Yet another newbie

Scozzieloz said:

Hello all

I was given the news yesterday by my practice nurse that I’m now a Type 2 Diabetic — it’s come as a bit of a shock, but not a total surprise. My HbA1c result came back at 56, I think.

I’m due to visit my practice’s Diabetes Clinic next week where, I hope, the doctor will explain what this means to me — the nurse was suggesting I’d probably be on tablets for this. I thought it was all monitors and insulin, never knew about tablets.

I’m fairly active, getting out for a brisk four to five mile walk, weather permitting, longer on weekends.

Click to expand...

Going straight to insulin is for T1's... And with your HbA1c? If you're willing to change your lifestyle (It's technically a diet, but a lot of people assume those are temporary, and this is a forever kind of deal), you could avoid medication entirely. You're in the diabetic range, but only just. I think if you tackle what you eat, you'd be back into the non-diabetic range in a matter of weeks. When you see the nurse/doc you could request three month's grace, see whether you can tackle it with diet only, if that is the route you'd like to try. Then have another HbA1c at the end of that time.
(And then, instead of linking to my Nutritional Thingy, I pasted a link to leopard print joke toilet paper... Not useful. At all.) https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html Ah, there we go. Have a read here, it's everything I wish someone'd told me right at diagnosis. Would've been a lot less scary and overwhelming if I'd knowm those things immediately. You could also check out Dr. Jason Fung's the Diabetes Code, so you know how this whole T2 thing works, what you can do, what questions to ask and what the answers mean. Dietdoctor.com is excellent too, as is this place's website, diabetes.co.uk (Not .org!).

All in all... Whatever choice you make... I do believe you'll be okay. And if you have any questions, throw them out there: there's always someone around who'll know the answer.
Good luck!
Jo

So you spoke to the practice nurse who gave you the diagnosis of type two - but there was no mention of it being carbohydrates in your diet which are most likely the problem for you?
It might come as a surprise then that by controlling your intake of carbohydrates - those are the starches and sugars, you could reverse your situation back to normal, with a bit of luck.
Meters are useful, but some people find the tablets - usually called Metformin, are absolutely dire. As in diarrhea. I tried to take them, felt that I was going to turn inside out.

Welcome! 56 puts you in diabetic range but its easy to do something about.
I learnt a LOT about diabetes in the first few weeks. I didn't know the difference between T1 and T2 or anything about medication. Now I can explain the difference! T1 don't make insulin in the pancreas. T2 cant use the insulin the pancreas makes. We are insulin resistant. The insulin isn't used properly to 'process' the glucose (please, nobody pick on my over simplified layman's explanation!) As you find out symptoms of T2 you didn't even know were symptoms youll probably find they explain weird things that have been happening to you!

I was diagnosed with HbA1c readings of 58 and 57. 3 months later it was 39 (inside normal range). My last reading was 35. Lots of people on this forum have managed similar, but don’t be disheartened if it takes longer. I recommend trying to stall your doctor on medication while you try to get things under control with diet and exercise, but only if you’re prepared to put in the effort.

I wouldn’t be surprised if your cholesterol and blood pressure were a bit raised too, but these might also come down under the right diet. I even felt a bit dizzy as my blood pressure normalised.

How much scope do you think you have to improve your diet? I was eating a really bad diet with lots of chocolate, pizza and bread. This left a lot of room for improvement, which was probably why my results changed so dramatically. If you can manage a 20 hour fast per week I think it will help.

I also recommend reading about the complications of diabetes as motivation to get things under control!

A blood glucose monitor is a really valuable tool for seeing where your blood sugar is and observing how you respond to different foods.

Giving you a virtual hug. It may change your how you eat, and you will, if you want to control your diet and improve your numbers.
This is my favourite youtube video, which I think shows how this is achievable in a simple way.

That’s great news about the pasta and sweets. Seriously if you cut that stuff out you will normalise fast. Actually I’ve recently started to think it’s the combination of carbs+fat that’s the killer for insulin resistance. Even if carbs+fat is the way in, lots of people have found low carb a way out. I’m now eating carbs ok without much bad effect showing on my blood glucose monitor, but I still eat fewer carbs than I did.

I’m prepared to bet the blood pressure is down to sucrose consumption. Sucrose is a disaccharide made up of glucose and fructose. Fructose is processed in the liver and creates uric acid which raises blood pressure. I strongly recommend watching “sugar: the bitter truth” by Robert Lustig on youtube. It went viral 10 years ago. The section on how sugar is metabolised is the important bit.

Getting blood pressure under control is important as it is a factor in atherosclerosis. Actually raised blood sugar damages the arterial glycocalyx which then exposes the endothelium to damage. For an unconventional view of heart disease listen to episode 40 of the fat emperor with Malcolm Kendrick https://thefatemperor.com/ep40-dr-m...uses-of-heart-disease-are-not-what-you-think/

I’m also prepared to bet the chest infection was enabled by raised blood sugar. I had a bad chest infection the winter before my diagnosis. I was hacking up sputum. I don’t want to scare you but I think secondary chest infection is a problem with this coronavirus, although I guess we’re still not clear how much this virus affects Europeans.

Hello and welcome,

I second most of the previous advice. Get a meter and test regularly. I went very low carb- less than 20 grams a day and my HbA1c was in the middle of the normal range within 3 months of diagnosis.

Many people have more carbs than I do but the real test is the meter. I went really low carb straight away as I wanted to try to lower my levels as fast as possible. And to be honest- I love carbs but not the 'good' ones so increasing my carbs to 50 or maybe 100 wouldn't allow me to eat the chocolate, potatoes etc that I miss. And to be honest sticking mainly to no carb or very carb food makes it easy- no weighing of food. I usually eat when I feel hungry. I've lost weight and am still losing- a fair way to go.

Good luck and welcome.