Concerned about advice

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SlowRunner

SlowRunner

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
I am a little bit concerned over advice that my mum has been given about managing her diabetes. She was diagnosed as type 2 very recently, her routine annual blood test showed her hba1c was 48 so only just in the diabetic range. She has been given advice to manage the condition with diet but the advice seems wrong to me.

The concern I have is that she has been told to look at the sugar content of food and not eat anything that has over a certain amount of sugar per 100g. So she can't have sweet & sour sauce or tomato ketchup or Jaffa cakes... BUT she has been told that all fruit is OK, as is a small amount of fruit juice and that anything with low sugar content is fine.

What this translates to is; I went to see her yesterday & she was off out to a social event a little while later. She had eaten lunch late so wasn't hungry. She decided to grab a banana before she went and said she would probably buy food there, maybe a chip butty or cheese & onion roll. I think I may have gone a bit pale at the thought of her eating a chip butty...

My main reason for concern is that although her hba1c was not overly high, she has been complaining for a few weeks that she is very tired all the time, despite sleeping really well lately, she is always thirsty and has got a sweet/sugary taste in her mouth all the time. She has also started having funny turns where she feels light headed and unstable, & has even fallen over a couple of times. I know that if my blood sugar spikes above 11 mmol I tend to get the same light headed feeling - I call it sugar drunk!!

I have told her to go back to the doctor as I'm worried about her. What are everyone's thoughts on this - am I being over anxious?
 
SlowRunner said:
I am a little bit concerned over advice that my mum has been given about managing her diabetes. She was diagnosed as type 2 very recently, her routine annual blood test showed her hba1c was 48 so only just in the diabetic range. She has been given advice to manage the condition with diet but the advice seems wrong to me.

The concern I have is that she has been told to look at the sugar content of food and not eat anything that has over a certain amount of sugar per 100g. So she can't have sweet & sour sauce or tomato ketchup or Jaffa cakes... BUT she has been told that all fruit is OK, as is a small amount of fruit juice and that anything with low sugar content is fine.

What this translates to is; I went to see her yesterday & she was off out to a social event a little while later. She had eaten lunch late so wasn't hungry. She decided to grab a banana before she went and said she would probably buy food there, maybe a chip butty or cheese & onion roll. I think I may have gone a bit pale at the thought of her eating a chip butty...

My main reason for concern is that although her hba1c was not overly high, she has been complaining for a few weeks that she is very tired all the time, despite sleeping really well lately, she is always thirsty and has got a sweet/sugary taste in her mouth all the time. She has also started having funny turns where she feels light headed and unstable, & has even fallen over a couple of times. I know that if my blood sugar spikes above 11 mmol I tend to get the same light headed feeling - I call it sugar drunk!!

I have told her to go back to the doctor as I'm worried about her. What are everyone's thoughts on this - am I being over anxious?
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It's clearly difficult for anybody to have any certainty about your Mum's situation, without understanding where her blood numbers are on a day to day basis. Erm,... the chip butty isn't likely to be the best choice for anyone, but for today, that's probably a bit of detail. Broaching the topic of food and diet is probably best done at a time when she isn't just going out the door.

I'm sure your Mum has been advised she doesn't really need to test herself, but I would encourage that if she would tolerate it. That way she will, as you know, get personalised, up to the minute feedback on how things are going that day, and that hour.

Like the rest of us, she'll probably be struggling a bit to find the first proper steps forward, but to my mind, testing is completely fundamental to learning about this condition quickly.

Good luck with it all.
 
My sister was told she could eat as much fruit as she liked - bananas, grapes, oranges etc! Her BG was through the roof!!!
 
I think you are dead right to be concerned, she is clearly showing signs of high blood sugar, and I think I'd go 😱😱😱 as well at the thought of a chip butty, that's just carbs on carbs!!

Assuming for the moment that the doctor's assumption that anything below a certain number of carbs per 100g is ok, I've done a swift calculation using Carbs and Cals, which is usually fairly accurate.
Your mum thinks she is allowed chips but not ketchup. Well according to carbs&cals, a 96g portion of shop-bought chips contains 33g of carbs, which is 34 per 100g. A 15g dollop of ketchup contains 4g of carbs, which is 26 per 100g. So going on that theory, the ketchup is actually better for her than the chips!

But of course it's the TOTAL number of carbs your mum is eating which is more important, and a portion of chips with bread around them is going to contain a lot more carbs than a teaspoonful of sauce!

Now we get onto fruit. All fruit contains sugar (and unfortunately bananas are one of the sweetest fruits). Yes it's natural sugar, but anyone who tries to tell you that natural sugar is somehow better for you than added sugar doesn't know what they are talking about I'm afraid. As far as your body is concerned there is no difference, they will all raise your blood sugar! Eating whole fruit is better than fruit juice though, juices contain really concentrated amounts of sugar.

