Hi :)

[Seniz]

Hello

Hope you all well ...

September 2023 my HbA1c is 48 and I was 64kg / 1.5meter tall.
I have stop all the junk food I was eating and November 2023 HbA1c dropped 42.

Since than I am very careful and I have lost 14kg. Now I am still short 🙂 but I am 50kg.

Recently I gave blood test and it was very high. Results made me quite sad because I was trying to do everything alright.
November 2024 - HbA1c is 59 and Glucose level is 8.2

I am hoping to get some advice from your experience , is there a any hope I can remission it? Or Do I need to start medication for diabetes?

I am smoking , not drinking much water and working from home in front of pc mostly , how those could effect my blood sugar level ?

Thank you so much in advance for reading and maybe sharing your opinion and advice.

 

[mashedupmatt]

Hi @Seniz and welcome to the forum - it sounds as if you are making all the right choices in terms of food and and well done with the weight loss - sadly Diabetes can be a fickle thing and despite all your best efforts you can still see a rise in the numbers - there are 42 reasons why your BG can go up or down - you can see them listed here on this infographic:


As you are working from home mostly, in front of a PC, maybe a bit more exercise would help - not necessarily running or going the gym etc. - Simply more walking will have an effect

And not just cutting out the junk food (which is a great start), but looking at the carbohydrate content in your food, as this is the main cause of a rise in BG - try swapping high-carb foods with healthy alternatives - check out the Diabetes UK Section on food on the website:

10 tips for healthy eating with diabetes

There are different types of diabetes, and no two people with diabetes are the s

www.diabetes.org.uk

If you have any specific queries or questions, don't be afraid to ask - there are many people on this forum with decades of knowledge who genuinely want to help 🙂

 

[Seniz]

thank you so much for your reply @mashedupmatt.
My dad was diabetic also.
Getting old is not fun at all 🙂

What I noticed until covid period my HbA1c was between 27/37 and after covid last 4 years sugar level goes from 40/59.
Do you think any link between our covid vaccines we had ....

 

[mashedupmatt]

thank you so much for your reply @mashedupmatt.
My dad was diabetic also.
Getting old is not fun at all 🙂

What I noticed until covid period my HbA1c was between 27/37 and after covid last 4 years sugar level goes from 40/59.
Do you think any link between our covid vaccines we had ....

No problem - COVID did see quite a sharp rise in diabetes diagnoses I understand, and there is a small amount of conjecture regarding the vaccines, although nothing has been proven - a COVID infection has been cited a nomber of times to have triggered a Type 1 diagnosis as it is thought that a viral infection is a possible trigger for the condition to develop - unfortunately Diabetes (whatever type) can just rear it's ugly head at any time though

 

[Alan44]

Hi @Seniz and welcome to the forum.

Are you due another blood test in the new year to confirm diagnosis

Alan 😉

 

[Seniz]

Hi Alan44,

I just got my result this week and 11th November they booked me to see Advance clinical practitioner.

Lets see what she will tell me , I still want to see GP or endocrinologist specialist before starting any medication for this.

🙄

 

[Leadinglights]

You may benefit form getting a home testing blood glucose monitor, many self fund to check out if your new diet of just cutting out the junk food is sufficient or whether you need to look more carefully at your carb intake as it maybe that your tolerance to carbs has changed. By testing before you eat and after 2 hours you will be able to tell if your meal is too carb heavy if the increase is more than 2-3mmol/l or more than 8-8.5 after 2 hours. That may give a clue as to what may be going on. Monitors can be bought on line (generally cheaper than the pharmacy) the GlucoNavii, TEE2 or Contour Blue are ones with the cheaper test strips.

 

[Seniz]

Thank you Leadinglights,

I have home testing glucose monitor. But checking often gives me anxiety. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. But I will test before and after for couple of times to try my carb intake

 

[Drummer]

@Seniz for most people testing after meals is a source of reassurance, or it alerts them that something more complex than ordinary type 2 is going on.
For me, not eating carbs is the key.
I don't eat high carb foods, and only small portions of any other sort.
I have two meals a day, fewer carbs in the morning as I am less able to deal with them then.
Doing that from diagnosis got me into the top end of normal after 6 months, and I have been fairly untroubled by type 2 ever since.

 

[Leadinglights]

Thank you Leadinglights,

I have home testing glucose monitor. But checking often gives me anxiety. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. But I will test before and after for couple of times to try my carb intake

The benefit of testing is it alerts you to foods which are not too good for your blood glucose but also tells you which foods are OK and can be safely eaten. Once you establish some 'safe' meals you don't need to check those again. That should surely be more reassuring than ignoring it as it enables you to take action now.

