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Type 2 Treating Diabetes without a doctor

H

Henry70

Member
Messages
8
Type of diabetes
Type 2
I use to live in the UK where I enjoyed good and free treatment for my diabetes. Today I am back home in Africa for good. While coming I bought the glucometer. I stopped using metformin when my level became stable at 7.0. I am home now where diet is not wonderful. You eat whatever is available most of which are 90% carb. My level has gone up to 16.0 with frequent urination and loss of weight. I’ve resulted to metformin of 2000m daily. It has come down to 10.0 in the lat couple of days with a little exercise every two days. I am 47 and Medicare is so horrible in my country that you can live all your life with self medication. I will appreciate your advice and am I doing the right thing?
 
Levels of 7 and above cause damage. Are you in charge of what you can eat or is it presented to you? How are you getting your metformin?

The biggest and best change you can make is not to eat carbs, your levels will only get worse and you may have to resort to insulin at some point.
 
There are vegetables in Africa. Ground rice, pap, semolina or gari need not be added to every meal.
You obviously understand that your levels are too high and it seems that you have access to and can afford test strips so ditch as many of the carbs as you can before you find yourself in the position of needing a doctor to sort out possible complications which you may find even more of an expense. Good luck and best wishes.
 
Guzzler said:
There are vegetables in Africa. Ground rice, pap, semolina or gari need not be added to every meal.
You obviously understand that your levels are too high and it seems that you have access to and can afford test strips so ditch as many of the carbs as you can before you find yourself in the position of needing a doctor to sort out possible complications which you may find even more of an expense. Good luck and best wishes.
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Thanks so much for this. How often would you advice I eat the carb foods you mentioned?
 
wiflib said:
Levels of 7 and above cause damage. Are you in charge of what you can eat or is it presented to you? How are you getting your metformin?

The biggest and best change you can make is not to eat carbs, your levels will only get worse and you may have to resort to insulin at some point.
Click to expand...
Thanks for this. Do you suggest I knock out carb completely from my menu? Thanks
 
Henry70 said:
Thanks for this. Do you suggest I knock out carb completely from my menu? Thanks
Click to expand...

Cutting out or greatly reducing major carbs and eating as few as you can will help more than Metformin. Diet is the key to control. You can use your meter to help you discover which of your food choices are unsuitable for you. Test immediately before you eat, then again 2 hours after your first bite. Look at the rise from before to after. Hopefully you can keep this below 2mmol/l and preferably less. You may find that with careful portion control you can cope with small portions of some of these, or you may not. Let your meter guide you. Keeping a detailed food diary and recording your levels alongside will help enormously.

Major carbs are ones that contain rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, breakfast cereals and anything made with flour. We also need to be careful with fruit.
 
Anything below 130g of carbohydrates per day is considered low carb, a lot of people eat fewer than that because their blood glucose readings show that number to be too high. It is a good number to start with though. The carb rich foods are bread, rice, ptatoes, pasta and flour so you could start by reducing your intake of those foods. Good luck and keep testing!
 
Bluetit1802 said:
Cutting out or greatly reducing major carbs and eating as few as you can will help more than Metformin. Diet is the key to control. You can use your meter to help you discover which of your food choices are unsuitable for you. Test immediately before you eat, then again 2 hours after your first bite. Look at the rise from before to after. Hopefully you can keep this below 2mmol/l and preferably less. You may find that with careful portion control you can cope with small portions of some of these, or you may not. Let your meter guide you. Keeping a detailed food diary and recording your levels alongside will help enormously.

Major carbs are ones that contain rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, breakfast cereals and anything made with flour. We also need to be careful with fruit.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much. You’ve no idea what this means to me. Does exercise help. I had a two hour walk this morning after some cereal. Unbelievable I just checked it now and it reads 5.7.
 
Henry70 said:
Thanks so much. You’ve no idea what this means to me. Does exercise help. I had a two hour walk this morning after some cereal. Unbelievable I just checked it now and it reads 5.7.
Click to expand...

Yes, walking helps and is thought to be the best form of exercise for many people....
 
Hi and welcome @Henry70

I hope your return to Africa is a wonderful experience :D

May i suggest that you learn as much as possible about type 2, how diet helps and hinders, and what steps you can take to control your health.
This is a great website for understanding all aspects of type 2, including how effective medication can be, and the risks that come from raised blood glucose.
Www.bloodsugar101.com

Many type 2s who post on this forum get well controlled blood glucose with dietary choice (carb control) and (if necessary) medication. But it usually means some major dietary changes. Without knowing more about the food you have available, i have no idea which methods are suitable for you...
 
Guzzler said:
Anything below 130g of carbohydrates per day is considered low carb, a lot of people eat fewer than that because their blood glucose readings show that number to be too high. It is a good number to start with though. The carb rich foods are bread, rice, ptatoes, pasta and flour so you could start by reducing your intake of those foods. Good luck and keep testing!
Click to expand...

I do appreciate this. Thanks
 
Are you living where you might keep poultry? I enjoyed keeping quail and had their eggs to eat - they do not make any noise and I fed them on kitchen scraps along with pellets - you could feed them cereals and get eggs. The birds taste nice too.
 
wiflib said:
Levels of 7 and above cause damage. Are you in charge of what you can eat or is it presented to you? How are you getting your metformin?

The biggest and best change you can make is not to eat carbs, your levels will only get worse and you may have to resort to insulin at some point.
Click to expand...
Hi there, congratulations on your great results and on taking control of your diabetes so brilliantly. I have just joined here and I'm hoping to contact people who have manage to take full responsibility for their condition and become healthy again. I went on the 800 cal per day diet and lost 3 stone in weight. This brought my BS levels to average 5.2. however during the lasst quarter of 2017 I was travelling quite a bit and put on 10lbs. While I was still doing okay dietwise, my BS levels went up to average 6.6. Im now dropping the few pounds and back in the gym. It would be great to connect with people like yourself and find out what kind of focus and mindset you use, (priorities, values, goals etc) that keep you on track and constantly succeeding. Cheers, Tony
 
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