Hi everyone. I was diagnosed a few months with T2, went into denial, and now have been reading up trying to get my head around it all. Like others was notified by email and no follow up for 2 weeks - so this site has been fabulous. I am overweight, have started swimming again and removing cakes , biscuits and icecreams (my downfall). I have a couple of questions. 1. I have been reducing my carbs and testing like mad. My blood glucose readings are going down each day. BUT im now worried that it may be too fast and that I will end up with eye problems. What is a safe rate of reduction. My morning readings have gone from 17.7-14.4 and all my other readings are dropping. Pre dinner is now 10.5 ( the lowest). 2. if you are out for dinner and eating of a period of time, say 90-120 mins before you finish you meal, when do you do the 2 hours after starting to eat reading? 3. As nobody at the doctors has followed up with me, I was recommended metforim but have never been given a prescription. I feel nausea every morning so am concerned these drugs will make it worse. What advice does anyone have. thanks so much.
-
Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
Hello Im new and Im confused!
- Thread starter Kmacy
- Start date
- Status
Felinia
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Hi and welcome
1. The safest rate of reduction is slow and steady, which, if I understand your readings right, is exactly what you are doing. They are still high, as you should be looking for 5 - 7 before eating and an increase on no more than 3mmol 2 hours after 1st bite. The time to worry is if the reading drop below 4, I believe. You should have had eye tests on diagnosis, and then annual tests thereafter. If your eyesight gets blurry go straight to your GP and get a referral for the appropriate diabetic eye test.
2. This brings me on to 2. 2 hours to eat a meal - I hope you know what the entire carb measure is for the meal lol!!! Otherwise I have no idea, maybe somebody else does. (No meal ever lasts that long for me!!!)
3. I was appalled to read you have no follow up and no prescription. I would get in touch with your GP surgery ASAP - I wrote a letter to mine when I needed assistance and delivered it by hand, so there was no excuse to say it hadn't been received. If they still don't come back to you, keep chasing. With reference to your medication, I am guessing from your high blood glucose levels, you do need medication. Metformin does cause side effects in some people, including nausea and retching. There is a slow release version, which you take in the evening in the middle of your meal and is kinder to your tummy. Sukkarto is what I take and others have mentioned Glucophage. If these cause problems, there are other medications as well.
Glad to hear you are now taking control, and you are in the best place to do so. Best wishes
1. The safest rate of reduction is slow and steady, which, if I understand your readings right, is exactly what you are doing. They are still high, as you should be looking for 5 - 7 before eating and an increase on no more than 3mmol 2 hours after 1st bite. The time to worry is if the reading drop below 4, I believe. You should have had eye tests on diagnosis, and then annual tests thereafter. If your eyesight gets blurry go straight to your GP and get a referral for the appropriate diabetic eye test.
2. This brings me on to 2. 2 hours to eat a meal - I hope you know what the entire carb measure is for the meal lol!!! Otherwise I have no idea, maybe somebody else does. (No meal ever lasts that long for me!!!)
3. I was appalled to read you have no follow up and no prescription. I would get in touch with your GP surgery ASAP - I wrote a letter to mine when I needed assistance and delivered it by hand, so there was no excuse to say it hadn't been received. If they still don't come back to you, keep chasing. With reference to your medication, I am guessing from your high blood glucose levels, you do need medication. Metformin does cause side effects in some people, including nausea and retching. There is a slow release version, which you take in the evening in the middle of your meal and is kinder to your tummy. Sukkarto is what I take and others have mentioned Glucophage. If these cause problems, there are other medications as well.
Glad to hear you are now taking control, and you are in the best place to do so. Best wishes
Hi there, hope you are doing ok. Along with cakes etc, it’s also good to limit bread, pasta, pizza rice and cereals. It is a good idea to gradually reduce carbs as it can be pretty hard to go no carb straight away as you will feel awful. If you are testing before meals do this as soon as you can before the start of your meal then test again 2 hours after you started eating. Usually I would check 1 hour then 2 hours after as it gives you a much better idea of how much the meal is spiking you. However if you are out for a meal maybe just test before you go and when you get home. That would be fine I’m sure. My morning readings were similar to yours at the start last September. Now they are consistently between 4.5 and 5.7. I don’t take any medication ( but if advised you should take it ) Do you know what your hba1c was ? Xx
Last edited:
Thanks Emma and Felina. I have put some bread and potatoes back on my meals in the last few days as I was worried about the quick reduction. If I go our for dinner with friends I could be out for 2 hours, or i might have my dinner and then an hour later have some desert of some kind. I guess im a bit of a grazing eater. Ill chase my doctor thanks.
