Hello! Type 2 - Diagnosed Dec 17

[CivicFreak]

Hello all!!

Just wanted to introduce myself. I'm Brian, I am 37 and was diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic last December. I had had symptoms from around July 2017 but didn't realise they were symptoms - excessive thirst, going to toilet a lot, blurred vision and extreme weight loss, having lost around 2 1/2 stone in around 2 months. I was never huge to begin with. I am tall and have always been fairly stocky, weighing around 16 stone at my heaviest but this dropped to around 13 1/2 stone by September. This only came to light as I had been away for 2 weeks holiday in August and came back to work my colleagues couldn't believe how much weight I'd lost in 2 weeks. I left it for a while as I felt ok but then I got a leg tattoo in October that seemed to take around 7 weeks to heal and was immensely painful, and was weeping a lot. It wasn't my first tattoo and all my previous ones healed within 2-3 weeks and at the request of my girlfriend who was concerned about my continued weight loss I decided to get checked out.

After a blood test I was immediately sent to hospital due to a HbA1C reading of 122 and the presence of ketones in my urine. After more blood tests over the coming weeks, and the doctors not being able to determine whether I am type 1 or 2, the doctors eventually settled on type 2 and so put me on metformin, starting at 500mg a day but increasing over time to 2000mg a day. At my last check up in February my A1C reading was down to 40 and my average BG is between 6 and 7 and seems stable. I bought myself a blood monitor so I can keep an eye on this and test a couple of times a week before and after meals.

I started exercise regularly and have cut out all sweet snacks and drinks which seems to be helping my BG greatly. My long term goal is to get off medication and manage my diabetes by diet and exercise alone but the fear is not knowing how much of an impact this will have as I don't know much about how Metformin works but now 7 months in I am happy with my progress, though I don't want to be on metformin forever.

Sorry for the wall of text but wanted to give a proper introduction and background around my diagnosis. Hope to make some new friends here and also gain some useful insights into how to deal with Diabetes, and also offer some if I can!!!

 

[CathyB]

Hi and welcome 🙂 well done for getting your numbers down, sounds like you have things well under control 😉 loads to read and learn here so take your time and explore, feel free to ask any questions as there is a wealth of experience here

 

[CivicFreak]

Hi Cathy,

Thank you for the kind welcome! Slowly learning as I go on, but even before I signed up I had been using this site for a while and already have had some great tips.

Hopefully I will also soon be in a position to return the favour and I'll be able to help others 🙂

 

[Radders]

Hi Brian, glad you found your way here.

 

[Ralph-YK]

Welcome to the forum Brian from a fellow T2. That's quite a drop in HbA1c.

 

[Maz2]

Welcome to this very helpful and friendly Forum. You seem to have done very well with your levels so far.

If you like cooking have a look at some of the recipes on here in the "Food and Recipes" section.

There are some meet ups at various places around the country which you may at some stage be able to get to.

 

[Stitch147]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

 

[CivicFreak]

Hi all, thank you for the welcomes 🙂

It's great to be part of this community. I've seen how others have been helped and really want to be a part of that. @Maz2 I'm in the Hull area so if there are any meet ups around there I would be interested.

One open question I have is around monitoring. I read so much that BG testing for type 2 is pointless, but as I only have a couple of check ups a year how am I supposed to know if the changes I am making are good or not? So as I said above I bought my own. Question is, when should I test? I have started off testing before and after evening meals and sometimes first thing in the morning before breakfast. But as I exercise in the evening usually around an hour after my evening meal, will this give me an accurate enough reading, or do I need to test before I exercise to understand what effect the food itself is having on my body? Just interested to know how others with type 2 manage this.

Thanks in advance for your help 🙂

 

[Ralph-YK]

Question is, when should I test? I have started off testing before and after evening meals and sometimes first thing in the morning before breakfast. But as I exercise in the evening usually around an hour after my evening meal, will this give me an accurate enough reading, or do I need to test before I exercise to understand what effect the food itself is having on my body? Just interested to know how others with type 2 manage this.

You could test before and after the exercise, to see what difference that makes. Generally, the advice is 1 -2 hours after eating. I think you've made a good start. If you keep a food diary along with a record of your levels, hopefully after a couple of weeks you will start to see a pattern.
I've heard the whether can make a difference to your levels. I'm wondering if some people are slightly lower than they would be in december.

 

[CivicFreak]

Funnily enough, when I first started losing weight I did keep a food diary to monitor my calorie intake, but since being diagnosed I stopped all that. Now I have my monitor I will start this back up so that, as you say I can see patterns. Noticed that since being on metformin my weight has pretty much stabilised - not dropping any more and not going above 14 stone either. Not sure if this is down to the exercise and the cutting out of sugary foods (I don't look at my carbs too much, and given my readings I don't seem to have too much of a concern here), or if the metformin is also playing a part here. Time will tell!

Thanks for the good advice 🙂