• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Trust Issues.

Lamont D

Oracle
Messages
17,870
Type of diabetes
Reactive hypoglycemia
Treatment type
I do not have diabetes
For the past decade, I have been trying to understand my condition, I worked out the why and the how, and how to control my blood glucose levels.
During my anxiety and depression, I had time to muse over, why does my symptoms, then my body and brain reacts to food. Or in other words, the brain is either not telling you the whole truth or automatically ignoring you and giving you signals to make you think what you need to do.
One of the main symptoms when not in control is craving carbs, I could and would have eaten everything that was in the fridge, cupboards, larder, chest freezer or the snacks I know the wife hides, that are for the grandkids.
My urge to eat more was really difficult to overcome. And because last summer was a really bad time for me, for a few weeks, I began to make up for lost time.
With type two, because of insulin resistance, the last thing you need is more insulin. But your brain doesn't tell you not to be aware that constant eating is bad for you. In fact the signal you get is wrong. After eating a meal, that should satiate you, the signal is not you are full, you are getting a signal to eat. so, your signal is telling you lies. Even if you are aware of what you are eating, the higher the blood glucose levels, the more boosts of glucose it is telling you to eat. As is posted when you reduce your carbs, the signal is your body craving carbs.
Carb flu is the symptoms of lowering your blood glucose levels. The brain is happier in high blood levels and is constantly defying your wish to get down to normal or near normal levels.

I'm trying to think why your conscious mind is not able to control the unconscious automatic brain signals.
I don't know wether to trust my brain, because of what I have been going through?

Please help me understand why my brain lies to me?
 
If someone is able to solve your problem, they are also able to cure half the countries problems, save billions of tax pounds, save millions of lives, make my wife thin and therefore much happier, so following with interest.
 
I have heard it said that we actually have a second 'brain' in our stomachs/intestines. If that brain doesn't work well because of a problem like 'leaky gut' then it is in conflict with our main brain.

I have a different problem nowadays. I am finding that I cannot eat many of the foods that are good for me. I feel sick if I try. I am eating more and more fruit (though mostly berries) and I know it's the wrong thing to do, but most proteins and fats just make me feel ill at the moment.

For you I think the key is maybe 'comfort'. You have been through alot this last year or so and carbs make us feel safe (even though they are the last thing we need) Do you have any 'feel good' low carb foods...like dark chocolate?

I think your brain is maybe trying to protect you from the trauma you have experienced by damping down your feelings with carbs. I tend to feel more calm, even slightly comatose when I go heavy on the carbs and this can be alot less stressful for the brain temporarily.

It's hard when you have controlled your condition so well for so long on low carb and then it all goes wrong. I thought I could low carb forever. I was wrong. I hope we can both get back to it soon.
 
Another word for the urge for carbohydrates is called "ADDICTION".

Addiction overrides all rational thoughts.
 
zand said:
It's hard when you have controlled your condition so well for so long on low carb and then it all goes wrong. I thought I could low carb forever. I was wrong. I hope we can both get back to it soon.
Click to expand...
This is so well-expressed and so sad. All good wishes to both of you.
 

I concur with your summary.
If I remember rightly, my endocrinologist called it the gut brain trigger. Apparently the gut has good bacteria (yay) and of course baddies (boo). Depending on how much good bacteria you have, your hormonal response to food, this trigger will give you a either a high dose or a low dose of the requisite hormones. And if your are normal (No, I'm not biting!) This should be enough and the blood glucose returns to normal as it should do. However, insulin resistance, kicks this into touch. When your insulin dose is not enough and circulates around until it is absorbed, having insulin resistance and high circulating insulin is not good for you. It's a viscous cycle that sends your Hba1c levels up.
@zand, I am in control and I have had my GP on the phone informing me that the advice on my tremors is to be ignored. The words spoken were "Don't you dare!"
Yes, I have the occasional dark chocolate, Lintz 90% is my favourite if I can get it.

The problem where you don't want to eat low carb, Is it down to long covid? Because of your taste and smell have altered or like me just a really picky eater?
If it is a combination of both, you just do what you have to, to get through this.
There is nowt wrong with having a few carbs, just don't splurge!
Spread what you eat through the day, so that your blood glucose levels don't get a huge spike with a big meal.

We can battle on trying to get the right side of this, we've been at this for quite some time now. life just keeps knocking us to the point, why bother?
Because of our families, you have to be resilient for their sakes.
To be positive and keep thinking that tomorrow is a better day. (Thanks Sir Tom!)
Are you feeling lonely?
Well, if I lived in the middle of nowhere I couldn't imagine how I would cope!

