You guys were right...met the diabetic nurse!

Lol par for the course.

Lol I think you will get along with your DN really well - as long as you keep the Churchill dog impression up and then carry on doing what you've learnt here. Thanks for making me smile on a grey day and well done with the weight loss.

To add some balance using the standard model as a starting point has worked beautifully for me. Actually the only advice should be "eat to your meter" whether from here or the Nhs. For many that will channel them down the path you've taken which is great. For many of us we can enjoy granola and porridge for breakfast without pretending than having bacon for breakfast every day is a pleasant thing!

Try different food and teSt. You may be suprised at some things you can tolerate in sensible portions.

Oh, I feel the frustration, having a similar experience and ending up with nodding dog syndrome. When are these people going to change from the current dogma of trying to push carbs on us!

When will they ever learn? Maybe it should be mandatory that all DNs sign up to this forum and just read the posts - all of them.

Keep on nodding.

Luckily, I've been seeing the same DN for longer than most people here have been diabetic and we have an understanding. She knows that I know what works for me and am intelligent enough to manage things largely myself and did manage that well, with her and her predecessors guidance and support for over 20 years before it went wrong for me. I've only ever seen the 2 DNs.

But I pity patients newly diagnosed as the current advice seems to be so flawed. She did give me a leaflet last visit - "the newest book from Diabetes UK - it might give you a refresher ". It shows a stack of white bread and pasta and says "Aim for 5-14 portions. One-third of your diet should be made up of these foods, so try to include them in every meal." There's a pile of fruit and veggies including oranges, dried apricots and pineapple, onion and spring onion and it talks about how they're low in fat and calories and to eat at least 5 portions a day. Then the picture of a donut, jelly babies and chocolate says that we don't actually "need these foods, but eating them in moderation can be part of a healthy, balanced diet" and it tells you to aim for diet or light drinks. We can apparently have from 0-4 portions of these per day.

If I ate like that today I'd be in a coma by midnight!

The thing I've always been guided by is that it is me that has the condition - not the medic in front of me - and having a diabetic loved one first lose their sight, then a leg, I have seen the consequences of not getting it right and I'd like to avoid it. So ultimately, you have to take the approach that suits you and seems to manage your condition - and if you have to be economical with the truth in front of her, then so be it.

The down side to that is of course that she'll think you've heeded her guidance, got good results, thereby reinforcing their view that it actually works.

But heartiest congratulations on your weight loss and that you've chosen to take control of your condition and want to get the best outcome that you can. I suspect for every successful diabetic posting here, there will be hundreds who just don't care or try or make any personal attempts to improve their lot - I could name a handful myself.

Welcome to the club Mrsmac!!! .
Sue xx

I feel very lucky, the DN's at my surgery are really supportive, and we have two way discussion and I am asked my thoughts and always told my treatment is my choice.

I saw the DN last night to look at my meter readings, because although my average is down considerably, my daily reading are running high. The DN knows about my attempts at LCHF and is fully supportive of it. I learned something last night too. Apparently if sugar runs high for a long period, the body can " reset" to record that as normal and will in fact fight to keep at that level.... so we need to break the cycle and "reset" it again at a lower level....but I need to run at the lower level for a while.... so we are looking at introducing another drug for a while. She's going to chat with the GP and give me a list of drug options ( possibly 2) which she's said I should go and research, then come back and let her know which I would like to go with.... that's very refreshing. It always feels like a 2 way street, and for that I am grateful.

As an aside, I was talking to a newly diagnosed guy at the gym last week, and he went on a one day course through the surgery... they were apparently promoting LCHF and not the starch carbs mantra. Thing are changing - well in Lincoln at least!

S

seanj67 said:

Apparently if sugar runs high for a long period, the body can " reset" to record that as normal and will in fact fight to keep at that level.... so we need to break the cycle and "reset" it again at a lower level....but I need to run at the lower level for a while....