Felinia
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
This might help - it's what my DSN told me. A portion of potatoes is 2 new potatoes (about 50gm), and a portion of bread is one slice from a medium cut 400gm wholemeal loaf (about 25gm). A portion of fruit is 80gm and no more than 2 a day. So I can make an open sandwich with a protein and salad, or have a poached egg on toast with grilled mushrooms and tomatoes. I have about 4 slices of bread a week, and get small packs of potatoes. Once the potatoes are gone, I have cauliflower instead for a few days. So moderation rather than abstinence.
A rough idea of my daily menu:
Breakfasts (one of) - 80gm mixed berries with a tablespoon authentic Greek yogurt; grill up of mushrooms, tomatoes and a poached egg with or without a slice of bread, plus the occasional chicken sausage or rasher of bacon.
Lunch One of) - Home made soup (not thickened with potato or flour, but pureed to thicken); salad with a drizzle of dressing and a serving of protein (egg, cottage cheese, tuna, salmon, chicken, mackerel, prawns); open sandwich
Dinner - 3/4 of a plate of vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, kale, cabbage, spring greens, Brussels sprouts, green beans, runner beans, squash, swede or SMALL portion of carrots, parsnips, potato, sweet potato) with 1/4 plate of grilled chicken or baked fish, or the occasional treat of a steak or chop. Dessert tends to be my 2nd portion of fruit.
Snack - Berry fruit with yogurt; dollop of cottage cheese with prawns or raw vegetable crudities; one piece of dark chocolate (70%+); dark chocolate rice cake thin; nuts (portion control)
There are lots of ideas in the Food & Recipes part of the Forum, for Type 2
It's best to avoid snacks and 'grazing' if you can. In fact 2 meals per day for a Type 2 trying to control diabetes by reduced carbohydrate intake , is better than 3, because if you just eat breakfast & lunch or just Lunch and Dinner then you give your body a longer period between carbs and thus get your body 'fat adapted' faster.
Although there has been some talk in this forum abut permanent retinal damage due to reducing Blood Glucose too fast, in the other UK diabetes forum (the red one) which has many more doing Low Carb, the talk is only of temporary sight changes which happen when the Blood Glucose is either increased or decreased and in there the recommendation is to avoid changing specs because it usually lasts 2 weeks at max. So either people in there are being too complacent (even though with more doing Low Carb you would expect they would have come across the problem), or some people in here are just scaremongering.
Leadinglights
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Scaremongering or not it is something to be aware of as my change in eyesight from low carb introduced probably in hindsight (no pun intended) too quickly lasted 7 months but even after has needed a change in prescription at the handsome cost of £700
Im so sorry to hear that. How quickly did you reduce your carbs - I appreciate everyone is different.
Drummer
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
As your levels are still in the teens and you are adding back carbs that (to me) doesn't seem like all that severe a reduction - as you probably have a way to go before getting into normal ranges.
As you are testing your blood you should be able to arrange changes to get a gradual lowering of tests after meals.
I try to keep things as steady as possible, avoiding spikes and so eat at 12 hour intervals as my meter indicated that was good for me. Others fast longer and eat in a narrow time frame - we are all different.
As you are testing your blood you should be able to arrange changes to get a gradual lowering of tests after meals.
I try to keep things as steady as possible, avoiding spikes and so eat at 12 hour intervals as my meter indicated that was good for me. Others fast longer and eat in a narrow time frame - we are all different.
Ok only you know what you experienced. I was just pointing out the difference between what is said (by quite knowledgeable members) in each forum.
But what actually happened in your case? Do you actually have proof one way or the other? Had you been tested negative for diabetic retinopathy before you tried Low Carb? This is important because damage normally (out of the rapid drop in BG scenario) takes time, often decades to accumulate before being noticed and people can be pre-diabetic and even T2D for many years before actually getting a diagnosis.
