General idea about food.

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paulnicholls

paulnicholls

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hi there.

I'm type two with a crazy level of sugar, diagnosed in November last year.

Every health professional I speak to tells me something different about what to eat and avoid. I'm told one minute to eat carbs, the next to avoid them like the plague. The support I've been given has been worse than shocking.

Quite honestly I haven't the faintest what I should and shouldn't be eating and have simply been given some literature from the GP that doesn't seem to tell me much. I am just being sensible and trying to eat low fat, avoiding bread as much as I can - staying away from crisps and sweets and trying to eat more veg and fruit (apart from berries and bananas). I have had some literature through from Diabetes UK that seems very full, I just need to carve around two to three hours out of an evening to get my head around it.

I'm eating rice and pasta and most foods sensibly. I don't drink alcohol at all. My levels were in the 20's initially. Now they're anything between 10 and 18. My GP was worse than useless and the practice nurse absolutely hopeless. She told me to research stuff on the net myself (!) and had only 2 minutes with me as she was running late and wasn't sure what she should be telling me....!

I've stopped checking bloods as my GP told me not to worry and that he wouldn't continue to prescribe strips as they were too expensive. Hmmm. I was meticulous about taking my levels initially, but now am concerned that I may have been overly concerned so not monitoring my blood at all.

I'm getting far less headrushes than I did (initially around 4 or 5 an hour) and taking 4 500m Metformin and a statin tablet and feeling generally better than I did.

Luckily I have a diabetic clinic appointment booked on Monday! Any help or tips in the meantime please?
 
hope your clinic is better!

Hi Paul

Sorry to hear about your problems with conflicting advice etc. I hope that you will get better advice at your hospital clinic. I find the combined approach of doctors, nurses and dieticians useful (haven't seen other professions at clinic, but I think that psychologists / counsellors and podiatrists are there, too). Also, it's worth asking about any courses for people with diabetes and / or partners etc (if you want).

I sincerely hope that either you go to a different hospital than I did when diagnosed in Birmingham / Solihull over 10 years ago - or that you go to a different hospital.
 
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What to do

Sorry to hear about your problems Paul. It is confusing that the old fashioned advice about diabetes treatment (avoid fat and eat lots of 'healthy' fruit and carbs) is still being handed out and a lot of GPs either don;t have the time or the inclination to do the research needed to give correct advice to their patients. I spent a couple of years trying (not very hard) to get my type 2 under control but suddenly ran out of metformin. - like you I was on the maximum dosage (4x500mg a day) and my GP put me on Levemir injections as well as the metformin - the results were amazing (as are the bruises, but what the h...). The statin is for high cholesterol and not relevant to the diabetes. My understanding and attitudes changed when I read (via internet searches) Dr Bernsteisn book (see the book forum on this site). Basically you should cut right back on your carbs and you SHOULD be testing your blood sugar levels. You should experiment to see what affects you. I find that rice puts my BG up very quickly, whereas pasta seems OK. I have basically cut out all bread (although has anyone else tried the Bergen Soy and Flax sliced bread (expensive but tasty and low GI)). Do a BG reading 1st thing in the morning, before each meal and 1 hr and 2 hrs after each meal to see what foods put up your BG. If somthing puts your BG up too high then don't eat it. Exercise will also bring down your BG.

Hope that helps and Good luck for Monday.🙂
 
paulnicholls said:
Hi there.

...Luckily I have a diabetic clinic appointment booked on Monday! Any help or tips in the meantime please?
Click to expand...

Hi Paul,

Write a checklist of all your questions so you don't forget to ask things, and take as much information you can about your BG readings, reactions to foods etc. - I'd say don't stop testing, you are at a stage where you need to know exactly what's happening to you, you haven't yet established what's good or bad for you and how your control is improving. Also, as you'll have read elswhere here, don't let your GP bully you into not testing if you feel it is beneficial to you!

Good luck on Monday!🙂
 
Welcome back Paul

Glad to have your update Paul - we were all wondering how you were doing. 🙂 I would strongly advise reading the Dr Bernstein book too. I think his diet is extreme and do not follow it to the letter but when I am being good (!) and reduce my carb intake to 20/30g per meal my sugars are far more steady - though I do find I tend to need a small snack in between meals such as an apple when I do this rigidly! I fill up on vegetables! It is slightly different for me as I am a type 1 - but low carbing (NOT no-carbing which people often assume it is) - really does work for me - and that is after experimenting for 35 years! There are no hard and fast rules for diabetes at all (if only it were that easy!) - and everyone has to find out what works for them - (for instance Northerner, an active member on this board is an avid runner and does not advocate low carbing as it does not suit his lifestyle at all). The Bernstein book gives you a really good explanation as to what is happening in your body - the diet is only a small part of it - it has great science in it too. I read it after wanting to update myself - I had got very blas? after 30 years! Like anything - you take from it what you want.
GP's can be very mean with regards to prescribing testing strips for T2 diabetics (and T1's sometimes too!) and every GP is different - there have been a lot of discussions on this forum about it - I think if that testing at this stage gives you a better comprehension of what is happening in your body and makes you feel more comfortable (don't get too obsessive about testing!) then you should be allowed to do so - I would tell your Dr that you wish to test to work out what works and what doesn't - that you are aware that your BS is currently running too high on a day-today (that is my personal opinion) basis and that you want to prevent any future complications at a later stage.
Quick response to Vicsetter's comment about exercise - in my experience exercising with high bs actually increases your bs levels not reduces them. Anything above 7 and I get into double figures...14+. Again that is my personal experience and as we know - everyone is different!
I really hope this helps and your appointment on Monday is productive - refuse to leave until it is!😉
 
Dear Paul,

Have a look at the "Progressive Disease" thread.

