats.
We have all been there and everyone here struggles in their own way.
 
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daisy1

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@MissMac

Hello Jules and welcome to the forum :) To follow on from all the excellent advice you have received, here is the information we give to new members and I hope you will find it helpful. Ask as many questions as you want and someone will come along and answer.


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 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.
 

magsiesss

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Hi .... at least you have found this forum which is really great in providing answers to your questions and if you have a good look around, there are so many sections of it which will be able to help you through

As you can see from my signature - I was only diagnosed a few months ago, and my readings were extremely high - off the scale even. But thanks mainly to this forum, I am working my way through things and am even reducing the medication given to me on diagnosis .... its all possible.

Good luck
 
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Snapsy

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Morning @MissMac - hope you've had some sleep. Please know that you can do this - I am sure your doctor will be able to reassure you and guide you on Tuesday, and remember all of us here have had first-hand experience of what you're going through.

:)
 
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Prem51

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Hi @MissMac and welcome to the forum. Receiving that diagnosis is a huge shock, and most of us will have gone through a range of emotions when we got it, fear, anger, blame, guilt and denial. It does take a bit of time to get your head round it all.
But you can control this condition. There are people on here who had higher fbgs than yours who have reduced them by adopting a Low Carbohydrate High Fat approach to eating.
Don't be angry with your partner. Most people who don't have diabetes themselves won't understand how you feel. I didn't before I was diagnosed diabetic, and my late mother was T2. Now I realise I should have been more supportive.
 
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AndBreathe

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Hey again,
I'm not sure how to reply to AndBreathe directly but I had major symptoms and being a nurse kinda knew it was pointing towards diabetes, I went in the surgery with one of the symptoms I could not deal with on top of the others and asked for a test and told him why. The results were not meant to be back before a week and then saw a missed call from them the day after, they said I needed to make an appointment to discuss my results and the first one was Tuesday...I called them back again and said I could not wait that long and someone needed to call me and tell me what was wrong.
I could literally feel my blood boiling in my veins with anger and frustration when the partner person was sat here stuffing. My biggest concern is that I have a massive sweet tooth, everything I enjoy is gonna be bad for me and all the changes I am going to have to change everything, on top of that I am a really fussy eater..downloaded the 7 day plan thing and there's about 2 things on there I could stomach eating and that was at a push so am growing increasingly angry about the whole thing. I know it's going to take time to sort things out but it's really messing with my depresion and PTSD and I feel awful upon awful and even worse that I just keep banging on about it and am a misgog-it's not me!!! I don't wanna keep posting doom and gloom I am just at a loss as to what I do when my emotions are running so high and I feel so alone :(

MissMac to make a reply to a specific post, just click on the Reply button at the bottom of the post you want to reply to, and that does the trick.

The others have commented on mood, so I won't go on, but I would make a couple of points, if I may.

Bearing in mind that at diagnosis I hadn't had any symptoms , you can imagine how bewildered I felt? That's not putting down anything you're feeling for a minute, just trying to explain it's all very usual. The bewilderment was even worse for my OH, who just kept saying "but you're so healthy!". It didn't help that we were due to go off on a long trip overseas 3 weeks ahead of that, and we both were wondering how that was going o work out.

For me, the way I got over that was by doing some home finger-prick testing, which showed me the lab results were correct. There could be no mix up in bloods, because I had pricked my own finger, put the little blob onto the stick and watched the 5 second countdown. When compared with the normal range figures that also helped my OH enormously to get his head around things too.

As far as the sweet tooth is concerned, I've never had a massively sweet tooth, and over time that had actually decreased, but you'll be fine. There's loads out there you can have. For example, I spent some of yesterday preparing for an afternoon tea event I'm attending today. Of course, that routinely involves tiny sarnies, mini sausage rolls, cakes, trifles and sweets. For my offering, I made a "normal" Lemon Drizzle cake, for those with no sugar issues, and those who can manage it within their treatment regime, and sugar-free truffles for those of us avoiding sugar. They're chocolate mint and the other lemon and coconut. They're each very rich, very sweet and rather fabulous. I won't be bothered eating too many of those, but I would honestly challenge you to be know these are sugar-free if you didn't know before eating them.

There are loads and loads of recipes, websites and ideas out there. Just take it steady. Rome wasn't built in a day, but I bet the bricklayers worked every day towards the end result.

You'll be fine, given a little while to get your head around it.
 
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MissMac

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234
I can see I am going to be saying thank you a lot in the next few weeks, but you cannot underestimate how having people who do not judge, are not bored by my talking about it and my fears, makes me feel. Yes I feel very alone but this has helped knowing you guys are all there and a wealth of knowledge too!
I have friends who are diabetic and spoke to them but unfortunately they seem to be of the mind that medication takes care of the sugars and they just eat what they want in the most part....I don't want to be that way....on the surface their results might seem better but we cannot see what is happening on the inside until it is too late and that is not a chance I am willing to take with my body. I also do not want to be and would be a fool for thinking I could be, one of those who dramatically changes everything and becomes the world's biggest health freak and eat nothing but oatcakes or something, that's no life as far as I am concerned though take my hat off to them for being able!
As for the partner....it's very much a stalemate this morning...he knew he had upset me because I had to take myself out the room while he was eating, just sat in the bedroom pretending to read and cried AGAIN! This morning he is being all gruff and dirty looks are being shot my way because I am sat on the laptop trying to wake up and he is mowing the grass! What he doesn't see is that he was snoring within minutes of going to bed and most the night I was awake and invariably...yup you got it...crying or feeling so sick!
I know once the mood/depression/shock etc etc eases off me a bit, I will be better able to make the changes and feel that I am not drowning in a sea of information that I cannot process. I am thinking of getting back in touch with my counsellor/therapist just to talk that side of things through in the hope the rest will then be easier to deal with, who knows.
So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart, you've all been so wonderful in such a short space of time xxxxx
 
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ickihun

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Some great support on 'type 2 life' forum. We dont bite.
We get angry, worried, upset and happy.
Life with diabetes is much much easier shared.
We are here for you!
 
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