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That's definitely true. Once my levels got high a couple of years ago, nothing I did would bring them down anymore. New meds would improve it for about 2 weeks, then it bounced high again. Hence going on insulin in March. Now that I'm getting it down, I need to do so slowly as I get false hypos at perfectly normal levels - they're just low for me. So whilst I'm supposed to be increasing my insulin each week, I'm giving myself a couple of weeks to sit at my current level to acclimatise. The times I've pushed to get them lower, I've had problems. Once your body has got used to a level, that does become the norm for it.

First of all well done for adopting the oh yes attitude, I do the same but to be honest this meeting with my dn was not all that bad, she gave me a meter to test for some reason and said she will take me off metformin and also said what you have done is amazing and keep doing that, I basically did not let her go on about carbs or anything I said I changed my diet and do a lot of exercise as changing the diet is very vague term. but she does expect my a1c to go into like 60's from 39 as i have stopped met but I have not told her I stopped that a while ago and will get a new a1c done and monitor it on my own what happens to my a1c.

It would be hard to find advice that was more contrary to what is appropriate for a T2 than your DN's. Do these people ever stop and think through what they are saying if they knew the slightest about it? (That's rhetorical).

sanguine said:

It would be hard to find advice that was more contrary to what is appropriate for a T2 than your DN's. Do these people ever stop and think through what they are saying if they knew the slightest about it? (That's rhetorical).

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Again. For some of us it works.

sanguine said:

It would be hard to find advice that was more contrary to what is appropriate for a T2 than your DN's. Do these people ever stop and think through what they are saying if they knew the slightest about it? (That's rhetorical).

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I dont think so to be honest that they think before saying, the probably just learnt it from nhs books and blurt it out in front of you and thats there job finished. END OF STORY.
My DN is asking me to increase my a1c, I almost laughed at her face but my niceness took over and i just said oh yes. I did ask her why she said as you could be having hypos which you are not aware of, well my meter does not tell me that way so I wil keep doing what I am doing.

brettsza said:

I dont think so to be honest that they think before saying, the probably just learnt it from nhs books and blurt it out in front of you and thats there job finished. END OF STORY.
My DN is asking me to increase my a1c, I almost laughed at her face but my niceness took over and i just said oh yes. I did ask her why she said as you could be having hypos which you are not aware of, well my meter does not tell me that way so I wil keep doing what I am doing.

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OMG - does she think you're a type 1 or on insulin? A diet controlled, medication free Type 2 having hypos and needing a higher A1c?

I had all the stock advice when diagnosed 6 years ago, but then, following the stock advice had sent me from pre diabetic to diabetic, so I smiled, ignored it all and went my own way down the low carb route . Just one year later, my nurse who I see every time , was asking me about the benefits of low carbing , even making notes about such things as Burgen soya and linseed bread and the use of ground almond . I`m sure she most likely dishes out the same old same old to newly diagnosed diabetics, but she cant argue with the fact that my last 1C was almost at non diabetic level . Proof of the pudding, pardon the pun

It's generally quite unusual for me to have anything good to say about my DN, but on my last visit after discovering this site and starting LCHF I went into my appointment with a whole different attitude.

Generally I dread HBA1c's, always feel like it's an exam that I will (and would) inevitably fail. This time around however, having been following LCHF for around 4-5 weeks and achieving happy numbers I was actually quite excited about getting an HBA1c done and was keen to see any reduction on previous result.

I explained to her that I had been following a low carb diet, that I had seen a huge improvement in my figures, lost a little weight and felt generally a lot healthier...she was absolutely thrilled and asked for details...which I dutifully provided...she was incredibly intrigued by the idea and promised to look up Dr Bernstein Diabetes Solution...I'm now looking forward to finding out whether she actually did read it...and her thoughts on it, it would be great to have her on side.

Well done @Mrsmac247...you've done a great job...keep up the good work.

@Mrsmac247
Excellent report from the front line. It's not easy but with little steps things can be changed.
Is that one stone in 4 weeks? That is pretty quick!
With you on the "Happy with what I am eating now".
My DN was very supportive of my LCHF response.
Good fortune to you.
Hj