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Overwhelmed

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Overwhelmed

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hi everyone
i have only just been diagnose. I feel I have been left to my own devices. Told to cut carbohydrates take tablets and that is that, my numbers after blood test were 85 and 12 I have no idea if this is high or really high. Have to dip urine every morning and once a week check keytone. Please help
 
Hi and welcome.
Being overwhelmed is a very normal emotion after a diabetes diagnosis and I think most of us will have experienced it although I appreciate that it is more bewildering in the current climate when there is less access to professional support. The good news is that it sounds like your health care professionals are more switched on than most in that they have told you to cut carbs and they have given you a means of testing for ketones.

85 is high but not desperately so. Some of us were in 3 figures at diagnosis. Bringing it down slowly and steadily is the way to go.
Start by keeping a food diary of everything you currently eat and drink and be brutally honest. Document all snacks as well as meals and try to include portion sizes... ie 4 roast potatoes and 2 small Yorkshire puddings or 2 Weetabix or 50grams of granola..... If you haven't got some, a cheap set of digital kitchen scales will be helpful. I got a set from B&M stores for a fiver and they do the job great.
Start to read nutritional information on food packaging. What you are looking for is the carbohydrate content which will usually be in tiny writing on the back or side of the packaging. It will be expressed as grams per 100g and may also include how many grams the recommended portion contains or one portion. So if they recommend 50g of granola as a portion then it will usually give you the protein, fat and carbohydrate content of that 50g as well as the number of g/per 100g.... which in that case will be double. Or if you are having something like Weetabix it will usually give you the number of grams of carbs per biscuit. It will also say underneath the carbohydrates info "of which sugar" and will give another figure but just ignore that. All you are interested in is the total carbohydrate content as your digestive system will break all those carbs down into glucose and absorb them into your blood stream. Then go through your food diary and try to work out (and jot down in the diary) how many carbs are in each meal, drink or snack and total it up for each day. That will give you a starting point to help you see where you can reduce things.

Maybe start with breakfast and look at halving the number of carbs you would normally have for that meal. So if you normally have about 50g carbs for breakfast, then try to reduce it to 25 or 30g carbs. If you normally have 40, aim for 20g. We can suggest lower carb alternatives if you tell us what you currently eat.

The other thing that we often recommend if you can afford it is a blood glucose meter. They are relatively inexpensive @ approx £15 for a kit which includes the meter and 10 test strips and 10 lancets, but the testing regime we recommend involves lots of testing so you get through lots of test strips and lancets. For this reason, it makes sense to buy a meter with the cheapest test strips which is reliable and the SD Gluco Navii or the Spirit Healthcare Tee2 are recommended for this reason as the extra strips are £8 for a pot of 50. If you are getting a kit, it makes sense to order at least 2 extra pots of strips and a box of lancets. We then recommend that you test before each meal and then 2 hours afterwards. The difference between the two readings will be caused by the carbs in that meal and the amount it raises your Blood Glucose will tell you if your body coped with it or there were too many carbs in it. This enables you to find the foods and portion size which works for your body's tolerance and your tastes.

I know it all sounds very complicated but take a few days for things to sink in and come back and read a bit more and start keeping your food diary and sooner or later it will all start to make sense. Diabetes is often referred to as a marathon, not a sprint, so take your time to get your bearing and make a steady start with the food diary.
We are here to support you all the way and hopefully in a few months we will be celebrating a big reduction in your HbA1c reading.

As regards the medication, if it is Metformin, do make sure to take it with food as it has a reputation to cause gastric upset. I always took it in the middle of a meal for best results. You may still experience some side effects (it is not unaffectionately called "Metfartin" for nothing) but these may subside in a few days/weeks. If side effects are worse that that and make life difficult, get in tough with your nurse/GP and ask for the slow release version.

HJope that all makes sense. If not, just ask.
 
rebrascora said:
Hi and welcome.
Being overwhelmed is a very normal emotion after a diabetes diagnosis and I think most of us will have experienced it although I appreciate that it is more bewildering in the current climate when there is less access to professional support. The good news is that it sounds like your health care professionals are more switched on than most in that they have told you to cut carbs and they have given you a means of testing for ketones.