I am almost there with the depression, thanks the meds, my anxiety is reminding me that it is going to make me think about it, then think about it again and again. My tremor is just about getting used to.
I have learned that it is only me who can get me healthy, same with depression, don't look back, it's history and you can't change it. think of today and plan for tomorrow.
Which reminds me, I have steak sizzling away, and I'm due to break my fast.

My best wishes @zand thinking of you and in my prayers.
 
We are very well designed (or evolved) to survive to reproduce but our perfectly designed metabolisms have had a spanner thrown into our metabolism's works - its' delicate controls and balances. Your question implies that our brains contain a rational segment that is separate to our bodies, something you could call consciousness, but it seems our brains are very much part of our bodies and our reasoning is a slave to our passions both physiological and emotional.
The spanner is the addictive combination of vegetable oil and sugar within an environment that encourages over consumption and certainly doesn't price these products according to their true cost to society and you the individual wondering why as your system floods with insulin, you can't stop craving the chocolate bar sold as you pay for your petrol etc.
Which isn't to say you can't change the environment to make your body work how it should but I don't think any amount of trying to change eating behaviours can trump this physiology that most of us have.
 
Lamont D said:
I'm trying to think why your conscious mind is not able to control the unconscious automatic brain signals.
I don't know wether to trust my brain, because of what I have been going through?

Please help me understand why my brain lies to me
Click to expand...
This aspect of the human condition has baffled scientists and psychologists for millenia. I still think we are a very long way from understanding, and actually I'm not that I want to know it all. I like the surprise, the variability, the creativity, of humans.
I like that one day person A can be resilient and motivated yet on day 2 that same person needs helps and support. E.g. I was motivated and on track yesterday. Today I had an icecream. Why the change? I have no idea. I just know that's life.
(((Hugs)))
 
Saint Paul commented on this dichotomy a couple of millennia ago. "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."
It's part of being human I guess.
 
SaskiaKC said:
Saint Paul commented on this dichotomy a couple of millennia ago. "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."
It's part of being human I guess.
Click to expand...
Good quote.
Being human back then, in the scheme of things, has changed so much.
For the better of all or not for the body and it will never catch up.
My granddad summed it up. "Life is s....! Then you die!
 

I have gone through this cycle of ups and downs, one day feeling good, the next.... you know.
My life has been changed really dramatically, my passion for a lot of things has been stolen away from me, my passion for my sport has gone.
My brain, conscious, subconscious even my second brain has been changed.
I am in the true sense of what matters, my family know as well as I do, that my personality and the confidence of daily life has changed.
Since the breakdown, I have said many times to all my health team and other doctors, I am not me!
I don't do the things that I used to do, I am considering changing my sky contract to get rid of the sport channels.
I am not me!
I am retiring, as my pension will be due shortly.
I am not me!
I want to work, instead of being on the sidelines watching the world go by.
I don't want my life to be over, there is so much I have going for me. But I don't recognise that I can do it!

I have told my neurologist, my doctor, my dsn and anyone who will listen.
I spent Easter in hospital and I talked through the three nights to many nurses and my surgeon and colleagues, they just shake their heads. My neurologist said 'I don't know!'

Why?
 

LamontD, I can't make too many comments to your post, as like everyone else, I'm with you on the "why did I do that" or "why would that ever be a good thing to do?" merry-go-round from time to time. That's like, and we have it all the time, but sometimes the balance is tilted to bring it to the fore much more frequently for a while.

What I will say to you though is that whilst your access to what you clearly loved with a passion is denied to you at the moment, perhaps there are other openings, which could be equally satisfying, even if they don't necessarily put (much or any) cash in your pocket.

I too detest the word retirement. It suggests something I don't want, and that is that the person has ceased to be a valuable human being. Of course it doesn't mean that. To most folks it just means they have reached (for them) the joyous point of leaving the work hamster wheel.

I left corporate life some years ago now, and have always done other and different things, although of late that has focused on volunteering. There are LOADS of volunteering opportunities out there is a massive range of areas.

Of course, volunteering doesn't bring in cash, but it can feed the soul.

Stick with it. It seems like a chapter of your life has ended, but there are many, many chapters out there waiting to be played out. Life is about adventures and experiences. You have a lot to give and there's much you can get back. Give it time. Solutions, or even acceptance can take time to evolve.
 
