Bypass Surgery & Blood Sugars

[susieq67]

At the beginning of September I was admitted to hospital with a heart attack and subsequently underwent a quadruple heart bypass operation. Whilst in hospital and since I've been back home (just over a week now) my blood sugars have been much higher than they were prior to the heart attack.

I could understand this whilst I was in hospital as the catering was definitely not geared to those who control their diabetes through diet and exercise rather than medication (every time the nurses checked my BG they were looking to give me insulin/tablets !).

Now I'm home I'm back on my diabetic 'friendly' diet but am not yet fit enough to undertake more than a daily short, gentle walk in the exercise stakes so has anyone any ideas on what else I can do to bring my sugars back down into manageable levels ?

 

[Amigo]

Hi Susie,

Sorry I'm unable to give any advice on specific measures to bring your levels back down but it does occur to me that your activity levels must be greatly reduced following your surgery and stress in itself can cause a hike. You've obviously had a very stressful time with presumably different medications that might be impacting. Were any steroids involved which may have caused the increase?

I hope you're feeling much better and able to increase your activity levels soon. Has your doctor been able to advise on BG levels particularly if you are on diabetic medication?

Hope all goes well...seems like taking bite size problems at a time because you've been through a lot 😱

 

[Northerner]

At the beginning of September I was admitted to hospital with a heart attack and subsequently underwent a quadruple heart bypass operation. Whilst in hospital and since I've been back home (just over a week now) my blood sugars have been much higher than they were prior to the heart attack.

I could understand this whilst I was in hospital as the catering was definitely not geared to those who control their diabetes through diet and exercise rather than medication (every time the nurses checked my BG they were looking to give me insulin/tablets !).

Now I'm home I'm back on my diabetic 'friendly' diet but am not yet fit enough to undertake more than a daily short, gentle walk in the exercise stakes so has anyone any ideas on what else I can do to bring my sugars back down into manageable levels ?

Very sorry to hear about your heart attack and operations susieQ I'd say it's still early days as your whole system must have taken a heckuva hit. The chances are that your stress hormones are still quite high, whether you feel stressed or not, as your body copes with the healing process.

I would say that, since you can't do much exercise, your main route would be to reduce carbohydrate, replacing with other veg, or at least choosing things like beans and pulses which should have kinder effect on your levels. Having said that, I'm not a doctor or dietician, so I don't know whether there are implications fr your recovery in doing that - probably best to discuss with your GP.

Good luck, I hope you recover well, and soon, and those numbers stabilise fr you 🙂

 

[Caroline]

not sure if it will help or not but there is a DVD Tai Chi for Diabetes. It's nice gentle exercises

 

[susieq67]

Thanks for the replies - I think that the stress factor is playing a large part ! Changes were made to my usual BP and statins medication whilst I was in hospital (but no steroids) but because the bypass has effectively provided me with a 'new, reconditioned' heart the BP meds have been dropped altogether - neither the hospital nor my GP have prescribed diabetic meds yet (long may that last please !) as, until all this happened, I've been able to control my diabetes successfully through exercise and diet alone.

@Northerner - normally I do follow a very low carb diet although that wasn't easy whilst I was in hospital; virtually every menu choice included large amounts of carbs in one form or another. In fact I was so disillusioned with the menu choices for diabetics (non-existent) that I did formally complain - especially as they do provide gluten free diets for coeliacs and have a range of menu options for various religious groups.

@Caroline - do you have a link for the Tai Chi DVD ? That sounds like it could be useful at the moment.

 

[trophywench]

LOL - when I was diagnosed, way back, you were admitted to hosp automatically even though I wasn't in DKA - though I expect I was near it LOL

ut anyway, the next day the Ward Sister drought me the menu for the day, too one look at it, delared 'There's absolutely NOTHING on here suitable for a diabetic!!' and wrote all over it - 'DIABETIC - NOT SUITABLE' and 'Please supply .....' Then asked 'What sort of salads do you like, Jenny?'

That was 43 years ago. You have to wonder - how much else has the NHS discredited, like chucking the babby out, along with the bathwater?

 

[Northerner]

Certainly, when I was diagnosed the only item on the menu frbidden to diabetics was treacle sponge and custard 😱 The rest of the time I was happily high-carbing away, and regularly hitting the high 20s after eating 😱 The food was actually good (either that or I was starving after losing huge amounts of weight prior to diagnosis) but who on earth thought it was suitable for diabetics had clearly just made it up on the spot. When you think about it, prior to the discovery of insulin, people were placed on starvation diets with absolutely minimal carbs purely because they knew what would raise levels - what changed their minds?

 

[Caroline]

@Caroline - do you have a link for the Tai Chi DVD ? That sounds like it could be useful at the moment.[/QUOTE]

Look on Amazon or go to www.taichiforarthritis.com

it is an Australian website run by a Chinese Doctor practicing western medicine and teaching Tai Chi.

It caters for a whole range of things and if anyone needs something they can do sitting down there is a seated tai chi DVD too.