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

What Type am I? Please help!!

michaeldavid said:
There is what I believe to be a highly significant linguistic issue involved.

No blood-sugar reading is ever a hypo: they're not the same thing at all. A hypo is something BEHAVIOURAL.

The fact that, etymologically speaking, 'hypoglycaemia' means 'low blood-sugar' is neither here nor there: there is just (though undoubtedly so) an important ASSOCIATION between low blood-sugar readings and the occurrence of hypos - hence the use of the word 'hypo'.

The important association involves symptomatology. A low blood-sugar reading is merely one symptom of a hypo, which may or may not be occurring.

I may feel a hypo coming on, and quickly drink a large glass of orange juice. Then almost immediately I'll start to feel better. But if I also immediately test my blood-sugar (using a meter) then I may very well get a reading of, say, 2mmol/l. And yet I'm certainly not then having a hypo on account of the large glass of orange juice I just drank!

Eating rye bread throughout the morning seems to keep a certain amount of carbohydrate constantly, slowly, leeching into my blood-stream. And this, I believe, is what prevents my blood-sugar from ever CRASHING.

So I can happily spend the day getting moderately low blood-sugar readings (using the far more economical visually read strips, I hasten to add) without any problem at all.

How healthy this practice may or may not be in the long term is, I understand, a debatable issue. I've heard about, and seen, evidence both ways.

Also, it is often claimed that by constantly having lowish blood-sugar one loses one's warning symptoms of a hypo. Well, with regard to that, I can only speak for myself. When I was first diagnosed with diabetes 30 years ago, and began taking insulin, I certainly had warning symptoms that I never get now: palpitations, sweating, ... etcetera. But I lost those kind of warning symptoms NOT VERY MUCH LESS than 30 years ago!

And I'm still here.

If, instead of the kind of diet I have, you spend your life eating white bread and potatoes (etcetera, etcetera), then I would agree with that professor (though certainly not with his form of expression): any blood-sugar reading below 4mmol/l is EFFECTIVELY indicative of the occurence of a hypo.
Click to expand...

I don't think that it is a highly significant linguistic issue. From the many blogs I have read on this site, most people, if not all, differentiate between low bG and 'hypos' using the latter to indicate physiological symptoms. 'Hypo' has become a term which many people, including myself, are comfortable with in describing the symptoms.

One could make a similar argument for 'low-carb' diets. My daily carb intake is down to 250g per day, my bGs are good, and I am losing weight like many others. Therefore, I must be on a low-carb diet and the definition of 'low carb' must be from approx 30g-250g per day, according to others on this site and my own personal experience. Are you happy with that definition?
 
First of all, Anita and rye bread: the one you're describing is almost certainly light rye. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between light and dark rye, but I know I always eat dark rye. There could well be a difference in effect insofar as the moderation of blood-sugar is concerned. Also, I find that I need to eat it constantly throughout the morning and into the mid-afternoon to ensure that I'm less likely to be caught out by a hypo.

As for gezzathorpe and what I called 'a highly significant linguistic issue', Wittgenstein famously wrote that philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. And if something IS a highly significant linguistic issue, the mere fact that not everyone will see it to be so doesn't mean that it ISN'T so. The failure to see something as a significant linguistic issue, and to express as much, could be a manifestation of just such intellectual bewitchment as Wittegnstein wrote about.

You yourself began your last-but-one posting thus: "I think you are right that below 4.0 is not necessarily a hypo." My point was that it most certainly isn't a hypo, any more that a banana is a hypo. I couldn't possibly be wrong about what I said because it simply doesn't make sense to say otherwise. It may APPEAR to make sense to say that such-and-such a blood-sugar reading is a hypo, but that's all. A blood-sugar reading is certainly SYMPTOMATIC of a hypo, but nothing more: it is an electronic symptom, indicative of a physiological symptom - sc. the physiological symptom of low-blood sugar.

