Up down up down up…… and eventually down :/

[Simonsam]

Hi!

I’m recently diagnosed with PD but have had a dysfunctioning pancreas for about 15 years which causes me to have to take digestive enzymes with food to supplement.

The hospital always said - keep an eye on your glucose as this condition tends to be progressive.

My A1c has been slowly rising over the last few years, and a few months ago it was 42 - so essentially just within the threshold for PD.

I have been offered only lifestyle advice by my GP - with a suggestion to periodically take a morning glucose reading, which I am following - I gym 4 times a week, and have a varied and mostly healthy diet.

I’m very pro health so decided to trial a cgm with lingo, mainly because I want to be able to better track my glucose and the results are really worrying me - so I thought I’d try this forum to see if anyone has any good advice.

My glucose levels ofcourse vary, the same as any healthy persons should - but should I be more concerned that it is much more of a huge swing back and forth than I realised?

During the morning up to lunch time, it tends to balance out, going up and coming back down fairly quickly - so normal, but in the afternoon it dips severely and then after dinner it goes up and stays up for much longer than I would like.

The most worrying for me is what happens overnight.. Im hyper most of the time, and then have huge crashes into hypo in the early hours of the morning with then big swings back to hyper.

I don’t sleep great, and have suffered with nightmares and waking up for no reason - so this information is really helpful as I didn’t really know the cause of that.

Usually on a morning, around 6am I get a little cortisol nudge to wake me up, but it goes up to around 100mg/dl (5.6Mmol ish) and that remains constant for most of the morning, especially as I have breakfast etc.

I’d be really greatful if anyone has any advice about what’s going on. I don’t like pestering my GP, and don’t want them thinking I’m nuts or obsessing about my health because I absolutely am not - but then also I don’t want to let something get worse when I found act on it now?

Thanks in advance

 

[JenniferM55]

Hi @Simonsam it's fantastic that you are being proactive away from a possible slip into the realm of diabetes. You've come to the correct place for help, but first before anyone can offer advice, what is your 'healthy diet'.

 

[Simonsam]

Hi @Simonsam it's fantastic that you are being proactive away from a possible slip into the realm of diabetes. You've come to the correct place for help, but first before anyone can offer advice, what is your 'healthy diet'.

Ah thanks, that’s encouraging

So i try and have three meals a day, although a busy work life sometimes scuppers breakfast.

Wholemeal bread over white, same with pasta and rice - all wholemeal varieties.

I try and stick to a very small carb portion, particularly at lunchtime as the work canteen generally offer a very unhealthy offering of beige or beige so I usually opt for a salad with a protein.

Evenings, usually a protein and something to balance it - big fan of sweet potatoes at the moment. Always with a vegetable too.

And I’ve really cut down on snacking in the evening, if I do get the munchies after the gym it’s normally popcorn or a banana.

So - where am I going wrong?

Im not saying I’m 100% sticking to this, but I do try and have a balanced diet.

 

[MrsA2]

Wholemeal bread over white, same with pasta and rice - all wholemeal varieties

The colour makes no difference, all bread, pasta and rice is high in carbs

sweet potatoes

Would spike me

popcorn or a banana.

Both high in carbs. Lowest carb fruits are berries.

Try increasing protein and healthy fats such as olive oil to keep you feeling full for longer. Or add cream to a few strawberries. A hard boiled egg (or 2 or 3) with or without mayo are wonderfully filling and low carb

 

[JenniferM55]

Think you'll be easy to fix

My take on what will do it...

Abstain or proceed with extreme caution all types of grain, it doesn't matter what type, rice, pasta, porridge, wholemeal bread, breadcrumbs and batter on foods, all are taboo in my world.

Eat vegetable that grow above the ground, ignore those that grow below such as potatoes, including sweet potatoes

Enjoy healthy fats such as butter, cream, olive oil, lard, cheese, oily fish.

Eating the fat on proteins will help fill you up

Fruits are one of the biggest culprits to spiking glucose, most berries are fine though. Bananas and cherries are my worse nemesis.

If you feel you don't want breakfast, then that's great as you'll be treating your pancreas and liver to a break from supplying all that insulin.

We all react differently to foods, somethings that I'm fine with might trigger a blood glucose reaction in you. Keep testing your bg, test before a meal and again in a couple of hours after your meal, if it's gone over 2mmol then that foods a trigger and it's best avoided.

Lots of advice on here, including one from a member who's written a very good blog which will help you enormously, I'll look for the link.

Enjoy your journey, and ask away regarding any questions, though I'm sure you'll find many answers in this forum.