 

[Lucyr]

Thank you Leadinglights,

I have home testing glucose monitor. But checking often gives me anxiety. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. But I will test before and after for couple of times to try my carb intake

You don’t have to test at home if you prefer not to, the nhs doesn’t recommend testing unless on certain medications because of the anxiety it can cause. You can rely on other measures if you prefer like checking your weight or getting your annual hba1c check

 

[rebrascora]

Hi and welcome.

Sorry to hear that all the hard work you have put into losing weight doesn't seem to have paid off with your diabetes results.
Can you give us an idea of what a typical day's meals look like? ie. What an average breakfast, lunch and evening meal might be and any snacks and drinks?
Cutting down on junk food is great but there are a lot of what might be considered healthy foods which can really raise your Blood Glucose (BG) levels. For example wholemeal bread and wholemeal pasta and brown rice have almost the same carbohydrate content as white varieties and sweet potato has about the same amount of carbs as normal potato. Porridge, which is often recommended as a great slow release breakfast option even for Type 2 diabetics, can be like rocket fuel for some of us and I simply found the tiny portion of it I could cope with wasn't really worth the trouble of making it. For me creamy Greek style natural yoghurt with a few berries like rasps, blueberries, blackberries or blackcurrants and some mixed seeds and cinnamon is really enjoyable and doesn't send my BG levels into orbit. Sometimes I have some mixed chopped nuts in it or a tiny sprinkle (and it is tiny) of a nutty granola to give it a bit of crunch.
Bread is also my nemesis and I found avoiding it was easier. That took a lot of getting my head around as it is a carrier for many foods and is so convenient, but I am better off without it and I no longer crave it or feel I need it anymore. I very occasionally have a couple of sesame crispbreads with butter and Marmite, but a packet can last me months. This is just me and you may be different but this is where a regime of testing helps to identify which foods are raising your levels excessively or what portion size of them you can get away with and perhaps help you find a way to remission.
As regards Covid, any infection or illness will raise your BG levels and Covid seems to have been a bit more of a trigger than others. I am not sure there is so much concern that the vaccines are responsible, but more likely the virus itself and of course lots of people stayed at home and didn't exercise much and comfort ate during the first year or two of the pandemic, which is likely far more of an issue than anything else.

 

[Seniz]

@Seniz for most people testing after meals is a source of reassurance, or it alerts them that something more complex than ordinary type 2 is going on.
For me, not eating carbs is the key.
I don't eat high carb foods, and only small portions of any other sort.
I have two meals a day, fewer carbs in the morning as I am less able to deal with them then.
Doing that from diagnosis got me into the top end of normal after 6 months, and I have been fairly untroubled by type 2 ever since.

@Drummer Thank you for the reply...happy to see you are managing your sugar level...
I hope I can learn more and control it

 

[Seniz]

The benefit of testing is it alerts you to foods which are not too good for your blood glucose but also tells you which foods are OK and can be safely eaten. Once you establish some 'safe' meals you don't need to check those again. That should surely be more reassuring than ignoring it as it enables you to take action now.

I see the logic ! thank you

 

[Seniz]

You don’t have to test at home if you prefer not to, the nhs doesn’t recommend testing unless on certain medications because of the anxiety it can cause. You can rely on other measures if you prefer like checking your weight or getting your annual hba1c check

to be honest I can feel it when its high
my eyes gets so heavy , need to sleep, feel tired and sleepy sometimes headaches and some stupid anxiety feelings

 

[Seniz]

Hi and welcome.

Sorry to hear that all the hard work you have put into losing weight doesn't seem to have paid off with your diabetes results.
Can you give us an idea of what a typical day's meals look like? ie. What an average breakfast, lunch and evening meal might be and any snacks and drinks?
Cutting down on junk food is great but there are a lot of what might be considered healthy foods which can really raise your Blood Glucose (BG) levels. For example wholemeal bread and wholemeal pasta and brown rice have almost the same carbohydrate content as white varieties and sweet potato has about the same amount of carbs as normal potato. Porridge, which is often recommended as a great slow release breakfast option even for Type 2 diabetics, can be like rocket fuel for some of us and I simply found the tiny portion of it I could cope with wasn't really worth the trouble of making it. For me creamy Greek style natural yoghurt with a few berries like rasps, blueberries, blackberries or blackcurrants and some mixed seeds and cinnamon is really enjoyable and doesn't send my BG levels into orbit. Sometimes I have some mixed chopped nuts in it or a tiny sprinkle (and it is tiny) of a nutty granola to give it a bit of crunch.
Bread is also my nemesis and I found avoiding it was easier. That took a lot of getting my head around as it is a carrier for many foods and is so convenient, but I am better off without it and I no longer crave it or feel I need it anymore. I very occasionally have a couple of sesame crispbreads with butter and Marmite, but a packet can last me months. This is just me and you may be different but this is where a regime of testing helps to identify which foods are raising your levels excessively or what portion size of them you can get away with and perhaps help you find a way to remission.
As regards Covid, any infection or illness will raise your BG levels and Covid seems to have been a bit more of a trigger than others. I am not sure there is so much concern that the vaccines are responsible, but more likely the virus itself and of course lots of people stayed at home and didn't exercise much and comfort ate during the first year or two of the pandemic, which is likely far more of an issue than anything else.

