Totally confused!!!

Deborahdesylva said:

I was told was diabetic in Sept 2017 when hb1c was 50 so followed Dr Mosley diet and after 8 weeks was down to 40 and cured! Since then tried to be "good" but allowed carbs to creep back in and last Autumn was back to 50. Have since been trying hard but got very confused over porridge. Always hated it but having been convinced it was good for me I persevered eating it only to find that some say it is bad for you. So decided to use a monitor to see what it did to me. Monitor came yesterday and after eating well all day I got readings 2hrs (and over following 2 hrs) after eating of 18,20.19 and 17. So I tried on some friends as I thought I must be doing it wrong and theirs were 5.1 and 4.9. I took mine again first thing in the morning and it was 12.7. I am now really upset and disappointed and am intending to be brutal about cutting out all carbs. I am struggling to find out just how bad my results are and what I can hope for. Any advice would be welcome.

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Hi there
I am a type 1 and persist in eating porridge. Apart from keeping me from getting hungry in the 5hours from breakfast to lunch at work, I am also aware that it helps keep my cholesterol levels well below 4. The knock on effect for me anyway is that on some days up to 3 hours after eating my bs can rise up in the high teens. Other days it doesn't really go above 9. I understand clearly why many diabetics don't eat porridge at all. Just monitor what does to your levels and then make your own choice.
Good luck

Hi @Deborahdesylva sadly mornings can be really difficult, personally I am more insulin resistant in the morning compared to any other time of the day so I avoid carbs for breakfast, later in the day this tolerance changes greatly but for me I try to avoid readings in double figures as much as I can.

Hi and welcome to the forum,

I see from your profile you are diet only, so maybe if you tell us what you eat in a typical day we can spot something you could tweak.

You have done the best thing you can to buy a meter and start testing your meals. That means before as well as 2 hours after. To check what that meal has done to your levels, look at the difference between the before and after reading. This should be a maximum of 2mmol/l and preferably a lot less - as low as you can. More than that and there were too many carbs for your body to process properly.

Have a good read round, and ask as many questions as you wish.

Hi @Deborahdesylva and welcome to the forum. I notice that no one has tagged @daisy1 for her useful info post which is posted for newbies. It has info on understanding carbs included. As @Bluetit1802 asked it’ll be useful if you post typical foods you eat. I have already spotted porridge and pea soup which maybe too high carb for a type 2. I’d also look carefully at the nutritional content of the ‘diabetic’ cookies they maybe sugar free but still too high in carbs, plus they are often very expensive.
Also to address your point about your sugars rising even if you haven’t eaten, this will be your liver dumping glucose as it reacts to you not eating, then your inefficient metabolism can’t deal with it properly so up goes your blood sugar.

