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Hello im new.

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Ermintrude

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At risk of diabetes
Hello,

I'm new. Went to the GP on monday about something else. While I was there they mentioned my bloods put me 'at very high risk' of diabetes. Can I ask questions here?

Thankyou
 
Hi @Ermintrude ! Of course, ask anything you want. Loads of helpful people on here 🙂
 
@Ermintrude you can ask anything you want. You can also vent if that’s helpful.
We’re a friendly bunch so pull up a chair and ask away!

Can you tell us what the GP said and if they gave you a figure for the blood glucose levels that are worrying them?
 
Hello Christy. Thankyou.

On Monday I went to the doctors about something else and was told that my hba1c was 44 and to watch my sugar and have another test in 3 months.

As I said I was there about something else so my head was kind of full and I didnt think too much about it. I even had to ring back after to get the numbers from the test as I honestly didnt pay it any mind until after.

So I looked it all up tried to understand ect ect. I drink a lot of fizzy drink , full sugar obviously. Dont really drink a lot else bar water. But as much as I love it I have to quit it. Wont be easy but, OK.

I have a lot of other crappy life stuff going on, wont bore you with too many details, but son has special educational needs, I'm in the middle of trying to get school to do what they should, other health problems , single mum, among other stuff.

I feel totally overwhelmed and very stretched with all I have to do already let alone adding an entire change of diet, which is suggested on a lot of the information I've found, in there as well. So I'm panicking.

Have I got it all out of proportion? Will cutting out the fizzy full sugar drinks be enough for now , and what's the next step to take? Can I do it step by step like that or do I really need to jump in with both feet? I do need to loose weight, but have tried to and failed many times.

Thankyou in advance.
 
HbA1C at that sort of level is reversible if you take action. And ditching the sugary drinks is a good start but it may well be that other things could be tweaked too.
What’s your normal eating pattern like and what sort of things do you usually have?

I’m sure that the life stuff going on and the stresses to do with having a SEND child can’t help but try not to feel overwhelmed as we’re here to support you and enable you to make well informed decisions.

You mention weight, and weight is a frequent topic of conversation around these parts as I’m sure you can imagine! If you’d feel up to sharing your weight and height etc that may be useful too.
 
Hi colin thanks for replying.

I'm five foot nothing and 15 st so considerably overweight.

Meals wise I thought we were pretty healthy. Mostly home cooked, we eat well over 5 a day. Low fat meat when i can afford it ect. So typical day 2 slices toast for breakfast, usually with butter or peanut butter, some kind of sandwich for lunch or soup, always a banana yoghurt, tea would be cottage pie , spag bol, roast , sausage and mash. Pretty standard stuff. All bread is wholemeal. But pasta and rice ect are just normal. But I am a snacker, crisps, chocolate, nuts ect ect usually with a fizzy drink. We have a cooked breakfast once a week and a takeaway on payday and maybe 1 other time in the month.

I used to walk miles, as I dont drive so just getting to work, school , shops and I'd easily be at 4 miles , but I'm having to sheild due to brittle asthma so my walking has turned into a daily amble rather than my purposeful marching along to get stuff done! Lol!

Just writing that I eat a lot of carbs dont I?
 
Ermintrude said:
Hi colin thanks for replying.

I'm five foot nothing and 15 st so considerably overweight.

Meals wise I thought we were pretty healthy. Mostly home cooked, we eat well over 5 a day. Low fat meat when i can afford it ect. So typical day 2 slices toast for breakfast, usually with butter or peanut butter, some kind of sandwich for lunch or soup, always a banana yoghurt, tea would be cottage pie , spag bol, roast , sausage and mash. Pretty standard stuff. All bread is wholemeal. But pasta and rice ect are just normal. But I am a snacker, crisps, chocolate, nuts ect ect usually with a fizzy drink. We have a cooked breakfast once a week and a takeaway on payday and maybe 1 other time in the month.

I used to walk miles, as I dont drive so just getting to work, school , shops and I'd easily be at 4 miles , but I'm having to sheild due to brittle asthma so my walking has turned into a daily amble rather than my purposeful marching along to get stuff done! Lol!

Just writing that I eat a lot of carbs dont I?
Click to expand...
Yes it does seem alot of Carbs.
Do you take oral steroids for your Asthma?
 
Hello, not currently. But I have recently finished a 3 month reducing course of prednisone, take fostair 4 puffs a day and a spireva inhaler. And a ventolin if I need it. I also recently stopped montelukast.

I also had 3 episodes pancreatitis 25 years ago after a complication of gallstones 'scratched' it .
 
Hi and welcome from me too.