Thank you 🙂

For breakfast 8.30am cheese,olives, egg, cucumber, tomatoes, parsley , walnuts and black tea.

I have Turkish coffee and hazelnuts at 11.00am

13.00am For lunch what ever left over from yesterdays dinner 🙂 could be curry, soup or grill chicken with salad

18.00pm For dinner , could be fish or chicken or red meat grills with salad or home made curries or vegetables.

tv time some popcorn /tea/Nescafe

that's all I am having and some berries during the day 🙂

I did really cut of all the nice food I like , I am Turkish and my husband is Indian. We used to have enjoy our nice food and feel happy 🙂 now we are miserable 🙂 He managed to remission his diabetics but I haven't.

Porridge made my blood sugar level very high as well.
no bread , pasta, rice, potatoes ((( more than year

I have to learn and find a way i suppose

All the best

 

[Leadinglights]

You don't really seem to be having a lot of high carb foods and looks as if your carb intake would be no more than the suggested 130g per day.
My recollection of Turkish coffee is it is very sweet so are you having sugar in it.

 

[Seniz]

You don't really seem to be having a lot of high carb foods and looks as if your carb intake would be no more than the suggested 130g per day.
My recollection of Turkish coffee is it is very sweet so are you having sugar in it.

I was very naughty before 🙂 I loved eating especially desserts chocolates biscuits you name it 🙂

Since September 2023 Gp told me consider your self diabetic I stopped all the bad eating habits.

No sugar for my coffee and tea as well (((



I dont drink much water

I hardly go outside

I am a smoker

Maybe all those not helping me as well

 

[rebrascora]

That certainly sounds like a very low carb diet so I wonder if perhaps you are not a typical type 2 diabetic. The HbA1c test just tells you that you are diabetic. After that they base their decision about your Type of diabetes on things like age, weight, known poor diet, insufficient exercise, clinical presentation and stats ie. Most people with diabetes are Type2 so they assume, especially if you are a mature adult, that you must be Type 2. Unfortunately a significant percentage of Type 1s develop diabetes as adults and many of us here were misdiagnosed as Type 2 initially. Added to that, when Type 1 diabetes develops in more mature adults, it usually has a slower onset which can make it look like Type 2.
There are of course other types of diabetes like those associated with damage to the pancreas from disease or trauma or surgery, so people who have had pancreatitis or cancer of the pancreas or develop cysts in their pancreas sometimes as a result of gall stones, can develop diabetes which is referred to as Type 3c and there is also steroid induced diabetes and other even more rare Types.
There are tests that can be done to assess how much insulin your pancreas is able to make and I wonder if it might be helpful to ask for that test? The test is a C-Peptide test. Is your GP/Nurse aware that you have lost a lot of weight and you are following a pretty strict low carb diet but your HbA1c has increased. The other test for Type 1 is antibody tests because Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease ie. the immune system attacks and kills off your insulin producing beta cells. This is believed to be triggered by a virus in some cases and Covid is believed to have caused an increase in diabetes diagnoses as a result. If you were Type 1 then you would need to use insulin to replace what your body can't produce, but this would then enable you to eat a more or less normal diet and just calculate the amount of insulin you need for each meal and inject it of course.
Anyway, those are just a few of my thoughts from reading your posts. If you were Type 2 and caught at this relatively early stage of diagnosis, then I would have very much expected substantial weight loss and a low carb diet to have improved your results and the fact that it hasn't suggests to me that you may well not be Type 2.

 

[Leadinglights]

I was very naughty before 🙂 I loved eating especially desserts chocolates biscuits you name it 🙂

Since September 2023 Gp told me consider your self diabetic I stopped all the bad eating habits.

No sugar for my coffee and tea as well (((



I dont drink much water

I hardly go outside

I am a smoker

Maybe all those not helping me as well

I don't expect they are but getting more exercise will help and trying to drink more.
You sound as if you like cooking so looking at the website sugarfreelondoner may give you some ideas for some low carb cakes and biscuits.
I have discovered some high protein chocolate pudding or mousse which are low carb in ALDI which are quite nice.