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Unappeasable desire for sweets

Matteo1980

Matteo1980

Well-Known Member
Hello all! I am T1,diagnosed in this July. I was transferred to hospital for a week,due to high keto level. Keto’s been stable later. Before i’ve been diagnosed,i felt tired all the time,mostly in legs. Could not take the steps like ever before and had numbness in my sole of feet,what was strange to walk with. Also,i had unsatisfiable hunger for desserts. After main meal,i could not leave the table without eating a lot of chocolate,puddings etc.... In the hospital,after having insulin,i had my hunger increased,i wanted to eat something in every hour. After i came out from hospital,i still had a bigger appetite than before. It did not bother me,because finally i gained some extra weight. But that happened i got a rough knee pain in both my legs. It is still going on,doctors just can give me a decent painkiller that helps. I literally cannot sleep,since the pain is the worse when i try to rest! Since the pain started,i’ve lost my appetite and had lose weight too,i am very skinny again. I was caring about blood sugar level,and had good results. But i could not even think about to eat anything,whole day. Evening i just picked up some food,but nothing enough that was required to have. Since i gave up on taking Duloxetine,my appetite is better a bit,ans vomiting less. But it is far from not the same appetite that i had out from the hospital. And what is my real concern is,cannot live without sweetness. I feel rather hungry for that than main,proper food. Any idea,what can be going on with me? Have you ever experienced this?

Thanks in advance for any input,cheers
 
Maybe you could try some sugar free sweet or chewing gum that’s what my mum used to do when she had dinner and craved a dessert after
 
Definetely something is not normal. Maybe having some digesting disorder and cells are starving and claiming for more energy? I am really amateur on it.
 
Hello @Matteo1980 unfortunately if your having cravings for the sweet stuff then it's because your blood glucose levels are still high and your not getting your blood glucose levels in target, cravings happen as your not converting glucose correctly so your body is lacking energy and hence cravings, try and avoid sweet things if your high as you'll make the problem worse, try eating low carb or protein if your hungry, but you will need to check your insulin doses with your team to make adjustments. This also explains why your losing weight still so please check for ketones too if your not already doing this as high ketones will be putting your health at risk, ketones build up because your body is burning fat for energy, in the meantime please drink plenty of water to help flush ketones.
 
Juicyj said:
Hello @Matteo1980 unfortunately if your having cravings for the sweet stuff then it's because your blood glucose levels are still high and your not getting your blood glucose levels in target, cravings happen as your not converting glucose correctly so your body is lacking energy and hence cravings, try and avoid sweet things if your high as you'll make the problem worse, try eating low carb or protein if your hungry, but you will need to check your insulin doses with your team to make adjustments. This also explains why your losing weight still so please check for ketones too if your not already doing this as high ketones will be putting your health at risk, ketones build up because your body is burning fat for energy, in the meantime please drink plenty of water to help flush ketones.
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Such a helpful and explaining answer! I will take your advice,thank you so much!
 
Good luck @Matteo1980 As your newly diagnosed it's also important to keep in close contact with your team, once your getting your levels in range then you will start putting on weight so getting your insulin doses right is vital for health, and will also make you feel much better mentally too.
 
Hi @Matteo1980 ,

You seem to have a lot going on there.
Very high BGs can affect the legs. (It does with me. Like I've run a marathon.)

On the subject of the sweet stuff.. "Cocaine" of the carb world. Your body craves a quick "fix" it can't have with little or no insulin on board to process it.. & won't help if you are running high. (Like overfilling a diesel , tank of a car with a fuel line or filter blockage?)
Oddly, you will crave sugar if you go too low. (Too much insulin depleting the BG levels.) this is normal in the sense the body is going into "self defence."

Starting with your basal (long acting insulin.) you need to get your sugar levels right. I believe from you previous posts you spend your working day on your feet.?
I'm a 50 year old guy that works standing myself.. Running high would feel like I've run far. Managing BG levels, is half the battle, but will help immensely with that shift. ;)
 
Jaylee said:
Hi @Matteo1980 ,

You seem to have a lot going on there.
Very high BGs can affect the legs. (It does with me. Like I've run a marathon.)