When things are out of balance, the body is always trying to restore balance: that's what bodies do. You body will make its best guess as to what you need to bring you back in balance and make you want to do that. But those predictions are not always accurate (as you have observed) and can be hijacked by all sorts of things: chronic metabolic dysfunction, appetites distorted by a reliance on ultra-palatable, ultra-processed food, chronic stress, poor sleep, emotional eating... The list is endless. Your system is trying to do the right things. But sometimes the conscious mind needs to override its faulty predictions in order to change the internal weather for the better. This lays the groundwork for better predictions in the future. The closer you are to being well, the better your body's predictions be and the more closely they will align with what actually IS good for you..
 
My passion for watching footie has gone too, loyal fans not required anymore, new 'customers' wanted, old memberships have been discontinued.
I'm not me either. Not sure 'me' exists anymore.
I have always loved eating veggies. They were a constant in my life. A few weeks ago I dished up a plateful of my favourites for my main meal and felt ill at the thought of eating them. I have burning mouth syndrome, I suppose it may be something to do with that, but it was more the thought of eating them that made me want to vomit. Since then the only veggies I have managed to eat are potatoes and tomatoes (and the latter are really a fruit).
 

Thank you @AndBreathe .
You do make sense, the problem(s) I have encountered is in the details, like, my passion for sport has gone completely, my counsellor summed it up as my mind has had two sides, one for family and one for my working life which was in professional sports. Being a supporter since childhood, the wrench of not being able to do my dream job, was ripped away and I was treated terribly (swearing now). So my brain function just couldn't understand what was happening, I had a breakdown.
And even now I'm still recovering from it.
There is a vacuum in one half of my brain and it is effecting my other half of my brain, nothing, and I mean nothing has replaced it, mainly because I don't think I can!
I want to leave room in their for my club. One of my steps is to go to a match but I'm dreading it, because I know so many people that will be there and I have a feeling that I will be asked what has happened and I have to recount. I have made great progress, and I don't believe I'm ready to go. I don't want to be knocked back into depression again.
It's the little things, my memory is shocking, I have to concentrate, but every time I do something, I do have to go back, either to finish it off or clear up. It's not that I don't want to do the chores, it's the frustration of having to repeatedly do things that I should have done in the first place, having to wait for my brain to think of a word or a name, for example, I was quite decent at crossword puzzles, the daily mail cryptic was about my level. I can't even do a five minute puzzle without cheating.

It has pleased me that you replied and still around, I think we have all missed you!

My best wishes.
 

As you are aware, my problem was vegetables especially cooked ones. And lactose, and....... and if because of your long covid and blood sugar issues. You have to change what you eat, then you have to prioritise which will do the least harm, even not eating will work, if you can. Stay away from the spuds they are dangerous and full of bad things! (Ha)

As for the footie, I don't believe I want to know!!!!!!

As always, keep safe.
 

Apologies for potentially derailing your thread, but it's easier for me to give you an update here.
Been to diabetes clinic today.
Gobsmacked by my HbA1c - 44, much better than the previous one in Feb - 56. Not sure how that happened my diet hasn't been very good, potatoes etc! I guess Metformin helped out a bit.

I had a Medichecks Vit B12 test which came out as almost exactly in the centre of where it should be. However, the doc's test shows I am actually B12 deficient. Might explain a few things, like the crazy brain and the burning mouth syndrome. He has agreed that I can remain on Metformin for a while as it helps me lose weight (slowly!) He gave me an injection of B12 and I need to go back in a month.

Total cholesterol 5.4. Yes I know the total doesn't mean much, but the other figures can't be that far away from what they should be if the total is only 5.4. HDL 1.2 Would prefer to know the trigs, but I am not going to stress about it.

Still have a fatty liver. (ALT test 77, was 78 last time)
 

Bless your cotton socks, Lamont.

Give yourself time. It is a very good healer, even if it doesn't feel that way on a day to day basis.
 
Little steps @zand and I'm glad you are getting looked at, and getting tests done.
Things aren't as bad as your crazy brain syndrome, maybe start a new sub forum for us that should be locked away!!!
I think that there will be many joining.
Did you drink tons of water before your liver function test?
My function tests have been up and down the last few years and its another test and if it's early in the morning, my two or three cuppa have helped me get a better result.
So I asked my GP why, the water will flush out all the nasties that have accumulated in your liver. So drink about two litres before.
Only one test last time, and smashed the test!

I'm gonna to do some chores,

Best wishes
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…