You may think I'm just being picky. But the fact is that medical experts react to low-blood sugar readings as though they necessarily meant that the individual who the blood-sample was taken from is, ipso facto, having a hypo. (I suppose this is because most people mostly eat junk; and if you mostly eat junk, then a low blood-sugar reading is almost always very strongly indicative of a hypo. So 99 times out of 100, the response of the experts is appropriate.) This has happened to be more than once at the Elsie Bertram Diabetes Centre, in Norwich. I just have to sit there calmly, and politely refuse the sweet substances being proferred. On one occasion, I even remember being threatened with sectioning if I didn't drink the sweetened tea. And that was as and when, according to the medical professional involved, I was supposed to be having a hypo!

And as I've written before, according the professor at that diabetic centre, anything below 4mmol/l means 'hypo'. Unfortunately I cannot remember the exact words he used. But I told him flatly that what he had just come out with was a dogma.

I'm afraid I don't have any opinion on what is, or isn't, a low-carb diet. I've always been slim, and I've never had to 'count carbs'. I certainly feel no need to count them just because I'm diabetic.The closest I come to that is in watching that I don't eat too much rye bread in one day - a little under 200g.

After looking it up on a web-search, I've just discovered what 'DAFNE' stands for. Unfortunately, I've now forgotten what the first three letters stand for, but the last two stand for 'normal eating'. And that just sums up for me what's wrong with the orthodox method of diabetic management. If you think you can eat normally as a diabetic, then I think you are very sadly mistaken. (Indeed the experts are hopelessly unrealistic and misguided.) I suppose you can try, if you don't mind endless carb counting and calculations. But to do so is to start out on entirely the wrong foot.

If like me you take insulin, then take the bloody insulin and FEED IT. But you should ensure that the insulin you take is all fed, and gone, by the time you go to bed. Don't even think about doing all the 'basal/bolus' stuff, trying to fit in with those who are NOT diabetic and who eat normally - ie. those who eat a normal breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner. (Nb. I eat lunch, and I also eat dinner; but I eat dinner at around 5.00, and I don't eat a massive amount. But I also barely stop eating throughout the whole day - and I enjoy that very much, thank you.) If you do, then inevitably you will have insulin running in your system at night-time; and you risk serious night-time hypos.

If you want to lose weight or keep weight off - or, having lost weight, if you want to become less flabby - then the solution is very simple: do more exercise, and spend less time in front of the telly or computer screen. If for physiological reasons doing exercise is a problem, then I can see the sense of counting carbs.
 
michaeldavid said:
First of all, Anita and rye bread: the one you're describing is almost certainly light rye. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between light and dark rye, but I know I always eat dark rye. There could well be a difference in effect insofar as the moderation of blood-sugar is concerned. Also, I find that I need to eat it constantly throughout the morning and into the mid-afternoon to ensure that I'm less likely to be caught out by a hypo.

As for gezzathorpe and what I called 'a highly significant linguistic issue', Wittgenstein famously wrote that philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. And if something IS a highly significant linguistic issue, the mere fact that not everyone will see it to be so doesn't mean that it ISN'T so. The failure to see something as a significant linguistic issue, and to express as much, could be a manifestation of just such intellectual bewitchment as Wittegnstein wrote about.

You yourself began your last-but-one posting thus: "I think you are right that below 4.0 is not necessarily a hypo." My point was that it most certainly isn't a hypo, any more that a banana is a hypo. I couldn't possibly be wrong about what I said because it simply doesn't make sense to say otherwise. It may APPEAR to make sense to say that such-and-such a blood-sugar reading is a hypo, but that's all. A blood-sugar reading is certainly SYMPTOMATIC of a hypo, but nothing more: it is an electronic symptom, indicative of a physiological symptom - sc. the physiological symptom of low-blood sugar.