Did you then get a positive diabetes retinopathy after 'dropping BG too fast'?
Wouldn't Type 1's get similar 'damage' when being prescribed insulin, since the difference from being totally uncontrolled must be huge for them? Perhaps I have not looked closely enough, but I don't see warnings for them to reduce BG slowly.
Just because a prescription for specs changes due to dropping BG, doesn't mean that it was done too fast, just that it was too high for too long leading to both patient and optician believing sight at those high BG levels to be 'normal'.
Several decades before my raised BG and T2D, there some long periods where my specs prescription changed every couple of years (getting more short sighted). Of course since I'm now 70 I have been becoming less short sighted for about 10 yrs now. I did have prescription change after going Low Carb but that was over 4yrs between changes and that period covered both being diagnosed as T2D and getting into remission by Low Carb. Though in my case my HbA1C high was only 53 - so it's less likely that BG rise or subsequent fall had any noticeable effect on my sight.
silentsquirrel
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Kaylz
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
You haven't read much then, Type 1's are also told to bring levels down slowly
My story, eye test at the opticians a few months into 2016, nothing wrong and not even a change in lenses required, November 2016 diagnosed with Type 1, brought hba1c down too quickly due to hypo's through the night and not waking, lowered carbs too quickly etc, December 2016 at the opticians because I knew something wasn't right despite a lot of members on here telling me it was "normal" and would settle down, they picked something up and I was referred to ophthalmology, I was diagnosed with Diabetic Macular Oedema (fluid behind the eyes) and started on eyelea injections a week or so later (yes eye injections) and required numerous of these, the only thing they and my diabetic consultant can put it down to is lowering things too fast, then 2018 diagnosed with proliferative retinopathy in both eyes despite in my consultants words too tight control, again they put it down to the earlier quick reduction
Sorry @silentsquirrel if that's not quite what you were expecting or anything lol xx
Leadinglights
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I see what you are saying but I was only giving my experience. I had been prediabetic for a while but my HbA1C had gone up to 50mmol/mol in June 2020 and I immediately reduced my carb intake to 60g per day, by September my HbA1C was down to 42mmol/mol but my near vision was all over the place, far vision was fine. I had not had a retinal screening since 2019 which was fine and was told they were only done every 2 years if normal. March 2021 HbA1C was 36mmol/mol but it has only been recently the near vision was improved.
So no I have no absolute proof it was the low carb diet.
thank you Colin - that was the guidance I was looking for - appreciate it
Inka
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Thanks for that.
I understand the need for Type 1's to avoid hypos, but had not before seen anybody specifically mention permanent eye damage in the context of a Type 1 (or a Type 2 except in here) moving from high BG to normal ranges too quickly. Let's exclude hypos from this since that is danger of death rather than the comparatively less severe one of eye damage, though some - possibly even me might prefer to be dead than completely blind.
I wonder how common this eye damage is because I know 2 people who dropped their BGs very fast from pretty high (HbA1C over 100) to normal range BG inside of 2 weeks and they were saying vision distortion was only temporary until body had adjusted to normal range BGs, Sorry but don't know their actual post-prandial BGs when they were diagnosed, but they immediately bought BG meters and went Keto (not just Low carb), so BGs would have dropped like a stone, except not down into the hypo range.
Not sure if these two were lucky, or if you and @Leadinglights were unlucky. However I will mention this potential problem in the 'red' forum.
Here is some information I found. Note that I have not read the underlying studies.
Note that it only mentions this as a potential problem for uncontrolled Type 1's and for uncontrolled Type 2's on Insulin.
It also appears to be only in the context of existing retinopathy suddenly and briefly progressing faster.
www.diabeticretinopathy.org.uk
and
www.diabeticretinopathy.org.uk
Note that it only mentions this as a potential problem for uncontrolled Type 1's and for uncontrolled Type 2's on Insulin.
It also appears to be only in the context of existing retinopathy suddenly and briefly progressing faster.
Domain parking page
www.diabeticretinopathy.org.uk
Domain parking page
www.diabeticretinopathy.org.uk
- Status