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Hello - new here and a bit bewildered

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4

4blue1pink

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Carer/Partner
Hello, been nosing around the forums last night and am so glad I found them relatively early in our diabetes journey. I am a carer of a very complex husband who is really over the past few years taking the in sickness and for poorer to new levels of heights .. he went into hospital last weekend thinking his heart was playing up (again) and to cut a long story short came home with diabetes as an additional diagnosis instead. I can't say that we were particularly shocked but having spent the past week trying to come to terms with what will be a huge life change to both of us (I am not diabetic, but I am a fan of cake) - I think I am now more bewildered more than anything. There seems so much to learn. We would obviously like to do everything we can to keep him healthy and hopefully get his blood sugar down so I am here looking for tips on food really. Exercise alas is going to be a bit of an issue for him due to other health conditions but we shall see.
 
Hello @4blue1pink ,

Thank you so much for joining our community forum. I am so sorry to hear about your partner's diagnosis and can only imagine how difficult it must be for you. It may be helpful to read some of our food recipes which can be found here:

forum.diabetes.org.uk

Recipes

Post links to your favourite recipes here! If it's not your own recipe, please share where the recipe came from
forum.diabetes.org.uk forum.diabetes.org.uk

It may also be helpful for you or your partner to check out our learning zone to manage his diabetes which can be found here:

Landing Page | Diabetes UK Learning Zone

learningzone.diabetes.org.uk learningzone.diabetes.org.uk

Please feel free to join in any conversation you may find helpful.
 
I’m recently diagnosed but as there’s a family history I’ve been half expecting it for some years. Notwithstanding that, the single most important thing I’ve learnt from DUK and forum is that it’s about carbohydrates - not sugar.

You don’t really need to understand the science but take on board that you and your husband need to control his consumption of carbs. Read labels, keep a food diary etc. You’ll find all this advice here. For the first part of your new lifestyle just concentrate on reducing his carb intake. Then it will become easier. Good luck.
 
Hi and welcome from me too.

We all understand how overwhelming and confusing it is in the beginning, so do not feel that you are alone in this. Things will slowly start to make sense and this forum can certainly help you with this journey and many people have had some quite miraculous results from changing their way of eating. Some have managed to come down from very high readings and push their diabetes into remission and even come off medication and maintain their remission through diet alone, but it takes a bit of getting used to and a will to change.

It would help to know some information about your husband's diagnosis.... Has he been diagnosed as Type 1 or Type 2 diabetic?

What, if any medication has he been given for it?

Do you know his HbA1c reading as that tells us roughly where on the diabetic scale he is.... I am guessing it may be very high since he was hospitalised.

Has he been given a Blood Glucose Monitor, to take readings from a finger prick blood spot?

As @HenryBennett says, it is about all carbohydrates not just sugar as many people at first assume. Carbohydrates are both starches and sugars and the body breaks them all down into glucose which is absorbed into the blood stream and gets a bit stuck there in us diabetics. Reducing the amount of carbs we eat will mean that less glucose goes in and gives our body a better chance of coping with it.
The easiest way to do this is firstly to cut back on the obvious sweet stuff like cakes, biscuits, sweets/chocolate and added sugar but it may also surprise you to know that fruit in all it's forms (fresh, dried, canned and juiced) is also high in sugar and needs rationing. Then there are the starchy foods like bread, pasta, rice, couscous, potatoes and particularly breakfast cereals which are usually a combination of sugars and starches. Reducing portion size of these items is equally important to manage your husband's diabetes.

It may seem like there is not much left to eat, when in fact a low carb diet can be quite enjoyable but it does take a bit of getting your head around. Perhaps if you tell us the sort of things he currently eats for breakfast, lunch and evening meal, we can perhaps make alternative low carb suggestions. We do need to know about his medication though as that needs to be reflected in the advice we give.

Look forward to hearing back from you when you have time.
 
