Yet Another Newbie

Lazycat6 said:

Hi all, I’m a newly diagnosed type 2 a month in, also on metformin, my hba1c was 107 which somewhat shocked me as I had no symptoms, only discovered as I went for pre op assessment as I’ve torn my chilled tendon, so still hobbling about which reduces exercise I can do, unlike others I don’t have a dog to walk but do have 2 lazy cats and a slow tortoise none of which like walking, I have got an exercise bike now which I’m trying to use daily, I’m also doing low carb , and have managed to lose 5 kg ( 3/4stone) so pleased about that

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Hi Welcome to the forum. What was your diet & lifestyle like for you to get a HBA1C result of 107? Mine was diagnosed few weeks back it wasnt great at 82. Made a few changes since then and its come back to 67 after 4-5 weeks i found out this weekend, It can be done but its hard work.

Lazycat6 said:

Hi all, I’m a newly diagnosed type 2 a month in, also on metformin, my hba1c was 107 which somewhat shocked me as I had no symptoms, only discovered as I went for pre op assessment as I’ve torn my chilled tendon, so still hobbling about which reduces exercise I can do, unlike others I don’t have a dog to walk but do have 2 lazy cats and a slow tortoise none of which like walking, I have got an exercise bike now which I’m trying to use daily, I’m also doing low carb , and have managed to lose 5 kg ( 3/4stone) so pleased about that

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The low carb'll help more than anything else, though the bike'll mke some difference. Since diet's the main thing though, no need to long for a dog. Just thoroughly enjoy the cats and tortoise, as they can be relaxing, and that's good for blood sugars too. You'll get your numbers down enough for the procedure with low carb and lots of head-bumps, I'm sure.

Lazycat6 said:

Hi all, I’m a newly diagnosed type 2 a month in, also on metformin, my hba1c was 107 which somewhat shocked me as I had no symptoms, only discovered as I went for pre op assessment as I’ve torn my chilled tendon, so still hobbling about which reduces exercise I can do, unlike others I don’t have a dog to walk but do have 2 lazy cats and a slow tortoise none of which like walking, I have got an exercise bike now which I’m trying to use daily, I’m also doing low carb , and have managed to lose 5 kg ( 3/4stone) so pleased about that

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Sounds like you're in a similar situation to myself - I went to see the doc primarily because I wasn't sleeping well (which I think might be due to some pain from the onset of arthritis in one of my hips) but after blood tests they're kind of ignoring that now and instead picked up on my hb1ac which was 106. I don't appear to have any symptoms from that though, but given how high the test was I can understand the concern.

After a bit of research (in particular on here) I also decided to go low-carb and also have a good go at getting my weight down into the healthy BMI range, and have also lost about 5kg in the last month - with about the same again needed.

In my case I suspect the 106 hb1ac might have been somewhat of an anomaly as, due to the issues getting enough sleep, I wasn't exercising as much or eating as well as I'd normally do and in particular was doing a lot of snacking on crisps and the like.

Are you doing any ongoing testing of your blood sugar?

niblue said:

In my case I suspect the 106 hb1ac might have been somewhat of an anomaly as, due to the issues getting enough sleep, I wasn't exercising as much or eating as well as I'd normally do and in particular was doing a lot of snacking on crisps and the like.

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You did not cause your diabetes because you ate crisps and had trouble sleeping.
The vast majority of non diabetics eat crisps, don't get enough exercise or sleep and yet they don't have a problem with the carbs in their diets.
Your body has become resistant to insulin, that's it, there is no anomaly, no fault and certainly no blame for having the same lifestyle as millions of people who don't have diabetes.

catinahat said:

You did not cause your diabetes because you ate crisps and had trouble sleeping.
The vast majority of non diabetics eat crisps, don't get enough exercise or sleep and yet they don't have a problem with the carbs in their diets.
Your body has become resistant to insulin, that's it, there is no anomaly, no fault and certainly no blame for having the same lifestyle as millions of people who don't have diabetes.

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Sorry - perhaps wasn't clear enough. I'm not disputing that whether I had diabetes or not - just that the very high hb1ac might have been influenced by those issues over the previous few months (or more that the lack of sleep was influencing my diet, which was then influencing blood sugar). One thing that going low-carb has taught me is that diet definitely can impact getting the blood sugar levels down, so it seems reasonable to expect that a bad diet could make them higher.

I've significant family history of T2 so it wasn't all that big a surprise although the levels I was seeing were.

niblue said:

just that the very high hb1ac might have been influenced by those issues over the previous few months

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Yes I agree that your Hba1c was influenced by your diet but it is your insuln resistance that caused your high levels

niblue said:

One thing that going low-carb has taught me is that diet definitely can impact getting the blood sugar levels down, so it seems reasonable to expect that a bad diet could make them higher.

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Most people have bad diets and poor lifestyles but also have normal blood sugar levels.
Your diet affects your levels because your insuln has become less effective , nothing you could have done differently, unless of course you had a crystal ball, would have prevented you from getting T2. Even so called healthy diets , lots of exercise, fruit,veg , healthy wholegrain carbs and low fat everything would not have prevented you from getting T2.
After all good nutrition and exercise didn't prevent one of our greatest Olympians, Sit Stephen Redgrave from getting T2.

catinahat said:

Yes I agree that your Hba1c was influenced by your diet but it is your insuln resistance that caused your high levels

Most people have bad diets and poor lifestyles but also have normal blood sugar levels.
Your diet affects your levels because your insuln has become less effective , nothing you could have done differently, unless of course you had a crystal ball, would have prevented you from getting T2. Even so called healthy diets , lots of exercise, fruit,veg , healthy wholegrain carbs and low fat everything would not have prevented you from getting T2.
After all good nutrition and exercise didn't prevent one of our greatest Olympians, Sit Stephen Redgrave from getting T2.

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Indeed - not disputing any of that, just that the very high initial hb1ac reading of 106 was potentially a bit of an anomaly.