On the subject of the sweet stuff.. "Cocaine" of the carb world. Your body craves a quick "fix" it can't have with little or no insulin on board to process it.. & won't help if you are running high. (Like overfilling a diesel , tank of a car with a fuel line or filter blockage?)
Oddly, you will crave sugar if you go too low. (Too much insulin depleting the BG levels.) this is normal in the sense the body is going into "self defence."

Starting with your basal (long acting insulin.) you need to get your sugar levels right. I believe from you previous posts you spend your working day on your feet.?
I'm a 50 year old guy that works standing myself.. Running high would feel like I've run far. Managing BG levels, is half the battle, but will help immensely with that shift. ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks for input! Strange,the more sugar is in your blood makes you crave for even more. Understandably because it is without insulin like would not be there. Jaylee,i wish you the best too and enough power to make it through till your retirement!
 
Matteo1980 said:
Thanks for input! Strange,the more sugar is in your blood makes you crave for even more. Understandably because it is without insulin like would not be there. Jaylee,i wish you the best too and enough power to make it through till your retirement!
Click to expand...

With the high sugars, the body isn't utilising the energy properly, so practically starving... (Laymans terms.)

Retirement? I'm in two minds regarding "looking forward" to,the prospect... I Wanna rock till I drop. :)
 
Hi Matteo
I have always been a sugar addict.
My diabetes has been quite badly managed not outrageous but when when I joined this forum I started to realise that there was also lot more I could be doing to get things more controlled.

For the past month or so my control has been a lot better (still some way to go) but one thing I have noticed is that I don't crave sugar anymore and have started to think that it wasn't an addiction to sugar but my body telling me that I needed more energy. That is now coming from the correct dosage of insulin. I think my body still associated sugar as fuel even though it didn't have the correct insulin to turn that fuel into energy.

I now look in the fridge and have cake that's going off because I bought it out of habit but never ate because I don't have the cravings anymore.
 
Since my bg is under a better control,i do not eat any sweets. Still storing some,in case if i need to balance my insulin dose that injected and eaten less,than anticipated. I am happy :)
 
Matteo1980 said:
Since my bg is under a better control,i do not eat any sweets. Still storing some,in case if i need to balance my insulin dose that injected and eaten less,than anticipated. I am happy :)
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Well done Matteo. I guess you need to hang onto some, just in case of hypos. I hope you're feeling well for it.
 
Hi Matteo - I had and are still having a similar experience to yours - Diagnosed 4 years ago, really bad keto's took a month before any doc would recognise me as sick then a month or so in hospital strapped to an insulin drip iv then fed carbs and back on the drip - I used to eat normal breaky dinner tea and only a few treats, albeit I was a heavy boozer in the few years pre-diabetic. now I drink less but have massive cravings for choc and the like, I have read a few of the answers and suggestions here and I really need to look deeper into my problem, I now just mainly eat low carb stuff as actual food then add several carbs on for chocy and sweets, then inject for it of course, I am so glad you posted your dilemma I think it might help me in real time, So if you do manage to reduce or eliminate your cravings do post all the details on how you manged it - I started today buying bananas to eat instead of choc and still found myself slamming some honey on it same with porridge....
 
Hello PC16!! I am really sorry to read that you have cravings for sweet stuffs. You might expect me to discover secrets about how I did manage this problem,but it was really simple to me. My desire for sweets was because the always high BG. As soon,as I started getting it closer to normal levels,everything became normal to me. How is your BG? If you usually run high,that’s the reason. Eat your sweet what you are hungry for,but make sure you inject a proper amount of insulin for it and you are around the normal level. That is the point. If you achieve good levels persistently,within a short time(a week maybe)you normally should experience a big change! Alongside,i hope,our issues are the same and this will help you,too. Best wishes to you,please let me know your result! Cheers :)
 
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