Hello - newbie here and quite anxious

[PSC79]

Hi, I'm Paul, 42 years old, Type 2 diabetic. Diagnosed in July 2019 following a pre-op blood test. Ashamedly, I've only started to take notice of it in the last two months, or rather I've started to worry about it (a lot).

I was 22st when I was first diagnosed and I'm 19st 5lb now. Thats the only thing I've managed to slowly improve. My blood sugar level when diagnosed was 96 and the last check was last summer and I'd managed to get it to 83...I use the term "managed" very loosely. I need to get it to 69 or below before they can operate, its nothing major and I'm in two minds whether I still want the op anyway, but obviously I want my blood sugar in between 42 and 48 (I believe thats the healthy range) and hopefully I can come off the metformin. Recently I've been getting tingling in my feet too.

Other conditions I have are depression, though I manage that without medication and in my low times I can still manage to think rationally, though this doesn't get me off the sofa to the gym or for a walk and has me eating all the wrong things.

I also have Sleep apnea and I have a CPAP machine for this. Sadly, I also smoke 20 a day and this one of my main worries with being diabetic for obvious reasons. I am planning on booking on the Allen Carr Easyway to stop smoking clinic next week and this has over 70% success rate. If anyone has any tips to quit or has done the Easyway, I'd be happy to hear.

I need help with my diet mostly, I struggle for ideas as to what meals to make other than stuff I shouldn't eat.

Anyway, sorry for waffling on....I look forward to interacting with people here and taking on board advice and tips.

Thanks

 

[janw]

Hi Paul and welcome. I'm still pretty new to this so don't have many answers but, yes, the closer you can get to the low 40's the better.
You really need to look at your diet and start to reduce your carbs, just take it one meal at a time, don't rush to go low carb as that can cause other issues, just take it slow - you may need to have your metformin adjusted as your BG goes down. Do you have a BG meter? I would advise you to get one so you can check your number before you eat and again 2 hours after you began eating it - you look for a rise no more than 3 mmol - if it is higher then you will know some carb/s you just ate has caused a spike, then you can try reducing the portion or finding an alternative. If you want recipe ideas, then google low carb or keto for some good ideas, but also check out the What I Ate Yesterday thread in General - you will find food ideas from the various types of diabetes, but check the type 2s mainly.
Smoking, yes I gave up over 14 months back (turned to sweets and other junk - and here I am now a type 2). I went cold turkey, so I can't help you with the Allen Carr way, nor any others, but I do belong to a stop smoking group on FB that have discussions on various ways. I found that helpful in the beginning as I could also get support as well as tips etc - might be worth you checking one out, just an idea anyway.
Exercise - this can be any movement, though ones that get your breathing heavier are better. Take a walk, dance in the privacy of your own home, use cans of baked beans as weights (they get rather heavy after a while!), go up and down the stairs a few times, march on the spot - there are many things you can try to get motivated. I use the exercise bike, I'm building my time back up as I neglected it the past few weeks with being poorly.
Another good idea is to keep an online food diary (free ones work just as well), that way you can see how you are doing on a daily basis with each meal, snack, drink etc and work on keeping to your limits.
I hope this will help you a little - if you have any other questions or thoughts, do ask and someone will always get back to you - there's such a friendly bunch on here, it is a good site for help and support, I'd have been lost without it.

 

[gll]

Hi Paul. Welcome 🙂

janw has given you a heap of awesome advice already.
Just wanted to add that I quit smoking by moving onto vaping. Not totally off that but on very low dose nicotine now and boy do my lungs thank me for it!

 

[Inka]

Welcome @PSC79 🙂 You’ve made a start by losing that weight, and you’ve also identified other things you need to do like changing your diet and giving up smoking. One thing I will point out is that 42-48 HbA1C is not the normal range, it’s the pre-diabetic range. Ideally you’d be below that.

For your diet, basically you need to look at the amount of carbs you’re eating per day, and limit that amount. If you’d like to give people an idea of what an average day’s food looks like for you now, you’ll get some suggestions for adjustments.

 

[PSC79]

Hi Paul and welcome. I'm still pretty new to this so don't have many answers but, yes, the closer you can get to the low 40's the better.
You really need to look at your diet and start to reduce your carbs, just take it one meal at a time, don't rush to go low carb as that can cause other issues, just take it slow - you may need to have your metformin adjusted as your BG goes down. Do you have a BG meter? I would advise you to get one so you can check your number before you eat and again 2 hours after you began eating it - you look for a rise no more than 3 mmol - if it is higher then you will know some carb/s you just ate has caused a spike, then you can try reducing the portion or finding an alternative. If you want recipe ideas, then google low carb or keto for some good ideas, but also check out the What I Ate Yesterday thread in General - you will find food ideas from the various types of diabetes, but check the type 2s mainly.
Smoking, yes I gave up over 14 months back (turned to sweets and other junk - and here I am now a type 2). I went cold turkey, so I can't help you with the Allen Carr way, nor any others, but I do belong to a stop smoking group on FB that have discussions on various ways. I found that helpful in the beginning as I could also get support as well as tips etc - might be worth you checking one out, just an idea anyway.
Exercise - this can be any movement, though ones that get your breathing heavier are better. Take a walk, dance in the privacy of your own home, use cans of baked beans as weights (they get rather heavy after a while!), go up and down the stairs a few times, march on the spot - there are many things you can try to get motivated. I use the exercise bike, I'm building my time back up as I neglected it the past few weeks with being poorly.
Another good idea is to keep an online food diary (free ones work just as well), that way you can see how you are doing on a daily basis with each meal, snack, drink etc and work on keeping to your limits.
I hope this will help you a little - if you have any other questions or thoughts, do ask and someone will always get back to you - there's such a friendly bunch on here, it is a good site for help and support, I'd have been lost without it.