85 is high but not desperately so. Some of us were in 3 figures at diagnosis. Bringing it down slowly and steadily is the way to go.
Start by keeping a food diary of everything you currently eat and drink and be brutally honest. Document all snacks as well as meals and try to include portion sizes... ie 4 roast potatoes and 2 small Yorkshire puddings or 2 Weetabix or 50grams of granola..... If you haven't got some, a cheap set of digital kitchen scales will be helpful. I got a set from B&M stores for a fiver and they do the job great.
Start to read nutritional information on food packaging. What you are looking for is the carbohydrate content which will usually be in tiny writing on the back or side of the packaging. It will be expressed as grams per 100g and may also include how many grams the recommended portion contains or one portion. So if they recommend 50g of granola as a portion then it will usually give you the protein, fat and carbohydrate content of that 50g as well as the number of g/per 100g.... which in that case will be double. Or if you are having something like Weetabix it will usually give you the number of grams of carbs per biscuit. It will also say underneath the carbohydrates info "of which sugar" and will give another figure but just ignore that. All you are interested in is the total carbohydrate content as your digestive system will break all those carbs down into glucose and absorb them into your blood stream. Then go through your food diary and try to work out (and jot down in the diary) how many carbs are in each meal, drink or snack and total it up for each day. That will give you a starting point to help you see where you can reduce things.

Maybe start with breakfast and look at halving the number of carbs you would normally have for that meal. So if you normally have about 50g carbs for breakfast, then try to reduce it to 25 or 30g carbs. If you normally have 40, aim for 20g. We can suggest lower carb alternatives if you tell us what you currently eat.

The other thing that we often recommend if you can afford it is a blood glucose meter. They are relatively inexpensive @ approx £15 for a kit which includes the meter and 10 test strips and 10 lancets, but the testing regime we recommend involves lots of testing so you get through lots of test strips and lancets. For this reason, it makes sense to buy a meter with the cheapest test strips which is reliable and the SD Gluco Navii or the Spirit Healthcare Tee2 are recommended for this reason as the extra strips are £8 for a pot of 50. If you are getting a kit, it makes sense to order at least 2 extra pots of strips and a box of lancets. We then recommend that you test before each meal and then 2 hours afterwards. The difference between the two readings will be caused by the carbs in that meal and the amount it raises your Blood Glucose will tell you if your body coped with it or there were too many carbs in it. This enables you to find the foods and portion size which works for your body's tolerance and your tastes.

I know it all sounds very complicated but take a few days for things to sink in and come back and read a bit more and start keeping your food diary and sooner or later it will all start to make sense. Diabetes is often referred to as a marathon, not a sprint, so take your time to get your bearing and make a steady start with the food diary.
We are here to support you all the way and hopefully in a few months we will be celebrating a big reduction in your HbA1c reading.

As regards the medication, if it is Metformin, do make sure to take it with food as it has a reputation to cause gastric upset. I always took it in the middle of a meal for best results. You may still experience some side effects (it is not unaffectionately called "Metfartin" for nothing) but these may subside in a few days/weeks. If side effects are worse that that and make life difficult, get in tough with your nurse/GP and ask for the slow release version.

HJope that all makes sense. If not, just ask.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for replying so quickly. Do you know how many grams of carbs you are meant to have a day
 
Overwhelmed said:
Thank you so much for replying so quickly. Do you know how many grams of carbs you are meant to have a day
Click to expand...
There is no set amount and we're all different in the amount we can tolerate, to test what we can deal with as the individuals we are we tend to test our BG before eating and then again 2 hours after looking for no more than a 2-3mmol rise xx
 
Anitram said:
Under 130g per day is generally considered to be Low Carb but many people go lower and some much lower. For comparison 225-325g per day would be a 'normal' diet. You can only determine what your system can handle through testing before you eat and 2 hours later and keeping a food diary alongside your readings, as per Barbara's earlier post. You'll soon get the hang of it.

Martin
Click to expand...
Thank you.I have ordered a metre, so we will see how I go
 
I was eating 50 gm of carbs a day and went from a Hba1c of 91 to 41 in 6 months, if that is any help.
My meter showed me that I was sensitive to all carbs, so I keep to those foods with under 10 percent carbs, though tend towards under 5 percent.
 
Welcome to the forum @Overwhelmed

You‘ve already had some really useful suggestions and ideas.

If you would like some more background reading you might find Maggie Davey’s Letter to the Newly Diagnosed useful, and also Gretchen Becker’s book ‘T2 Diabetes the First Year’

Hope you get on OK with the meter and ask away if you need any help understanding the results you are getting.
 
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