No need to panic. You are only in the "pre diabetic" range, so some small changes may well push you back into normal numbers again.
It is actually a very good idea to take things one step at a time. If you can swap your full sugar fizzy drinks for the diet version, that is a great start and may be enough in itself. If you can do that as a first step and perhaps fit in a daily walk and then see where you are at your next blood test then you will know if you need to take more steps with your diet after you get your result. Diabetes is a slow moving condition and we liken managing it to a marathon, not a sprint, so step by step changes are the best way forward with it. Many of us have found that it was the kick up the pants we needed to improve our lifestyle/weight/diet and feel so much better for making those changes, so whilst it was a shock and can be frustrating sometimes trying to figure it all out, there have definitely been positives from our diagnosis, so certainly don't ignore it, but don't worry about it either. It is perfectly manageable and yours has been caught at a very early stage, so every chance of reversal with some small changes.
 
Hi hun and welcome I'm quite new too, pl don't stress too much about it all. I'm finding that eating little and often is helping bring my glucose down. I'm a snacker too and I'm missing the **** food but it's something we have to sort out.
Try little and often the "what did you eat yesterday" thread is a fantastic source for food ideas. Get yourself a little scale (food) mine was £8 from argos. I stay to between 45 to 60 grms of carbs per meal. I between I eat veg lol.
Also a blood glucose machine is well worth it. I test mine morning and nite. I got the true 60 from boots but I know lots of others are available. Xxx
 
Thankyou everyone. I can do that swap to diet, or just water if it makes me wheeze and get walking. That's not too overwhelming.

What would a blood glucose machine tell me? I'm not sure I understand quite how that might work for me, as in how I would act on any Information it provided? This might sound very basic but do you test to see if your blood sugar us low enough to allow you to eat?

Thanks 🙂
 
The thing to watch out for with the BG monitors is really the cost of the test strips.
I have the SD Codefree and that’s really cheap with the test strips.

That model has been replaced with this and it’s still got some of the cheapest test strips around.
homehealth-uk.com

GlucoNavii Blood Glucose Meter & Test Strips

Choose the blood glucose meter and test strips from GlucoNavii for unparalleled accuracy and efficiency. Shop for more glucose monitors at Home Health UK.
homehealth-uk.com homehealth-uk.com

What it can do, along with regular testing (morning, pre and post meals) is show you how your body responses to various foodstuffs so you can make informed decisions regarding what you eat and drink.
 
It’s not a matter of wanting BG levels to be low enough to eat but it’s ideally keeping it within a range. And the first thing is to gradually bring it down to comfortably below the upper threshold for “normal”.
 
Have had a quick look, seems like it's a situation were I might do ok without but would probably do better with, so something to consider for sure when funds allow.

Just also wanted to say what a lovely welcome I have recieved, and to have been offered so much help on my first post is amazing.

Thankyou so much.
 
There will be more help with suggestions of specific posts to read from the others when they get here in the morning 🙂
 
Hello Ermintrude. Love your name by the way. I used to identify very strongly with Dougal! Lols.
At least Ermintrude ate leafy greens unlike Dougal's sugar lump addiction!!!

You may be pleasantly surprised at the difference cutting out sugary drinks will make - especially if you drink a lot of them.
Also the snacking is sort of good news too because you can swap other things instead of crisps (I used to love crisps) that are far lower carbs and just as nice. I don't know if you are familiar with celeriac? But if you buy one of those from tesco and then peel off thin slivers of that (then rewrap it in clingfilm tightly and it can last for months in the fridge so you can keep coming back to it) and then fry them in extra virgin olive oil until they start to shrivel up and turn brown like autumn leaves - they are nicer than crisps and just as crunchy and only have a tiny fraction of the carbs of potato crisps. You can also use celeriac in the same way as potatoes in other recipes and that cuts out a huge chunk of carbs and calories in one fell swoop.

My son is an adult now living hundreds of miles away and he has numerous challenges and was SEN - and I well remember the hideous struggles to try and get his needs supplied from professionals. You are doing a tough job. I had my husband to give me moral support so I can only imagine how much stress you are under coping with it all on your own.

Eventually I gave up fighting the system and just withdrew our son from formal education and home edded him. Not ideal by any means but for our family as a unit it was the best choice of a bad selection of choices at the time. Unfortunately for me it contributed to me becoming near enough house bound as I focussed entirely on meeting his needs and forgot entirely about my own.

Strangely enough my type 2 diagnosis was a wake up call for me and I have quite enjoyed finding new foods and paying more attention to my own health and improving my diet by making some swaps has helped my mood and general wellbeing. I hope you might be able to find that it isn't too daunting to make some simple swaps here and there and that you will gain a lot of benefit from doing so.

This is a great forum and I have learned so much here over the last two years. People are so nice and helpful.
 
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