Regards Dodger
 
Blimey!

Thanks for all the responses, so nice to know I was missed!

I have actually gone through the phase of ignoring diabetes, probably a bit to my peril as I just eat my way through Christmas puds, a bit of chocolate et al and actually got to quite like the cold chill on the side of my face, followed by the weird dizziness, loss of balance and headrushes, lol!

Actually, I just got fed up with the utterly rubbish advice from the GP, and more fed up by the high bloods - so just ignored it a bit.

I'm a very busy bloke with work (working from home now) and get utterly consumed with work, so took a break from loads of stuff at Christmas.

Please forgive me for wandering horribly off topic - I do this a lot. I think I may keep an online diary - I've around 50,000 or so a month subscribed to my podcasts worldwide , so may actually start a podcast entitled 'The Diary of a Diabetic' so I can keep some idea of what I'm doing and share any tips, tricks or pitfalls on the way.... he he, should be quite a good experiment I think! I did some stuff for Radio 5 a little time back and enjoy broadcasting and production - it might also be quite a nice community thing to do to get us all here involved and talking audibly? What do you think?

Please don't think I'm shamelessly self promoting, promise you I'm not! The link for one of the latest podcasts is here to give you a taste. Should be great, particularly if we have given topics to discuss on here and we can vocalise audibly. It would also be a great way to promote this site.

Answers on a postcard!
 
Sounds like a good idea to me - and can completely understand the whole ignoring thing too. Do send the link to the latest one tho.
 
Corrine and others - I will set up a separate thread then to discuss this. It really brings the thing to life when people send in audio comments though. It's dead easy to record using windows or garageband on your pc/mac and best if you keep comments to around 2 minutes - 3 minutes max.

Do people want to start by sending audio of who they are, where they're from, a bit about what type and some general tips etc? mail to podcastpaul@gmail.com We'll link back to this site to really promote the chat site. I'll put it on my feed so it's distributed to my listeners too.
 
Welcome back! Like the others I was wondering if you were ok. It probably seems very annoying at the moment, but I hope that when you go to the hospital, the advice will be more informative! Do test your blood sugars so that you know how your body is coping with the choice of food intake.
 
My GP is a nightmare and he claims to be dibetic. The nurses at the clinic tell me one thing and my GP tells me something different.Basically if I didn't do research and use sites like this, I'd have no information atall. This way when I go to my GP i am at least informed!

I test, it allows me to control what I eat and even to have treats. It also tells me which foods affect my sugar levels.

from what I can tell things like porridge and oats are good carbs and things like boiled potatoes and white bread are bad carbs. If you can get whole meal and wholegrain it is better.

I went through a period where I was in denial, I thought if I ignored the diabetes long enough it would go away!
 
Being honest I am not a great vegetable fan, but do eat lots of boiled potatoes, beans/peas/lentils and stick to wholemeal bread with seeds. Only problem is I have put weight on which I am now attempting to lose. My wife makes vegetable soup, finely liquidised and doesn't tell me what's in it!
I was never a chocolate/biscuit/pudding fan - guess what when I see any now I could eat the lot!
 
I think the problem is that what works for one doesn't work for another. So it's impossible for anyone to say eat this don't eat that. because each person can tolerate different food and have different blood sugars responses. Thats why diabetes is primarily a self management condition and you are at least 51% of your health care team.

So that is why I think it's important for you to keep testing, you will know what affects you and then can make the changes needed. There is no point testing for testings sake to write the number in a little book and do nothing about it.

For me I find Bernstien too extreme and don't think his blood sugar targets are very safe for most people on insulin and to a lesser extent tablets. But I do agree that controlling the amout of carbohydrate is helpful in reducing blood suagrs levels. As i said in another thread my blood sugars are more stable and I use less insulin when reducing my carb intake to less than 100g per day. But I don't want to maintain that all the time, I like to be able to eat 200g carb in one go if I want to.
 
Paul - ask to be referred to a dietician for advice. A good one should be helpful. Your GP can refer you.

Best food advice I think I got was from reading cookery books aimed at Diabetics. I made a post in the recipes thread of some I like. Stella Bowling's book The Everyday Diabetic Cookbook http://www.amazon.co.uk/Everyday-Diabetic-Cookbook-Stella-Bowling/dp/1898697256 (also sold by diabetes UK) is great for giving you easy to uderstand advice and recipes etc, and you could also try http://www.amazon.co.uk/Diabetes-Gu...r_1_81?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231368718&sr=1-81 this book is an NHS/Diabetes UK one and I found it had lots of comprehensive info to help me understand diabetes (better at this than Stella's book as it is a different kind of book)as well as some recipes. You could get the details from the links and get your local library to order them in for you?

Good luck.
________
Upskirt schoolgirl
 
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Great to hear that Paul. Have they told you to take a food diary? Details of what you've been eating over a few days can help them to advise you. We also took some favourite recipes for advice on whether they needed adapting and how. We also discussed reading labels - what to look for when buying ready made food.
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Gay interracial
 
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Hi Kate,

They haven't asked me to take anything with me on Monday, I was planning on taking in a few notes of foods I've been taking - I'll definitely be taking notes when I'm in there with them.

Thanks ever such a lot for the advice.
 
A food diary and test results together are always usefull. It will help pin point anything out of the ordinary.

Knowledge is power, power is control.
 
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