 

[JenniferM55]

Found it..... https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html

 

[Simonsam]

Think you'll be easy to fix

My take on what will do it...

Abstain or proceed with extreme caution all types of grain, it doesn't matter what type, rice, pasta, porridge, wholemeal bread, breadcrumbs and batter on foods, all are taboo in my world.

Eat vegetable that grow above the ground, ignore those that grow below such as potatoes, including sweet potatoes

Enjoy healthy fats such as butter, cream, olive oil, lard, cheese, oily fish.

Eating the fat on proteins will help fill you up

Fruits are one of the biggest culprits to spiking glucose, most berries are fine though. Bananas and cherries are my worse nemesis.

If you feel you don't want breakfast, then that's great as you'll be treating your pancreas and liver to a break from supplying all that insulin.

We all react differently to foods, somethings that I'm fine with might trigger a blood glucose reaction in you. Keep testing your bg, test before a meal and again in a couple of hours after your meal, if it's gone over 2mmol then that foods a trigger and it's best avoided.

Lots of advice on here, including one from a member who's written a very good blog which will help you enormously, I'll look for the link.

Enjoy your journey, and ask away regarding any questions, though I'm sure you'll find many answers in this forum.

Aww thank you, this is really helpful stuff and I’m so grateful.

I have to be honest though… I feel like I could start to worry about eating… well anything!! I suppose that’s one of the dangers of starting to watching glucose control carefully!

Especially difficult for me as I have to have a relatively low fat diet as the other side of my pancreas already doesn’t work properly, that’s the side that releases enzymes to break down fat. The replacement enzyme in pill form doesn’t work as well.

Bananas - 100% agree, spike within half an hour and then a big dip.

So - considering I’m not a diabetic, what are your thoughts on this overnight situation?

Should I be making more noise with my GP?

(Just for reference, the last time I ate on this perticular day was around 19:30, it was a spag bol with wholemeal pasta, that jump at midnight wasn’t me guv, I was asleep!)

Are we looking at insulin resistance here or something else?

 

[JenniferM55]

We can't make any diagnoses here .

Just a little warning though, many doctors and diabetic nurses prefer the 'Healthy Plate Template' for eating, think it used to be called 'the food pyramid'. This so called 'healthy plate' has caused many of us to be sick in the first place. There are many on this forum who can attest that eating low carb, or even keto, has put their T2 into remission. For the life of me I don't understand why that **** 'healthy plate' hasn't been chucked in the bin for those who have a problem. If you're lucky your doctor may be one of the 'enlightened ones' and not one of those that stick to the same old same old dogma.

Looks like you're on the cusp of being pre diabetic, therefore I would imagine there's insulin resistance at play. But you can fix this.

 

[Simonsam]

We can't make any diagnoses here .

Just a little warning though, many doctors and diabetic nurses prefer the 'Healthy Plate Template' for eating, think it used to be called 'the food pyramid'. This so called 'healthy plate' has caused many of us to be sick in the first place. There are many on this forum who can attest that eating low carb, or even keto, has put their T2 into remission. For the life of me I don't understand why that **** 'healthy plate' hasn't been chucked in the bin for those who have a problem. If you're lucky your doctor may be one of the 'enlightened ones' and not one of those that stick to the same old same old dogma.

Looks like you're on the cusp of being pre diabetic, therefore I would imagine there's insulin resistance at play. But you can fix this.

Lol - I shall stop asking these questions then

Remember the Atkins fad in the 90’s? There’s a reason it worked it just wasn’t particularly healthy or balanced, but I can totally see the value in keto.

I have to say I have lost a lot of weight since cutting the white bread to brown.. so it’s a step in the right direction right? #littlewins

You have to watch this… Americans are massively waking up to historically poor advice about what to have on a ‘healthy’ plate

 

[LivingLightly]

Waking up in the night for no apparent reason can be due to changes in blood glucose levels that's for sure. A jump at midnight could certainly be the result of a carb-heavy dinner at 19.30 plus whatever else you ate during the day. You have a pancreatic disorder to contend with as well. I would seek a medical view. After all, that's what s/he is there for.

Meanwhile, food intake and timing are the two factors you can modify. In my view the most important blood glucose readings are those that indicate the carbohydrate impact of the food you've eaten. You’ll learn most from blood glucose levels just before you start a meal and then two hours later. The post-meal reading should be no more than 2 mmol/l higher than the first and no higher than 8 mmol/l. If that's the case, your body dealt with the arrival of glucose in your bloodstream and cleared it relatively quickly.

Armed with this information, you can adjust your carbohydrate intake and you may well suffer fewer sleep disturbances.