Hi.
Thanks for your input. Sorry about the delay, but I realised that this topic had opened up a whole can of worms for me and I was trying to check things out. I had no idea that diabetes could have an impact upon dental health, so I wasn’t doing anything special. Neither did I appreciate the role that blood sugar could play within the healing process. I knew about getting my feet checked regularly, having my annual eye and HbA1C checks, beyond that I didn’t really know much. I suspect that the same is true of many Type 2’s. The NHS concentrates on Type 1’s, after all, a diabetic coma is a serious event, and Type 2’s are pretty much left to fend for themselves.
Our local NHS diabetic services are pretty poor. e.g. I was referred to a group meeting where we were supposed to be being told about Diabetes and You. There were 2 meetings, during the first of which we were to be shown a diabetes awareness video, by an “expert” who would answer any questions we had. When we turned up we were told that the video couldn’t be shown because the laptop had broken down. Because the video session couldn’t go ahead, the “expert” hadn’t turned up. The meeting was run by diabetic dieticians who weren’t able to answer many of the more searching questions. When the next meeting came around, I thought that the laptop would have been repaired and we would have the video. No. The laptop was still broken and there was no expert. I also had 2 half hour, one to one sessions with diabetic dieticians, each time a different person. Each time they trotted out a picture of a plate with “half vegetable, quarter protein, quarter carbohydrate” as the ideal meal. No mention of the other 2 daily meals. The rest of the time they spent filling in a Health Lifestyle questionnaire - both of them! Are they on commission or something? The only other things that I picked up were, “no smoothies and no mashed potato”.
I still haven’t been able to find out much about problems associated with diabetes and implants. There are some learned documents using Big Words Wot I Don’t Know, talking about failure rates (whatever a “failure” is) not being much higher for “controlled diabetes”, but I’d like to know more.
As far as my dentist goes, he did know about my diabetes, but I’m not sure that he knew that he knew. By that, I mean that I had declared diabetes on my registration form, but whether he checked before suggesting implants, I don’t know. When I mentioned diabetes in connection with problems I had experienced with antibiotics (Amoxicillin and Metronidazole), he “pulled up short”. I asked what would happen if I had implants and my “maintain by diet” diabetes, degraded to medication and possibly insulin maintenance. He said something about somebody he knew who had turned their life around by a change in lifestyle. Can Type 2 really be “cured” by becoming a lean, mean machine?
The decision is left to me and I still feel that I don’t have sufficient information to make it an informed one. When it goes wrong what are the consequences and what can be done about them?
Just done a "before and after" with my breakfast (2 egg omelette with diced onion and red pepper) - 5.8 mmol/L before. 5.8 mmol/L 2 hours later. So I guess that's OK. The baseline (5.8) might be up a bit because i'm still on pain killers (Paracetamol/Ibuprofen) after the extractions. I read a comment on the Ibuprofen box about "see your pharmacist/doctor before taking" if you're diabetic. Is this Type 1 or Type 2 or both? I guessed that it was to do with the sugar in the casing, so haven't seen anyone. The Ibuprofen was taken just after breakfast, so is included in the result.