• Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
  • We seem to be having technical difficulties with new user accounts. If you are trying to register please check your Spam or Junk folder for your confirmation email. If you still haven't received a confirmation email, please reach out to our support inbox: support.forum@diabetes.org.uk

As you can imagine I am a newbie!!

Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
S

SCi-Fi

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hi, yeah I am newbie-well ish!

I have been diabetic since start of October and my doctor and dietitian have been useless, I have only had youtube and several websites to use as references and whatever else I can find to help me navigate my diabetes. I have joined Diabetes UK in hope to get enough info to carry on my life so to speak. I tried to use food alone to keep my diabetes on hold, but I have started to use my tablets i got from my doctor an the side effects scare the living ***t out of me and 6 days I have been taking them no effects have been felt, touch more wood.

My a1c was 168 at the end of September, today I got a reading of 15 on my little machine(which I dont understand what it means) which is my lowest I've had.
 
Welcome @SCi-Fi 🙂 What’s the name of the tablets you’re taking? 168 is a very high HbA1C and it’s best to bring your blood glucose levels down gradually when they’re that high. What time of day did you get your 15 reading?
 
Inka said:
Welcome @SCi-Fi 🙂 What’s the name of the tablets you’re taking? 168 is a very high HbA1C and it’s best to bring your blood glucose levels down gradually when they’re that high. What time of day did you get your 15 reading?
Click to expand...
About 6am, I had my tablets then breakfast. Then at 11am I had a cheese sandwich I got 25, then after a 45 min walk on my running machine it went down to 19. Tablet name is Sukkarto SR 500mg( I replied to your other message aswell).
 
SCi-Fi said:
About 6am, I had my tablets then breakfast. Then at 11am I had a cheese sandwich I got 25, then after a 45 min walk on my running machine it went down to 19. Tablet name is Sukkarto SR 500mg( I replied to your other message aswell).
Click to expand...

Ok, so you’ve learnt a cheese sandwich is probably a bad idea for you (too many carbs). You could try soup or a salad plus protein, or an omelette, etc.

How did your diagnosis come about? Did you have any symptoms? Any family history of Type 2? Are you overweight? (Apologies for that question - no offence or criticism meant if you are)
 
The high glucose level and the fact you have said that you have lost weight very quickly 2 stone in a few weeks sends red flags to me that you may actually be Type 1 not Type 2, both those things point to Type 1 and unfortunately metformin will not be of much help unless you also have insulin resistance.
You should go back to your GP asap as I think you will likely need insulin to help.
With such high levels you should have a means for testing for ketones, urine test strips can be had from the pharmacy. However if you start to feel unwell then you should call 111. You may want to look up the symptoms of diabetic DKA so you know what to look out for.
 
Oh Wow! I just responded to your other thread on bread but had no idea your levels were quite that high.
An HbA1c of 168 has to be a record here on the forum!
I really think you should be getting a lot more support from your GP or nurse with levels that high.
The finger prick results you are getting are telling you what your blood glucose level is at that moment in time and it will vary throughout the day and night in response to a number of factors (about 42 of them.... some of which you have control over but some you don't). The main things which will impact your levels are food and in particular carbohydrates and exercise and medication. High carb foods like bread and pasta and rice and potatoes and breakfast cereals and fruit are all likely to raise your levels quite a bit as you have seen from your cheese sandwich. A cheese omelette with salad and coleslaw should produce a much smaller rise in BG. Things like creamy Natural Greek yoghurt with a few berries and seeds/nuts for breakfast works well and meat/fish with mostly green veg.
Your HbA1c result is a measure of the amount of glucose stuck to your red blood cells, and is linked to the Blood Glucose results you get from a finger prick in the sense that the longer your BG levels are high, the more glucose will stick to the red blood cells. Those cells have a life span of aboiut 3 months so the HbA1c gives you an indication of how high your glucose has been over the past 3 months, but it doesn't directly compare to the finger prick results you get other than if one is high then so will the other be.

My gut feeling with an HbA1c that high at diagnosis is that you may well be Type 1. If you can tell us a bit about how your diagnosis came about, then we might be able to give you better advice.

Things like were you symptomatic and if so which symptoms and did they come on suddenly or develop over weeks/ months?
Has the onset followed on from a Covid infection... or vaccine?
Do you have much/any weight to lose?
Have you lost any weight recently?

The more info you can give us the better, so feel free to try to bore the pants off us with detail 🙄
 
Last edited:
Did I miss the info about weight loss somewhere?
 
I lost 2 stone over a period of time, Tbh i am unsure on the time it took to lose the weight. I know in May i was 14 stone, but come late September i was 12. The reason i went to the docs cos i was going to the toilet allot. I am not thirsty or any other symptoms.
 
SCi-Fi said:
I lost 2 stone over a period of time, Tbh i am unsure on the time it took to lose the weight. I know in May i was 14 stone, but come late September i was 12. The reason i went to the docs cos i was going to the toilet allot. I am not thirsty or any other symptoms.
Click to expand...
One of the things is if you were losing weight without trying as a pointer for Type 1 together with the very high HbA1C. Gong to the toilet a lot is because your kidneys are working hard to get rid of excess glucose and as such often makes people thirsty.
 
I didnt try, but I was drinking then allot of water with lemons mixed with stress which i don't have now.
 
SCi-Fi said:
I didnt try, but I was drinking then allot of water with lemons mixed with stress which i don't have now.
Click to expand...
Quite a few people have also commented that they think you may be Type 1 or LADA, I hope you will go back to your GP and ask for the additional test which could confirm or rule that out and then you cold get the correct treatment. The tests you should press for are c-peptide and GAD antibodies.
 
You seem to have had identical symptoms to me, but my a1c was 111 on diagnosis and i was given tablets then sent straight to the hospital! ( I was ok cos the tablets kicked in whilst i was there, i felt fine myself, well, other than much crying on diagnosis) Like you I lost weight but didn't link it to the peeing...only in retrospect did i realise how much weight I'd lost. I was put on meds that got my levels down to 7 by 'squeezing' every last bit of insulin out of my pancreas, and got the blood tests quite quickly and diagnosed as T1 (lada). Going on insulin (over xmas) was a bit scary but it works, and it got easier then as i got libre monitor and lots of data from it on how to manage my bs.
Target blood sugars tend to be 4 to 10 (i do 4 to 7.8 but then I probably still produce some insulin)...less than 4 is dangerous, running high blood sugars long term increases the chances of complications. If 15 is your lowest, you need a plan to get it down safely. Get yourself on to the gp on monday.
Also, not sure if its necessarily a good thing to be excercising with bs that high. Ask your doctor. And get a way to read ketones as soon as you can. High ketones was why i was sent to hospital, can result in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) or somethink called, i think, HONK if you are T2. You don't want either.
With diabetes often you have to ask for stuff that you should automatically get...if i could go back in time, the advice i'd give myself on diagnosis is to take control as much as possible, as soon as you are able, and make sure you have what you need.
Oh, and don't read the side effects... ;-)
 
Hope you are able to get your unexpected weight loss checked @SCi-Fi - just for reassurance if nothing else!

You certainly wouldn‘t be the first new member to later be reclassified when the ‘forum radar’ gets triggered 🙂
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Back
Top