You may think I'm just being picky. But the fact is that medical experts react to low-blood sugar readings as though they necessarily meant that the individual who the blood-sample was taken from is, ipso facto, having a hypo. (I suppose this is because most people mostly eat junk; and if you mostly eat junk, then a low blood-sugar reading is almost always very strongly indicative of a hypo. So 99 times out of 100, the response of the experts is appropriate.) This has happened to be more than once at the Elsie Bertram Diabetes Centre, in Norwich. I just have to sit there calmly, and politely refuse the sweet substances being proferred. On one occasion, I even remember being threatened with sectioning if I didn't drink the sweetened tea. And that was as and when, according to the medical professional involved, I was supposed to be having a hypo!

And as I've written before, according the professor at that diabetic centre, anything below 4mmol/l means 'hypo'. Unfortunately I cannot remember the exact words he used. But I told him flatly that what he had just come out with was a dogma.

I'm afraid I don't have any opinion on what is, or isn't, a low-carb diet. I've always been slim, and I've never had to 'count carbs'. I certainly feel no need to count them just because I'm diabetic.The closest I come to that is in watching that I don't eat too much rye bread in one day - a little under 200g.

After looking it up on a web-search, I've just discovered what 'DAFNE' stands for. Unfortunately, I've now forgotten what the first three letters stand for, but the last two stand for 'normal eating'. And that just sums up for me what's wrong with the orthodox method of diabetic management. If you think you can eat normally as a diabetic, then I think you are very sadly mistaken. (Indeed the experts are hopelessly unrealistic and misguided.) I suppose you can try, if you don't mind endless carb counting and calculations. But to do so is to start out on entirely the wrong foot.

If like me you take insulin, then take the bloody insulin and FEED IT. But you should ensure that the insulin you take is all fed, and gone, by the time you go to bed. Don't even think about doing all the 'basal/bolus' stuff, trying to fit in with those who are NOT diabetic and who eat normally - ie. those who eat breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner. If you do, then inevitably you will have insulin running in your system at night-time; and you risk serious night-time hypos.

If you want to lose weight or keep weight off - or, having lost weight, if you want to become less flabby - then the solution is very simple: do more exercise, and spend less time in front of the telly or computer screen. If for physiological reasons doing exercise is a problem, then I can see the sense of counting carbs.
Click to expand...

Who is to say that something is a 'highly significant linguistic issue' other than the person who does? A failure to agree is a difference in opinion. What is highly significant to you but not to me doesn't mean that I am 'intellectually bewitched'. However, I love the title, so will keep it.
 
Okay, I'm going to ask you a question.

And I'll be TRYING TO CATCH YOU OUT!

Are you ready?

Ps. That wasn't the question, yet.

Pps. Or are you chicken?

So you'v egone offline. But I think you saw what I wrote.

I think you're chicken, with a mouth.
 
michaeldavid said:
Okay, I'm going to ask you a question.

And I'll be TRYING TO CATCH YOU OUT!

Are you ready?

Ps. That wasn't the question, yet.

Pps. Or are you chicken?
Click to expand...

I'm ready ... cluck cluck!
 
You know that the planets of the solar system orbit the sun.

And you know that the Earth - our planet - is rotating axially, once every 24 hours.

So, does the sun ever REALLY traverse the sky above you?

Ps. I wonder how long you need?

Pps. That's ten minutes, so far.

That's now fifteen minutes.

And I've got to take some insulin.

But I'll be back.
 
And are you quite sure that you're right?

Mentioning no names, I can quote a number of leading Western intellectuals who would disagree with what you've said. For the very same issue has been raised by them.

Would you say that's just a difference of opinion? - that's what you spoke of above.

Or would you say that those who express disagreement with your answer must be wrong?

If you say the former, then it would follow that your answer - according to your own lights - wasn't REALLY a genuine expression of your belief.
 
So have you changed your answer?

First you wrote 'yes'.

Is your answer now 'no'?

Or is your answer that you don't know? You're not sure?

