Argument about bananas

[Northerner]

Well, if he decides to do a banana split for dinner tonight, I'll make sure he tests. He hasn't tested for months because he was told by his DN not to bother.😱 I know his last HbA1c was 74, which isn't great after 15 years, he is on the highest dose of tablets possible & will eventually have to go on Insulin. He also doesn't bother going to his Retinopathy check ups, even though his eyesight is gradually getting worse, which he denies but it's obvious.

The big danger with retinopathy is that you may not notice anything until BOOM! one day you have serious problems How old is he? My eyesight used to be pretty good, but I started needing reading glasses from my late-40s (before diabetes). Eyesight has got gradually worse as the years have gone by - this is perfectly natural as you get older. However, I also attend my retinopathy appointments and they have found problems that could have serious implications if untreated. These problems have had no impact whatsoever on my sight, but there are treatments I can have to prevent things getting worse. If I hadn't attended my appointments I would be oblivious and potentially heading for a life-changing problem 😱 This is the problem with most of the potential complications of diabetes - they are very gradual and without regular checks can reach a point where treatments become either very drastic or impossible. Your brother is playing Russian Roulette on a daily basis, I'm afraid, but it can be hard to convince someone that it's better to spend these few short hours on prevention without it sounding like nagging, and when they think they feel fine. His nurse should be stressing all this to him if that is who he listens to.

Sorry for the doom and gloom post, but it can be far too easy to become complacent with this condition, I'm afraid, so we need to stay on the ball! 🙂

 

[Mark Parrott]

The big danger with retinopathy is that you may not notice anything until BOOM! one day you have serious problems How old is he? My eyesight used to be pretty good, but I started needing reading glasses from my late-40s (before diabetes). Eyesight has got gradually worse as the years have gone by - this is perfectly natural as you get older. However, I also attend my retinopathy appointments and they have found problems that could have serious implications if untreated. These problems have had no impact whatsoever on my sight, but there are treatments I can have to prevent things getting worse. If I hadn't attended my appointments I would be oblivious and potentially heading for a life-changing problem 😱 This is the problem with most of the potential complications of diabetes - they are very gradual and without regular checks can reach a point where treatments become either very drastic or impossible. Your brother is playing Russian Roulette on a daily basis, I'm afraid, but it can be hard to convince someone that it's better to spend these few short hours on prevention without it sounding like nagging, and when they think they feel fine. His nurse should be stressing all this to him if that is who he listens to.

Sorry for the doom and gloom post, but it can be far too easy to become complacent with this condition, I'm afraid, so we need to stay on the ball! 🙂

He is 59 this month. He drives for a living which is very worrying. I always knew he wasn't controlling his diabetes right, but after discovering this forum, I realise how badly he is not controlling his diabetes. Convincing him is impossible. He had a call from his diabetic team yesterday wanting him to come in & review his medication. So despite that he says 'my DN thinks i'm doing great', obviously he isn't. I go over his for dinner every Thursday & I tell him what I can't eat, and he just says 'you can eat what you like'.🙄

 

[Amigo]

What DN thinks you're doing ok and shouldn't test with a Hba1c of 74? 🙄😱

 

[Mark Parrott]

What DN thinks you're doing ok and shouldn't test with a Hba1c of 74? 🙄😱

A useless one. My DN is pretty good as she agrees with testing & the low carb diet.

 

[Amigo]

A useless one. My DN is pretty good as she agrees with testing & the low carb diet.

I can understand your concern about him Mark. I've had friends like that and one lost his sight. At the time I wasn't diabetic and tbh didn't know as much about it but I couldn't believe that he could just eat and drink what he liked. Stubborn though and couldn't/wouldn't see the link between late night pizza and severe illness 😳

 

[Pumper_Sue]

What DN thinks you're doing ok and shouldn't test with a Hba1c of 74? 🙄😱

Ah but does the DSN think he's doing OK or has the brother decided he is and wont listen to anyone.

 

[Mark Parrott]

He doesnt listen. It's just like he never opens letters in Brown envelopes.🙄

 

[Mark Parrott]

We didn't have a banana split. Had berries & cream instead.🙂

 

[Northerner]

We didn't have a banana split. Had berries & cream instead.🙂

Interesting! 🙂

 

[Mark Parrott]

Well, 1 hour after dinner, 10.3!😱 2 hours after, 6.1🙂. Dinner was filled steak, mushrooms, salad & two small new potatoes. Also had my first beer since diagnosis. So the spike could've been the beer or the fruit. Potatoes don't spike me as much as that. Oh, before meal was 5.9.

 

[AndBreathe]

Well, 1 hour after dinner, 10.3!😱 2 hours after, 6.1🙂. Dinner was filled steak, mushrooms, salad & two small new potatoes. Also had my first beer since diagnosis. So the spike could've been the beer or the fruit. Potatoes don't spike me as much as that. Oh, before meal was 5.9.

It's not always as simple as all that. It could be that testing modest portions of all your foods return decent results, but together, cumulatively they just tip the balance.

As a one-off, I wouldn't go too mad for the 10.3 at an hour, as you did come back to pretty much your pre-meal by two hours, which is a good sign.

I don't know how amenable your wife is to parallel testing, but I would love to undertake a couple of weeks of parallel monitoring myself and MrB, eating parallel diets. It would be so easy where we are currently, because our food choices are a bit less limited anyway, so our meals rarely differ from each other, aside from proportions, sometimes, but he simply won't do any self testing. His Crumbly Health Checks always return decent fasting and HbA1c scores and he's fit and healthy. He just hates the idea of testing.

Anyway, the point of that ramble is that sort of parallel approach could give you an idea how (your particular ) non-diabetic participant reacts to the same carbs etc as yourself. I know of others who have done this and found it fascinating, seeing some rapid peaks, then fall backs.

I quite like not seeing the spikes. And my Libre informs bpme, I rarely experience them, but then I'm fairly careful with my eating by tweaking components and portions sizes.

 

[Mark Parrott]

We did test once together. Her BS was 4.1 before & 4.8 2 hours after. Would be interesting to do a 1 hour after dinner test when it's usually at its peak.