Hi @Deborahdesylva, That is a lovely avatar and i am guessing you are holding your new baby? If so, congratulations!
As a Type 1 diabetic, not as professional advice or opinion:
Non-Diabetics BSLs: My understanding of is that when a non-diabetic one eats food, say oats, the digestive system digests it (tummy rumbles are part of that process) and glucose, the end result as far as the carbs part of oats is concerned, goes into the blood stream heading for the liver.. The pancreas gland nearby has glucose detectors in that blood which show that the 'tide' of glucose is rising.
Usually the pancreas gland releases a short pulse of insulin into the blood and then a little later a more sustained burst of insulin.
Most cells in the body need insulin to help glucose get into the cells where it is used as fuel..
If the blood sugar were to be continuously tested the blood sugar (glucose) from a meal like oats rises up to a limit, in non-diabetics, to less than 7,8 mol/l and this rise peaks about the 2 hour mark. All the while the insulin is working to move glucose into the body cells.
Liver storage: Also some glucose is absorbed by the liver and stored. Our brain uses mainly glucose for fuel. It gets very tetchy if its fuel supply starts getting too low, so once the glucose from a meal has been 'tucked away' inside the body cells the blood glucose levels drop back. If it starts to drop a bit too low, the liver releases some glucose to 'top up' the BSL and keep the brain happy.
D.P. : If you look at the Home Page again under "Type 1" you will see something called the Dawn Phenomenon. It is about the BSL rising in the early hours of the morning due to the liver and some early-bird hormone activity and this can cause high BSLs at waking time. (if as a T2D your pancreas gland cannot cope (see below)) That or something like it can explain why BSLs can be high on waking despite no food intake for hours.
In T2D diabetes, the pancreas gland is a bit slow off the mark, and releases a bigger surge of insulin later than in the non-diabetic.
Also insulin in T2Ds does not seem to work as effectively as in non-diabetics, something we call insulin resistance. Depending how much oats one has eaten the rise in BSL tends to outpace the insulin for a time so that at the 2 hour mark the BSL rises about 7.8 mmol/l. You mention high BSLs 2 hours after after meals so that suggests that whatever you are eating and the amount you are eating is too much for your pancreas gland to cope with. Oats, chockie etc biscuits in quantity may do that.
Yes oats are full of good nutrients but you pay a price if you have too much and a number of diabetics find they are too troublesome to eat, or eat in any quantity.
And just to clarify, if one is taking insulin by injection (e.g. Type 1) there is the flexibility to increase the insulin dose to cope with the BSLs caused by the oats. You do not have that choice as your insulin is delivered by your own pancreas. In any case if some one eats lots of oats and injects lots of insulin to cover them they are likely to put on weight which may cause other problems.
Also you can try to eat no carbs at all - but that means more protein and fat and it has been shown that up to 50% of the protein eaten get turned into glucose by the liver. Yes the rise in BSL from protein is slower and usually lower than from carbs and some people find this works well for their diabetes.
Others take an in-between approach of some carbs but not as much as some health authorities bang on about (high carb).
My understanding is that the low-carb high fat approach suits quite a number of T2Ds in the UK - it is popular and it seems to be something that many T2Ds find they can keep doing and not suffer hunger pangs.
So there are a number of 'diabetic diets' but no one universal diet.
Some of these diets are discussed on the Home page of this site under "Type 2" and may prove useful to you.
One last point: Are you breast-feeding? If so, You may need to consult with a dietitian to ensure you are consuming enough of the right food for baby and you. It is not supposed to be the same as eating for two, though!! Not all dietitians are au fait with all the diets mentioned about and you will need to weigh up the pros and cons of any advice. But that has to include keeping your BSLs as close to the acceptable range as possible.
ALSO: You should discuss diets and management of your BSLs with your nurse and doctors before embarking on any diet.
Best Wishes:

Deborahdesylva said:

Lovely you think I'm young enough to be mum lol The picture was taken from FB and it's my first grandchild - I am 53! Have just walked the dogs and found that 3hrs after eating avocado and two eggs scrambled with cream my reading is still 12.3 barely any different from first thing but still high? I am now wondering if I should go to the drs?

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Congrats @Deborahdesylva then on being so young looking !! A trip to the doctors sounds like a good idea.

Deborahdesylva said:

The meter has frightened me though - I didn't expect the readings to be so consistently high. Am I extreme or did you have readings like these at first?

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Yes, it is not good to have consistently high readings like that, but many people on here started off that way, some much higher. I was "lucky" in that my readings have never been in double figures. We are all different. A visit to the doctor may be your next move, but do try to lower your carbs or you are just feeding your body with more glucose. If you test out your meals, before and after, and concentrate on getting the increase from before to after down, and learning from what your meter is telling you, hopefully your levels will reduce quite quickly. Give it a try, and as said earlier, if you give us an idea of what you are eating each day, we can help you.

Deborahdesylva said:

very confused over porridge.

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Hi Deborah,
What porridge are you eating? Steel Cut porridge oats are the best and proven to have less of a raise in bg levels.

I wouldn't recommend it 7 days a week but it you don't want to cut porridge out of your diet completely give that a go it should make a difference.

Hi @Deborahdesylva

Beautifully, informative answer by @kitedoc . .lays out in a great way, the mechanisms of T2D.

I read the first statement of yours as diagnosed, then cured.

Firstly congratulations on getting your numbers down .

And then sad to hear the latest numbers and the issues you are having

I am non medical, so it's just my opinion, but I think the word "cured" is a misnomer in my eyes

Your diet worked wonders, and I guess you at some point relaxed your diet,..which perhaps is where the "cure" proved it's just a mirage we'd like to believe is true, sadly

I also wonder, if we aren't cured but better able to manage ourselves, that the insulin resistance keeps increasing as we age, particularly if our carb control is a little more relaxed

Which if I read right does seem to be the major issues with the ''Diet" idea way of eating, rather the the "Way of Eating " (woe) life, many T2D choose.

