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Back from burying my head in the sand for 7 years!

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V

Vee_Green

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hi everyone. I'm Vicky. 41. Diagnosed T2 in 2008 at 29. Then there was discussion of it being type 1.5. Was out of control. Injecting victoza etc. Then I lost some weight (4st) and it went into reverse and I came off everything. Then we started talking about it being T2 again.

Years of head burying and slowly it's crept to the place where I have just been prescribed Trulicity on top of my Metformin. I picked it up from the chemist & came home to the results of my retinopathy screening - background retinopathy. It's been a massive kick to the gut and I need to make changes so I'm throwing myself into this community again like I did in the beginning.

Aside from the big D, I work in training and development, I'm a local radio DJ and a stand up comic. I love 90s indie mostly, have one cat and a husband. My favourite cocktail is a Negroni (and I WILL still have one occasionally) and my biggest weakness is pastries

Hope to get to chat to some of you
:)
🙂
 
Hi Vee and welcome.

I am sorry to hear that you have been diagnosed with background retinopathy but it sounds like that may be a good motivator to get control of your diabetes again, so hopefully a positive will come out of that negative and be reassured that it is possible to reverse or at least halt background retinopathy before serious damage occurs, so it is not always a slippery slope into degeneration.... at least that is what more experienced members told me when I got that same result last month.

As regards controlling your diabetes, many of us here on the forum follow a low carb diet and find self testing with a BG meter invaluable in monitoring our progress and helping us see which foods cause us to spike and which we can get away with. Unfortunately now may be the time to conquer your love of pastries. I was a sugar addict a year ago pre diagnosis and I love the fact that I no longer need it. What makes that possible is by finding other treats which I can enjoy and don't affect my BG levels. Cheese, olives or nuts are my main "go to" treats when I need to indulge or if I am feeling really naughty, a bag of pork scratchings or a square of dark 80% chocolate with a spoonful of peanut butter, or a coffee with cream. The theme with these things is that they all contain fat which is indulgent (so you don't feel deprived), fills you up and keeps you feeling full for longer, provides slow release energy and contrary to popular belief, is less likely to make you fat than carbohydrates, providing you follow a low carb way of eating. Many people following a low carb higher fat eating plan, lose weight because they don't feel the need to eat as much..... fat is satisfying whereas carbs make you want to eat more carbs.

Have you been provided with a BG meter? If not, they are relatively inexpensive to buy @approx. £15 but the on going need for test strips can push the costs up and for this reason, the meter with the cheapest test strips becomes the most cost effective option. For this reason, the SD Gluco Navii or the Spirit Healthcare TEE2 are recommended by members of the forum as the test strips are just £8 for a pot of 50 as oppose to £15-£25 for some other brands.

Would you be interested in sharing your most recent HbA1c result with us and perhaps your BMI, so that we have an idea of your situation and how much progress you need to make. There are some inspirational members here who have lost several stones and dropped their HbA1c from high double or even triple digits down into the normal or pre diabetes range by low carb diet and exercise alone and nothing overly exertive in that, so hopefully you can take some inspiration from their stories.

Of course it is possible that you may still be LADA, and if you follow a low carb diet and don't see the results then that is more likely, but worth trying first, don't you think, and even if you are LADA, a low carb diet can still be beneficial.
 
Hi!

Thank you so much for your really helpful, thoughtful and detailed reply.

I have tried low carb before. My problem has ways been that I'm all or nothing so I struggle to maintain consistency, but this is an excuse and not a reason so I do need to try and get to grips with it again. I need to reeducate myself from scratch again with things like the different between carbs and sugaring carbs but also let myself know that I'm allowed a treat but not to go silly.

I'm just shy of 16st, but 5'9. I'm a size 16. My last BG was 76 (I admit I'm not sure what that is in "old scores" but I will go and google it!).

I don't have a reader. I did 12 years ago but became obsessive. I've I'm to take Trulicity though, I should.

I'm sorry to hear about your background retinopathy too. Glad it's fully controllable! 🙂
 
I am not sure what you mean by there being different carbs - starches and sugars will all raise your blood glucose, even though some people like to pretend that some are better than others and can be coped with my gut obviously never got the memo about that and digests them all the same.
For me, carbs do not equal treats - and for many people eating sweet things only maintains the urge to go on eating them.
If you want to have pastry then 'fat head' dough makes good sausage rolls and other baked goods, and is also a good base for pizzas - there are lots of useful recipes online.
 
Drummer said:
I am not sure what you mean by there being different carbs - starches and sugars will all raise your blood glucose, even though some people like to pretend that some are better than others and can be coped with my gut obviously never got the memo about that and digests them all the same.
Click to expand...

Hi Drummer. Thanks for replying. Sorry I wasn't clear - I mean, for example, the difference between the amount of carbohydrate in a meal and how much of that is sugaring carbohydrate. So on labels you can get noodle dishes at 90odd carbs, only 2 of those will be sugaring. I guess I got lazy and started just looking for green food labels - does that make sense?

Fat head sounds interesting - I'm off to check it out. Thanks for the tip!
 
