Hello from Nottingham

[JJG]

Hello, everyone. My name is Jacqui, I'm from Nottingham and will be celebrating my 80th birthday next month.
I have been on a low carb diet for many years and have successfully controlled my weight and blood sugars. Last year,I went through a traumatic time and began eating things I shouldn't and then ate extremely unwisely over Christmas. I am now trying to regularise my eating but am finding it very hard to bring my blood sugar numbers back down and fear I will have to return to using medication. I have joined this forum for inspiration and support and hope I can occasionally be of some help to others.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum Jackie @JJG

Sounds like you have done amazingly well over the years, and found a system of managing your diabetes that works really well for you.

It’s not at all uncommon for folks to get overtaken by situation, circumstance, or simply fall off the wagon from time to time. The great thing is that you have noticed, and are wanting todo something about it.

Don’t worry about trying to snap straight back to the levels you were seeing before. It’s likely they began drifting quite slowly, and nudging them back down in gradual increments is much kinder on the fine blood vessels.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. 🙂

Look for to hearing more from you and the ways you find work for you over the coming months.

For a regular ‘check-in’ and bit of encouragement, you might like to join the regulars on the ‘waking average’ thread, where people share their first reading of the day, be it on target or way off, and offer each other some positivity and friendship.

https://forum.diabetes.org.uk/boards/threads/group-7-day-waking-average.20148/page-4832

 

[Annemarie]

@JJG Hello, I hope you find this forum welcoming and very helpful, I have learnt more about diabetes than I did while I was in a NHS hospital. I have also put on a lot of weight, mine has come on gradually over the last few years since my late type 1 diagnosis. Every time I try to cut down my sensor tells me I’m going low. If you want to share any suggestions or successes I would be more than happy to join you
Good luck

 

[rebrascora]

@Annemarie Sorry to hear you are putting on weight. If your sensor is regularly saying your levels are low and needing to eat carbs to bring them up, then you need to reduce your insulin doses or discuss a reduction with your nurse. It sounds like you are currently eating to feed your insulin, rather than adjusting your insulin to your needs. Have you been offered a DAFNE course or similar intensive education course? If not, ask your nurse about one. One of the huge benefits of the course is just spending a week with other Type 1s but the tutors go over your daily readings and help you to spot patterns which indicate when you need to adjust your doses, both meal time insulin (ratios) but more importantly basal insulin doses. For me that was a real turning point in helping me manage my diabetes well. I think we are often led to believe that basal doses are set in stone when in fact they need adjustment from time to time for a variety of reasons and recognizing when they need adjusting was the big thing I got from my DAFNE course.

You could also possibly increase your exercise/activity levels to combat the weight gain, but I think it is important to get the insulin doses right first and then reduce them further as you need to for exercise, so that you are not dropping low more often due to the exercise and therefore needing even more carbs! It is a fine balancing act but important to understand how it works and be able to adjust it yourself.... hence the course.

 

[Annemarie]

Thank you rebrascora, you have a valid point, I seem to feed my insulin sometimes. A nurse said I am ‘an erratic diabetic’ and I would have to find my way to deal with it. The first time I heard of DAFNE was this forum, I asked the hospital for DAFNE but it was not available for different reasons. I changed hospitals where all the staff are extremely nice but now it’s restarted, they send everyone to the other hospital for DAFNE. They are always available for advice but say my sensor readings indicate I am doing well, the majority of their patients are doing much worse. I had a nasty break in my ankle and foot before lockdown then caught MRSA while outpatient support was cancelled. I’ve had 5 operations leaving me with painful, difficult walking so my long rambles with the dog are history. Hence the 2 stone weight increase, I must be less complacent and take a fresh look at it. I did try a course on this site but my non existent computer skills caused it to shut down frequently. My 10 year old phone doesn’t help as the alarms don’t always ring, highs and lows can be missed. So although New Year’s Day has passed I need to think of some resolutions. Wish me luck!

 

[Leadinglights]

Hello, everyone. My name is Jacqui, I'm from Nottingham and will be celebrating my 80th birthday next month.
I have been on a low carb diet for many years and have successfully controlled my weight and blood sugars. Last year,I went through a traumatic time and began eating things I shouldn't and then ate extremely unwisely over Christmas. I am now trying to regularise my eating but am finding it very hard to bring my blood sugar numbers back down and fear I will have to return to using medication. I have joined this forum for inspiration and support and hope I can occasionally be of some help to others.

Hi JJG welcome to the forum
You have a few years on me but I also follow a low carb regime and managed to get my HbA1C down from 50mmol/mol to normal over the course of a year or so. It is very easy for things to slip and it can be helpful to start a food diary of everything you eat and drink with a estimate of the carbs and you may spot where you can make a few savings to get back on track without going back on to meds.
You may find some ideas in this link which will give you a new perspective to low carb. https://lowcarbfreshwell.co.uk/
Over the years the idea of what constitutes low carb may have changed, it is suggested that no more than 130g per day is where people should consider although some do go lower than that.

What sort of level has your blood glucose gone up to as that will give an idea of how much work you need to do. Do you have a blood glucose monitor so you can test the effect of foods and meals as it could be that you have become less tolerant of some of the carbs you are having.
If you would like to post some examples of the meals you have then people may spot things which may be causing a problem.