A fact perhaps, that the porridge highlights.

Maybe it was something, highish in carbs that you COULD manage previously, but now is out of reach of your control, as your insulin resistance has continued to rise ?

Great that you now check with the meter what happens when you eat certain foods, that is so essrntial to controling those BG numbers .

I see you also intend to cut the carb intake,
I think if it was me, I might go check out diet doctor for advise on what foods contain less carbs, and read posts on here about the foods others eat to moderate the impact of this wretched disease on our daily life and health.

Then implement and integrate a good many of those ideas into my food plan for a week or two, and see if that helps lower the BG levels.

A visit to the doctor's would also be a good idea, just to ensure its not something else impacting on you, but I would still now consider that it's time to reconsider your food choices and try the LCHF WOE, rather then another diet with short term benefits, imho.

Best of luck in your quest, hope the solution is close to hand for you.

Deborahdesylva said:

The meter has frightened me though - I didn't expect the readings to be so consistently high. Am I extreme or did you have readings like these at first?

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Please dont panic if you keep eating low carb the numbers will continue to drop but it will take a few weeks. Readings reducing from 18 to 12 after breakfast is an excellent start for one day. If you keep this up you will be in single figures soon

porridge oats are 2/3rds starch, much like other grains, and I don't eat them because I get high readings.
If you have been eating high carb foods, or just not checking the information on the packaging, you are likely to have reserves of glucose which are pushed out to maintain what has become normal - that is why many people experience 'carb flu' when they have cut back sharply on their carb intake, but only after a couple of days.
I suggest going through your normal shopping list and checking the carb content. You might very well find the reason for high levels.
Personally, I avoid foods with over 10 percent carbs except for small amounts of chocolate with a high cocoa content.

Getting a HbA1c of 50 could suggest lots of big ups and downs with the blood sugar.

I would look at your blood sugar response to things like milk in tea and coffee if you drink that regularly. I had to switch to double cream in coffee, as milk sent my blood sugar rocketing, particularly lower fat milk. It could be something like that.

A single coffee with a little skimmed milk in at a friends house sent me from 5.5 to 10 pretty rapidly.

I would also look to see how cooked your veg are as I can tolerate raw veg really well, but not cooked at all, unless very lightly steamed or stir-fried. This also results in a huge rise in blood sugar, so most soup is off the menu unless I cook it very lightly myself and stick to above ground vegetables that are very lightly cooked.

If you are high all day I wonder if there is something you are doing that you are not aware is causing a raise in your blood sugar.

Also the Mosley diet I think is pretty low carb as well as low calorie, so you may not have been "cured", but simply seen your blood sugar over that period drop because you had a lot less carbs than usual and therefore your average blood glucose was lower. The best thing is to test before and two hours after meals to see what the food is doing to you, and then decided what you need to do about it.

I went from a HbA1c of 82 to 42 in around 4 months, but eating anything carby will still take me straight into double figures when I do a test after eating, so I may have looked like I was heading towards remission, but nothing has changed except my way of eating to manage the condition.

Deborahdesylva said:

Thanks - It is nice to know there are others out there! It is depressing to think of all you have to change.

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Hi, I did the same as you nearly , March 2017 diagnosed 88 and got it down to 54 , had a lot of family tragedies last year and felt unwell never gained weight but didn't eat right and my blood test came back as 105 I was in a panic and I thought I was in real danger with that high number .

I came here and started lchf and I also used to eat porridge and my finger test one night was 19.3 and that was after a walk so wonder what it was had i not gone for a walk.

I've done lchf for 9 weeks now and my numbers are always under 7.8 even after food . I was frightened to test at first because of worry about what the reading would be , but i cut out the carbs not all and now my numbers are down .

My next blood test is end of this month .

I think you are probably panicking and that can keep numbers higher , try to relax your not in a dangerous range compared to mine , if you want to go see your doctor then its your choice, but personally I would try and relax and see those numbers come back down .