I agree that for today you can't do anything about her food choices, and one "bad" meal in a while isn't going to make any difference overall. But I hope you can successfully broach the subject with her sometime soon, with the hope that she can learn to make better choices. Good luck 🙂
 
AndBreathe said:
Broaching the topic of food and diet is probably best done at a time when she isn't just going out the door.
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I know better than to try & tell my mum what she can & can't do. I was just surprised that they haven't really discussed carbs with her at all, just sugar!
 
SlowRunner said:
I know better than to try & tell my mum what she can & can't do. I was just surprised that they haven't really discussed carbs with her at all, just sugar!
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Unfortunately that scenario is distressingly common, many GPs, nurses etc still seem to believe that a balanced diet including loads of non-sugar carbs is the key to looking after diabetes. I can remember learning at school that all carbs turn into glucose in your stomach, i don't understand why so many so-called medical experts don't seem to realise this!
 
Sally71 said:
Well according to carbs&cals, a 96g portion of shop-bought chips contains 33g of carbs, which is 34 per 100g. A 15g dollop of ketchup contains 4g of carbs, which is 26 per 100g. So going on that theory, the ketchup is actually better for her than the chips!
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I would agree with that! But as she has been told to look at sugar content rather than carbs as a whole, that tells her a different story - hence the worry! I've tried to get her to test her blood sugar using my meter, she tried once, 3hrs after breakfast & her reading was 8.8. She didn't like the finger pricking though & said she was glad she didn't have to do it regularly :(
 
Oh dear... Well it's nice that you are concerned, but it sounds like you might have a hard time trying to change your mum's view! Could you perhaps go to the doctor with her? She might not appreciate your input but at least you could say that you tried!
 
I've managed to get her to make an appointment & told her she must tell the doctor about all of her symptoms! As she lives on her own I worry about her having a bad fall & not getting help quickly... I will wait to see what the outcome is before starting the full on nagging 😛
 
Its hard to be the daughter when mum has the problem, and must be hard for you having your experience and wanting it to be right for her.

As a mum, i'll admit its hard letting mine know exactly how i feel al the time-down to that natural order of things i suppose.. good luck. Maybe if mum joined the forum ??
 
The book looks good from the reviews...
 
SlowRunner said:
I know better than to try & tell my mum what she can & can't do. I was just surprised that they haven't really discussed carbs with her at all, just sugar!
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I think your point is exactly why self-testing is possibly key for her.

I am the most stubborn person in stubbornland and I hate to be given orders, but for me, it was undeniable, when I started testing that some things just weren't doing myself any favours. That that meant, I was giving up carbs, which at that point hadn't come too strongly onto my radar was somewhat outre, when compared to some of the reading available, even on UK diabetes sites (not any one specifically). I just knew a number beginning in a 1 shouldn't be featuring, so I had to do something about it.

You're in a hard place, so it's a case of trying to introduce her to ways of finding out what she needs to know.

So often self exploration can become self help.
 
SlowRunner said:
I know better than to try & tell my mum what she can & can't do. I was just surprised that they haven't really discussed carbs with her at all, just sugar!
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To your point; my post diagnosis "chat" with the nurse focused more on fat than sugar. I left knowing I was going to have to do more for myself than she was ever going to achieve.

That was only 2013, but things are changing fast, hopefully.
 
No they are not AndBreath - my 'chat' with the DSN was low fat and high carb 🙄
 
Oh dear. :(
 
Lynn Davies said:
No they are not AndBreath - my 'chat' with the DSN was low fat and high carb 🙄
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So was mine. I think it's just a standard post-diagnosis debrief?!
 
I think I understand where they are coming from with the low fat thing - if you're prone to your blood being bit thick & syrupy then you don't really want big globs of fat stuck to your arteries as well... However, they normally replace fat with sugar in "diet" foods so which is actually worse?
 
SlowRunner said:
I think I understand where they are coming from with the low fat thing - if you're prone to your blood being bit thick & syrupy then you don't really want big globs of fat stuck to your arteries as well... However, they normally replace fat with sugar in "diet" foods so which is actually worse?
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I think it is finally being realised now that dietary fat is nowhere near as bad for you as we've been told for the last 20 years or so, and carbs are the evil beasties because most body fat is created from eating too many carbs. Unfortunately many GPs are somewhat behind the times with their advice, and the world at large seems to be concentrating on sugars in particular without realising that all carbs are basically the same!

Good luck with your mum, you clearly realise what she needs to do but if she (and her doctor) are not easily persuadable then you might have an uphill battle :( I hope you can help her to understand her condition a bit better!
 
I've not really been given much in the way of diabetes food advice. Non from the nurses I've seen, despite direct questions. And that's with now being 15 months in. I would consider being told anything in the first year an achievement.
 
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