I don't understand what a sugaring carbohydrate is - the noodle dish has 90 odd grams of carb - all of them will be digested and become glucose in the bloodstream.
The traffic light system on the front of labels is useless to diabetics as it doesn't show the total carbs, just indicates the level of sugars.
 
I don't know what you mean by sugaring carbs either.

I am on a low carb high fat diet and the total carbs a day I aim for is 20g.

The only carbs I don't worry about are ones that are not digestible which are fibre. All other carbs I count. All carbs (except indigestible fibre like the stuff in psyllium husk and chia seeds and konjac noodles) are bad for me and cause blood sugar spikes - the only difference with actual sugars is they cause the spike faster and higher.

So I don't eat any wheat or wheat products, no beans or pulses or peanuts, no rice or rice products, no oats nor oat products, no corn nor corn products, no potatoes nor potato products and absolutely no sugars, no milk especially not skimmed milk and no yoghurt.

I eat olives, double cream, shellfish, eggs, almond flour, coconut flour, nuts, green leafy veg, meat, fatty meats, hard cheese, sparingly things like pate and salami, sparingly tomatoes, beansprouts, cauliflower, celery, sparingly strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and lemon.

I use erythritol and stevia for sweetener sometimes when baking or making jams and lemon curd and desserts. I don't use much because I don't trust them really but now and then I allow them as a treat. Same for a small piece of chocolate.

I read the labels and always look at the total carbs per 100g and work out what that means for a portion. I try very hard to stick to 20g a day but sometimes go up to 40g. I've stuck to that for just over a year now and I'm very happy doing so.
 
Hiya - I can see where you would think just the 'sugar' carbs listed on packaging is the important figure to watch out for - its fine for dieters who count calories. Its always the first thing they look to cut out. BUT with us it different. Its the TOTAL carb we T2's need to concern ourselves with. Because carbohydrate = sugar.

I always think of it this way.........All carbs turn into glucose in the body, it fuels us. However that glucose will attach itself to your haemoglobin, much like toffee on a toffee apple, the apple is your blood cell and the glucose is the toffee. Now your blood is surrounded with sticky gunk! and it cant function properly, and the ONLY way we can free it again is to make permanent change and that means pretty much zero/ extremely low carbs. We need to make 'life long' changes.
 
I think that Vee is under the impression that the sugar content as in
Carbohydrates XXX
Of which Sugars YYY

Actually means something, rather than being the whitewashing that we know it to be.
 
Doesn't matter where the carbs come from - lettuce or Tate & Lyle granulated - the human body starts turning em all into pure glucose as soon as we put them in our mouth. British and EU food labelling does not include any fibre within the carbohydrate measurement (unlike US American food labels)
 
I thank all of you for your thoughtful and insightful replies. This is a learning curve for me and when we learn stuff, there are silly errors and assumptions we make. Doesn't mean we are stupid.

Thanks especially to Tee - thanks for taking the time to explain that to me, I know you didn't need to. Thank you also for the useful link - I'll be reading that this afternoon 🙂
 
Welcome to the forum @Vee_Green

If you decide to use a BG meter to begin to make changes and tweaks to your menu, then this blog post by Alan S is a useful framework for starting where you are, and then making incremental changes towards more in range BGs - Test, Review Adjust https://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/2006/10/test-review-adjust.html

For pastries, you may find an occasional chocolate eclair worth considering, generally only 10g or so of carbs, and the fresh cream helps to slow down the absorption.

Good luck and keep asking questions 🙂
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
Welcome to the forum @Vee_Green

If you decide to use a BG meter to begin to make changes and tweaks to your menu, then this blog post by Alan S is a useful framework for starting where you are, and then making incremental changes towards more in range BGs - Test, Review Adjust https://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/2006/10/test-review-adjust.html

For pastries, you may find an occasional chocolate eclair worth considering, generally only 10g or so of carbs, and the fresh cream helps to slow down the absorption.

Good luck and keep asking questions 🙂
Click to expand...
Chocolate eclairs are only 10g?! Why did no-one tell me!!?? 😉

Hi @Vee_Green - sorry to hear about your background retinopathy. I am sure you will find this forum supportive and helpful.
 
Hi @Vee_Green and welcome to the forum, I am type 2 and follow the low carb diet, I try to stick to around 100 g carbs a day max, I completely cut out rice, pasta, potatoes and only eat LivLife low carb bread. I started by keeping a food diary and tracking my bg readings against my meals, it made it so much easier to see what I needed to cut down/out and what foods worked well. I am now off my metformin and control my diabetes by diet and exercise alone, it takes a while to get your head around a good food list but it is SO worth the effort. Good luck 🙂
 
Thanks again everyone. Good to know about the (mini) eclairs hehe!

I've got a testing monitor arriving tomorrow, and I'll start to track against the food I eat. Having just started on Trulicity though, that won't be a problem. I haven't eaten more than a carrot stick, some chia seeds and a cup of broth since Sunday. So nauseous! I am trying to settle this down so I can so things sensibly!

You're all so supportive.
 
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