What is your answer to the question I asked?
 
Okay, so the sun did not rise in the sky above you this morning?

Is that right?
 
michaeldavid said:
There is what I believe to be a highly significant linguistic issue involved.

No blood-sugar reading is ever a hypo: they're not the same thing at all. A hypo is something BEHAVIOURAL.

The fact that, etymologically speaking, 'hypoglycaemia' means 'low blood-sugar' is neither here nor there: there is just (though undoubtedly so) an important ASSOCIATION between low blood-sugar readings and the occurrence of hypos - hence the use of the word 'hypo'.

The important association involves symptomatology. A low blood-sugar reading is merely one symptom of a hypo, which may or may not be occurring.

I may feel a hypo coming on, and quickly drink a large glass of orange juice. Then almost immediately I'll start to feel better. But if I also immediately test my blood-sugar (using a meter) then I may very well get a reading of, say, 2mmol/l. And yet I'm certainly not then having a hypo on account of the large glass of orange juice I just drank!

Eating rye bread throughout the morning seems to keep a certain amount of carbohydrate constantly, slowly, leaching into my blood-stream. And this, I believe, is what prevents my blood-sugar from ever CRASHING.

So I can happily spend the day getting moderately low blood-sugar readings (using the far more economical visually read strips, I hasten to add) without any problem at all.

How healthy this practice may or may not be in the long term is, I understand, a debatable issue. I've heard about, and seen, evidence both ways.

Also, it is often claimed that by constantly having lowish blood-sugar one loses one's warning symptoms of a hypo. Well, with regard to that, I can only speak for myself. When I was first diagnosed with diabetes 30 years ago, and began taking insulin, I certainly had warning symptoms that I never get now: palpitations, sweating, ... etcetera. But I lost those kind of warning symptoms NOT VERY MUCH LESS than 30 years ago!

And I'm still here.

If, instead of the kind of diet I have, you spend your life eating white bread and potatoes (etcetera, etcetera), then I would agree with that professor (though certainly not with his form of expression): any blood-sugar reading below 4mmol/l is EFFECTIVELY indicative of the occurence of a hypo.
Click to expand...

I had read this a couple of times.

Question? Are you a qualified Doctor of Medicine, an MD, a trained Diabetes Specialist perhaps? because if not, what you have written is quite frankly worrying, especially for newly diagnosed diabetics. I know what a Hypo is, what it can do, affecting my brain, hence it having a 'malfunction'. If I have a cold it can affect my eyes, throat and ears. If I had athlete's foot it can affect in between the toes
I would know this, because I would have symptoms and therefore treat it accordingly.

I'm sure not everyone spends their life eating white bread and potatoes. Most people seem to eat a healthy and varied diet.

A hypoglycaemic reading is under 4, but not everyone has symptoms at this level, I do.

RRB

p s just seen the above posts, maybe such matters would be better discussed in a pm?

Just an :idea:

Best wishes RRB
 
Why do these genuine questions posted by members wanting a straightforward answer to a question always seem to end up in a "I'm cleverer than you" debate ? Pointless ! Carry on gents !


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 
As I wrote before, if I feel my blood-sugar to be low, I can drink orange juice - and a large amount.

If I then immediately check my blood-sugar, I may still get a reading below 4. Because clearly, the carbohydrate I've just consumed will take a while to reach my finger tips.

But I wouldn't be having a hypo merely on account of that low reading. For I've just consumed a significant amount of carbohydrate.
 
gezzathorpe said:
Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

No ... sorry for delay .... you intellectually bewildered me and I have just recovered.
Click to expand...

I hope you are fully recovered now :) and you took a glucose tablet and a sweet drink to aid your recovery :wink:

RRB :)

Mo, because it's 99.9% of the males, just look at the state our world, the present and past :shock: :( I have suggested pm's might be better. Guys, please personal message each other, it's not fair on the OP thread, is it?

RRB:)
 
Back
Top