Advice Needed

O

onajoureny1

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hi Am struggling here so just need some advice. Was diagnosed diabetes, and they wanted to put me on Metformin. Not too keen on any medicines and this really does treat the cause. Went on diet exercise programme. BP dropped to normal or even just below, heart rate now at 55-60 beats so totally fit. Am just at or even below target weight. Only eat 1 meal a day, and 2x meal replacement shakes plus scrambled eggs in morning. My evening meal very low in carbs and virtually no sugar apart from natural sugars in food. Yet morning blood readings are over 8+ sometimes in the 11+ range. I do eat late around 9pm so am seriously thinking of cutting off at 6.00pm. I am bit concerned that this is Type 1 rather than Type 2. Or is it the smallest about of carb is sending the blood sugar up. (we are talking 1 medium potato or 1 pitta bread, or literally 30-50g of pasta.)
 
Hi @onajoureny1 and welcome to the group.
There are many experience people on this site who have a vast amount of personal experience to answer any questions you may have.
What was your (HbA1c) ??

Alan
 
wellcome to the forum
 
Hi @onajoureny1 welcome to the forum! We have a food/carbs queries + recipes forum where people post questions about food. There are a lot of experienced people on here and I'm sure someone would be able to answer your query in that forum 🙂

If you wish to move your question to that forum, I can help you with that 🙂
 
onajoureny1 said:
Hi Am struggling here so just need some advice. Was diagnosed diabetes, and they wanted to put me on Metformin. Not too keen on any medicines and this really does treat the cause. Went on diet exercise programme. BP dropped to normal or even just below, heart rate now at 55-60 beats so totally fit. Am just at or even below target weight. Only eat 1 meal a day, and 2x meal replacement shakes plus scrambled eggs in morning. My evening meal very low in carbs and virtually no sugar apart from natural sugars in food. Yet morning blood readings are over 8+ sometimes in the 11+ range. I do eat late around 9pm so am seriously thinking of cutting off at 6.00pm. I am bit concerned that this is Type 1 rather than Type 2. Or is it the smallest about of carb is sending the blood sugar up. (we are talking 1 medium potato or 1 pitta bread, or literally 30-50g of pasta.)
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Welcome to the forum @onajoureny1

Do you recall your HbA1c at diagnosis? Did your diabetes come on suddenly 'out of the blue', or had it been creeping up for some time?

Diagnosis and classification of diabetes can be a tricky business, and it can certainly be worth keeping an open mind where there are atypical aspects to the presentation.

Typically adult-onset T1 might (but does not always) involve one or more of the following:
  • Rapid onset of symptoms
  • Normal weight or underweight at diagnosis
  • Thirst / increased urination
  • Unintended weight loss prior to dx
  • Lack of effect from oral meds
Of course some adult-onset forms of diabetes are a bit tricksy, and depending on the level of autoimmune attack / residual beta cell action may respond positively to some oral meds.

If you continue to have doubts, you might ask your surgery to run multiple diabetes antibody checks, and also to check your non-fasting cpeptide (which measures home-grown insulin production in the presence of carbs).

Those can help to shed some light on trickier cases (though the results often need fairly expert and experienced interpretation).

Good luck with your ongoing glucose management efforts. FWIW, morning readings are often the most stubborn and last to come into line, because of the liver's habit of 'firing up the burners for the day' by dumping glucose in the early hours / on rising. 🙄
 
Welcome to the forum
Morning readings are often the last to come down and can take some time for that to happen but by keeping the increase from meals to no more than 2-3mmol/l by testing before you eat and after 2 hours then you would be able to see if your meals with potato, bread, rice or pasta is too much as they are foods which many who are dietary managed would be avoiding.
When people are using the shakes which are low calorie rather than low carb then over the day plus your carby meal may just be too much for the body to tolerate.
Try testing in bed before you even get up as you may be one of the folk who get that stubborn Foot on the Floor Syndrome where blood glucose rises to give you energy from glucose released by the liver.
Have a look at this link for some suggestions for a plan based on the suggested no more than 130g carbs not just sugar per day. https://lowcarbfreshwell.com///
 
Hi Thanks all for the feedback. HbA1c is 7.1 on the last reading. My daily readings using the pin prick machine is north of 8 in the mornings. Is the average of the daily reading the same as the HbA1c ? so if I am getting over 8 most days in the mornings will my next HbA1c be over 8 as well ? I will attempt to move this conversation into the right forum.
 
@onajoureny1 . The finger prick readings cannot be converted to HbA1c directly. I have looked at my numbers over a few years and that experience would suggest that you should not be surprised if your next HbA1c is a bit above the diabetes diagnosis limit of 48mmol/mol if your morning readings are consistently around and above 8mmol/l.
 
onajoureny1 said:
Thanks for that. The Haemoglobin IFCC standardised was 54 mmol/mol on the last reading.
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OK that is not too bad and some dietary changes should soon sort than out.
Mine was down from 50 to 42 in 3 months following a low carb approach.
 
Feels like the smallest of carbs (let alone sugar) is causing this. I am going to try and zero it out totally for a few weeks and see what difference that makes. Have also cut off time for any food consumption at 6.00pm and will take advice of @Leadinglights and try reading before bed and first thing in the morning. Was considering a continuous glucose monitor to track exactly what is going on.
 
onajoureny1 said:
Feels like the smallest of carbs (let alone sugar) is causing this. I am going to try and zero it out totally for a few weeks and see what difference that makes. Have also cut off time for any food consumption at 6.00pm and will take advice of @Leadinglights and try reading before bed and first thing in the morning. Was considering a continuous glucose monitor to track exactly what is going on.
Click to expand...
Just to see what is going on with the carbs you are having then some strategic testing before eating and after 2 hours may reveal where the problem lies, making a note of readings and the carbs you have, any meals with potato, pasta or bread is likely to be about 25-30g carbs. Not sure what your shakes would be but it should say on the product nutritional information.
 
@onajoureny1 My HbA1c was 51 3 months ago (when first diagnosed) and my finger prick test was 7.5 (home tested one week later)

I'm due another blood test in the next week or so.

For 3 months I have concentrated on the 3 things that I can control

1) Diet
2) Weight
3) exercise

My finger prick test as of this morning was 4.8 but has been in the mid to low 5's for most of this month.

I'm not on any meds and my doc just sent me a phone text to say I was diabetic with a link to this site and told me to go cure myself and come back for another blood test in 3 months.
I had to look up my own test results, to gauge just where on the diabetic scale I was and work out my own course of action.
This site/forum/group call it want, was invaluable, as are all the members in planning how to cope/manage/or deal with diabetes.

Alan 😉
 
My approach was to not to look at sugar but to look at total carb intake. You can do this by writing down a complete list of what you have consumed over the last few days and then roughly work out the amount of carbs in it. Don't leave anything out, the take away coffee might be significant. A bit of looking things up and a bit of guesswork is needed but you only need a rough estimate. Don't try and be precise became that is not possible.

A "normal" modern diet would normally come to about 250-300 g/day of carbohydrate. If you are in that region then rather than thinking about "sugar" you might see what you can do to get your overall carbohydrate intake down. Many of us using a low carb approach aim for 120-150 g/day. Dong something about the carb big hitters can do that. For me, eliminating the piece of cake with my afternoon cup of tea, reducing the potatoes on my plate, reducing my portion size of spaghetti, not eating anything coated in pastry and couple of other fiddles did it comfortably without any real changes in my "diet".

Oh, and welcome to the forum! Read around it and you will get other approaches. You will soon get the idea that there are no rights and wrongs but there will be a way that suits you, you have just got to find it.
 
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