Thanks @janw

I don't have a BG meter, I was told I didn't need one as I didn't need to monitor my blood sugar levels regularly, but get a blood test done every 6 months, I must admit, I found that a bit strange and was expecting I would need to monitor them daily. I don't fully understand the readings if I'm honest, my brother-in-law is type one and has a pump thing and is constantly monitoring his levels on an app on his phone.

My downfall is bread, pasta, potatoes and chocolate. I snack a lot because I don't prepare meals and I work long hours on a rotating shift pattern, so my sleep pattern is all over the place too and I eat far too many takeaways.

I appreciate your advice, I will look into the low carb and keto recipes, hopefully kick the smoking into touch next week and get myself moving a lot more and next time I see my diabetes nurse, I'll ask about monitoring my blood sugars more regularly.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @PSC79

Well done on your weight loss, and great to hear you have plans in place to try to stop smoking - that will make a huge difference health and wellbeing-wise.

Sorry to hear about your experiences of depression. Good to hear you have management strategies in place for that. Hopefully some of the other positive changes you are making will also have a positive effect on your mood (improving BG levels can have a positive impact on mood in themselves, and increasing activity has well known benefits). But as you know, depression and low mood can make self-care more difficult, so be kind to yourself, and nurture your motivation and determination. You can do this!

When it comes to checking your own BG levels, experiences vary, but some practices actively try to dissuade people with T2 from self-monitoring. However many members here find it a very valuable way of seeing how their individual body reacts to different types, amounts, and sources of carbs (rather than just relying on their reputation).

If you need to self-fund your BG meter and strips it can make a huge difference which model you pick, as the cost of the strips varies significantly. The most affordable meters that members here have found are the SD Gluco Navii or the Spirit Tee2 - which both have test strips at around £8 for 50

You can take a reading immediately before eating, and again 2hrs after the first bite, and look at the difference between the two readings. Initially, in a sense the ‘meal rise’ is actually more important than the numbers themselves. Ideally you’d be aiming for a rise of no more than 2-3mmol/L. And ultimately at the 2hr mark you would want your readings to be below 8.5mmol/L. If you keep your meal rises down to fairly modest levels, your overall average BG should come down gently on its own - which is kinder on your fine blood vessels than a big rapid change.

Home BG meters offer ‘spot check’ values in mmol/L of what your levels are at that moment. This is slightly different to the blood-out-of-your-arm HbA1c checks which give the 42-47 / 96 / 83 / 69 ‘mmol/mol’ values that you’ve been given so far. The HbA1c tells you what has been happening over the past 120 days or so, but it can’t tell you what happened after breakfast 🙂

Good luck and keep asking questions!

 

[gll]

If you mention you want it to help you learn what your own body responds well or not so well to so you can pinpoint problem areas and make dietary adjustments they might see it as an overall positive impact on your management and get you sorted with a meter.
They did that for me anyway but would have got it one a week later with a change in meds.

 

[Leadinglights]

Your brother in law with Type 1 will be checking regularly because of the insulin regime he is on but Type 1 is a very different condition.
You say yourself that your nemesis is the potatoes, bread, pasta which are the basis of quick easy to grab meals but sadly will do your blood glucose levels no favours. Chocolate is something that people will have as a treat but usually dark chocolate which is better just not a whole bar at once.
When you are pushed for time it is an easy option to grab a take away but you can with a bit of planning make you own low carb 'take away' but from the freezer. If you find a few recipes which when you get your blood glucose monitor you can test to make sure you can tolerate them and then make a big batch which you can freeze in portions for other days.
Quick meals are omelettes with a variety of fillings with a big salad and coleslaw or cooked meats with salad, bacon and eggs or high meat content sausages with veg.
By having more healthy fat in your meals you will find you are less hungry and less likely to snack on what are usually high carb foods. Nuts, olives, cheese, full fat yogurt with berries or seeds, boiled eggs make good snacks.
There are some lower carb alternatives to potatoes like butternut squash, celeriac, and there are some low carb pastas made from edamame beans or black beans. There are a few lower carb breads around so you could look own for those. Burgen soy and Linseed or Livlife are a couple.
As you said yourself it is time to take this seriously especially if it impacts on getting your surgery.