Hi thank you all so much for such a friendly welcome. Hubs has other issues, mainly to do with heart and lungs, and following a shock from his ICD went to hospital as he didn't feel right. It was during some routine checks in the hospital that they discovered he had type two diabetes. His blood sugar on admission was 18 which they were not too concerned about - but they ran another test (HbA1c which was 99) and that is when they told him he had diabetes. He was initially put on 500mg metformin for the first couple of days and that has gone up to twice a day. Initially the diabetes nurse in the hospital told him to eat a healthy diet. We immediately cut out all refined sugars as our diet is quite high in those (we both have sweet teeth) - cakes, biscuits etc - he has since spoken to the dietician at the hospital (who recommended diabetes UK hence why I am here) and the diabetic nurse from the GP surgery called yesterday (she is also the warfarin nurse for our son so not so sure who was more surprised making the call) - she has told him to watch the carbs and has given him a machine to check his blood sugar but told him to check it daily … three different medical professionals all telling him something slightly different as well - hubs won't come onto forums like this unfortunately (and for someone with a psychology degree .. I digress) - but I need to know because if diabetes is anything like his heart condition its a good idea to know what is going on if anything goes wrong.
 
Great that your nurse has supplied you with a BG monitor and you have been given reasonable dietary advice. ie cutting the sugar and sweet stuff out but also cutting carbs.
I too had a sweet tooth pre diagnosis and in fact I would go so far as to say I was a sugar addict with a pretty heavy habit. Diabetes may have been the best thing to happen to me because I needed to clean up my act and that diagnosis gave me the kick up the bot I needed to sort it. I love the fact that I now have it under control and that I now find sweetness in things which I previously considered sour. My tastes have changes and I like different things now. Cheese is my new chocolate and I love a good blue cheese which previously I hated. I do have the odd square of dark 70%+ chocolate and I eat it with a spoonful of crunchy peanut butter to bulk it out and make it more satisfying, but I enjoy savoury foods more now.

Breaking the habit was important for me whereas we have some wonderful bakers here on the forum who have experimented with low carb ingredients and bake fabulous low carb cakes and breads etc, so that they can continue to indulge their sweet tooth and eat similar foods to pre diagnosis.

I now find that following a low carb higher fat (LCHF) way of eating, I eat much less food and usually just once or twice a day and I enjoy what I eat and my weight is stable at a normal BMI ..... For instance this morning I had a cup of coffee with double cream instead of milk and sugar as I used to drink it (cream contains less carbs, lactose, than milk) and I really enjoy that, followed by a 2 egg omelette with bacon, onion, aubergine and 3 cheese filling (I was emptying the last remnants from the fridge before I go shopping) served with a large salad of lettuce leaves, 2 cherry tomatoes, cucumber and creamy coleslaw..... there is a small amount of carbs in the onion and cherry tomatoes but not enough to worry about. Much lower carb than toast and marmalade or a bowl of cereal and I will not need to eat again until tonight because the fat and protein from the cream, cheese, eggs and bacon will keep me from feeling hungry for the rest of the day because they take longer to digest. Carbohydrates break down very quickly in the digestive tract to give you a blood glucose spike and then 2-3 hour later you come crashing down and that triggers you to want to eat again, which is why we feel the need to snack all the time and get fat even though we don't need any more food.

Anyway, I am pleased you feel welcome. There is a lot to learn but don't feel too overwhelmed.... take your time and start making small changes. Perhaps just cut out all the sweet stuff for a week or two and then maybe choose just one meal and make some lower carb swaps and stick at that for a week or two and then work on making changes to another meal. Breakfast is often the easiest meal to change because we tend to eat the same things most mornings, so it is easier to form a new habit with lower carb foods.

Best wishes
 
grovesy said:
What is ICD?
Click to expand...
An ICD is an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator - my husband has a condition that can put his heart into dangerous rhythms. His ICD monitors his heart and if it senses that it is going into a dangerous rhythm then it delivers a shock straight to his heart to reset it again.
 
4blue1pink said:
An ICD is an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator - my husband has a condition that can put his heart into dangerous rhythms. His ICD monitors his heart and if it senses that it is going into a dangerous rhythm then it delivers a shock straight to his heart to reset it again.
Click to expand...
Thank you.
 
Welcome to the forum @4blue1pink

You’ve had good advice and suggestions already, for a bit of background and an overview of diabetes and its management members here frequently recommend Maggie Davey’s Letter and Gretchen Becker’s book, as very helpful starting points.

There are literally centuries of lived diabetes experience on the forum - so feel free to ask any questions you have, no matter how ‘silly’ or obvious you think they might be!

Diabetes is a serious condition, but it’s also one that can usually be managed well with a few changes and adaptations - it’s something that you can learn to live well with, and it shouldn’t stop you doing things you both enjoy.

Hope you can find your way through the maze of multiple overlapping conditions and find a way to fit diabetes management among them.
 
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