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Weight gain when sugar stabilizing

A

Aladin

Member
Messages
13
Good evening everyone, my fiancé is diabetic type 1, and she is having it for more than 4 years now, she always found it difficult to control her sugar because she gets so busy with chores at home, as her son is new to school so a lot of responsibilities, lately her arm was tingling and numb, and we discovered it's because of consistently high blood glucose that damages the nerves, we started on focusing on fixing her sugar now, thankfully she can stabilise it, and that is so relieving, but she told me when the sugar stabilises, she gains weight, so my question is, does anyone here ever had this weight gaining thing before ? Any help is highly welcomed.
Thank you
 
Hi. Typically weight gain when using insulin is due to excessive carb consumption. It may be that your fiancé needs to change her diet? Keep the carbs down and have fats, proteins, veg and non-tropical fruit as a base. Has your fiancé got her two insulins balanced and has she seen and been guided by the DN recently?
 
She's from Europe, not British or American, I don't know what DN means, can you explain it to me please?
 
She started working on balancing her sugar just a few days ago, because she has it hard with her memory, she forgets to measure and inject sometimes
 
If her sugars have been running very high and she has not been injecting then she might have lost weight because her body cannot use the food she eats in the normal way. When she injects that energy from food becomes available and the weight goes back on.
Weight loss can be a sign of uncontrolled diabetes.
 
I normalised my BG levels around 18 months ago, and have gained weight steadily since. It’s not nice, and not unusual, sadly.
 
LooperCat said:
I normalised my BG levels around 18 months ago, and have gained weight steadily since. It’s not nice, and not unusual, sadly.
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Please, can you tell me how do you feel, I mean your body health, I know hypers affect your organs heavily on long term, but since you normalised your BG since a long time ago, your body must have improved no? Meaning, your body is safe away of heart, kidney, eyes diseases
 
Absolutely! I feel great. Just fat I’ve reversed the neuropathy in my feet, the slight retinopathy in my eyes, and a number of other complications that two decades of poor management had left me with. As long as I maintain normal, non-diabetic levels, I don’t see why I’d be at any more risk of those diseases. All my routine bloods come back as in healthy ranges. So a if a bigger backside is the price for that, I’ll gladly pay it. I’ve gone from being practically disabled (and unable to work) by the way diabetes was affecting me to having a whole new lease of life, and I’m now training to be a paramedic.
 
T1D is very difficult to manage, but the rules and issues behind it are similar to T2D except the risk are much greater. Sometimes T1D are given the impression that they can eat what they want because all they then have to do is correlate it with the appropriate insulin dose. In reality T1D has to strive to maintain the same low constant insulin levels as a normal person. Excessive insulin and excessive carbs will result in the same diseases associated with T2D, e.g. neuropathy, retinopathy, fat accumulation, etc. There is no easy answer and sometimes the type of insulin prescribed makes it even more difficult to achieve that balance
 
I am type 1 and when my children were sleepless babies I also lost weight because my body could not use the bread, sugar, pasta or potatoes that I was eating due to my having badly controlled diabetes.
I felt bad though and did not want to be a mum of 3 who went blind or got kidney disease having lost some sight already so I am glad that your wife is nornalising her blood sugars but understand that she or you may be concerned by the weight gain.
As others have pointed out taking more insulin to match carbohydrates will cause the body to store excess as fat which will eventually result in her needing more insulin so it would be a good idea to look at modifying her diet.
A lot of us eat less carbohydrate and find it keeps us leaner and with better blood sugars. When eating carbs it is very easy to over or under dose your insulin hence swinging between very high and very low. It turns out our grandmothers were right about the connection between eating starchy foods and gaining weight!
When I've put on weight (I am now stable) I have cut out carbohydrates (mostly) and built muscle at the gym which is a good way to be sensitive to the insulin I have to use.
Does your wife speak English btw and is she worried about her gain?
 
Yes she speaks English , and yes she's concerned of her weight
 
She wants to do sports, but she has a lot of responsibilities that she even forgets from time to time how much she injected and if she injected
 
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