Hi! I’m new on the forum but have been diagnosed T2 for the past five years. I’ve been in total denial about it and feel, quite honestly, ashamed of myself; I’ve caused this due to my bad eating habits and lifestyle choices. I’ve managed to get away with not having to take any meds until now. I’m starting Metformin and the GP also wants to put me on statins as my cholesterol is now 7.6. I’m not happy about the statins but will read up more about them and try and make an informed decision.... So I’m here to glean information and advice and learn about everyone’s experiences. Thank you for having me.
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Hello!
- Thread starter Philomena
- Start date
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Eddy Edson
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- In remission from Type 2
Hi Philomena - Hi & welcome! Best of luck getting things under control.
As I'm sure you're aware, lifestyle stuff is usually the most important thing but don't feel bad about taking meds to help things along. IMO, both Metformin and statins are *triffic* drugs for what they're supposed to do, with minimal side effects unless you're a bit unlucky (Metformin) or very unlucky (statins).
Statins do sometimes get a bad rap but I think that's overblown & it's most useful to read up on what the expert bodies have to say rather than eg Dr Google's opinion. This from the American Heart Association is a thorough & detailed recent review of benefits and risks: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/ATV.0000000000000073
As I'm sure you're aware, lifestyle stuff is usually the most important thing but don't feel bad about taking meds to help things along. IMO, both Metformin and statins are *triffic* drugs for what they're supposed to do, with minimal side effects unless you're a bit unlucky (Metformin) or very unlucky (statins).
Statins do sometimes get a bad rap but I think that's overblown & it's most useful to read up on what the expert bodies have to say rather than eg Dr Google's opinion. This from the American Heart Association is a thorough & detailed recent review of benefits and risks: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/ATV.0000000000000073
Drummer
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Firstly you have not caused your diabetes, you have got it, and by changing what you eat it can be controlled, but you no more cause your diabetes than you caused the colour of your eyes or the shape of your ears.
For me Metformin and a statin was an absolute disaster, I was so ill when taking them - but I did not need them.
Once I cut down on the carbs I was eating as part of a healthy diet to lower cholesterol, my blood glucose levels became normal, and I got top end of normal results for my Hba1c tests.
For me Metformin and a statin was an absolute disaster, I was so ill when taking them - but I did not need them.
Once I cut down on the carbs I was eating as part of a healthy diet to lower cholesterol, my blood glucose levels became normal, and I got top end of normal results for my Hba1c tests.
Thank you, Eddy, Drummer and Carolg, for your replies and welcome to the forum. Eddy, I’ve had a read...reassuring. My GP’s leaving some info about statins in the surgery for me to pick up....no doubt it’ll be biased but I’ll read it, anyway. I think I’ve decided that I need to take them. Just hate the thought of being a slave to tablet-taking but on the other hand feel grateful for the expertise and medicines that help us lead decent lives.
Drummer, I must try harder to cut out carbs. When I do, I really notice that my bg readings are lower and very stable. Well done on your excellent healthy eating. I’m a terrible emotional eater, something I’ve had counselling for, but need to summon some willpower from somewhere.
Carolg, thank you for your words of encouragement. This will be my ‘go to’ website!
Drummer, I must try harder to cut out carbs. When I do, I really notice that my bg readings are lower and very stable. Well done on your excellent healthy eating. I’m a terrible emotional eater, something I’ve had counselling for, but need to summon some willpower from somewhere.
Carolg, thank you for your words of encouragement. This will be my ‘go to’ website!
KARNAK
Much Missed Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Hello Philomena welcome to the forum 🙂. As @Eddy Edson says take the tablets and see how you feel, I personally can`t take statins real bad side affects but I know of plenty of people who quite happily do. Your main concern is controlling your diet, so read as much as you can and do let us know how you are progressing, take care.
Thank you, Karnak. Definitely need to concentrate on diet issues. I’ve read up on lots of eating plans....Keto appeals to me as I love butter, cream, fatty meat etc! But the more I read the more confused I get...so much conflicting, and changing advice, every day just about!
What makes me mad is the lack of dietary help at the doctor’s surgery.
If you’re a smoker, drug user, alcoholic, there’s so much help out there...rehab, patches, counselling etc but if your addiction is food there is very little help. My experience is that the GP is primarily concerned with handing out meds and when I’ve asked to see the dietician, who only appears once in a blue moon at my rural practice, her advice is so outdated (eat lots of carbs, cut out fats etc) it’s virtually useless. The NHS really needs to wake up to the lack of proper nutrition advice at surgeries....I would really like a regular weigh-in session to try and keep me focussed, and also the fact that blood glucose monitors and test strips should be available to everyone who’d like them. I’m sure this would help a lot of diabetics.
What makes me mad is the lack of dietary help at the doctor’s surgery.
If you’re a smoker, drug user, alcoholic, there’s so much help out there...rehab, patches, counselling etc but if your addiction is food there is very little help. My experience is that the GP is primarily concerned with handing out meds and when I’ve asked to see the dietician, who only appears once in a blue moon at my rural practice, her advice is so outdated (eat lots of carbs, cut out fats etc) it’s virtually useless. The NHS really needs to wake up to the lack of proper nutrition advice at surgeries....I would really like a regular weigh-in session to try and keep me focussed, and also the fact that blood glucose monitors and test strips should be available to everyone who’d like them. I’m sure this would help a lot of diabetics.
Eddy Edson
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- In remission from Type 2
Mr Nerd here once again! A study from early this year attempting to compare different dietary approaches for Type 2 diabetes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5871653/
To me it seems like a fairly heroic effort to squeeze conclusions out of messy and probably too-incomplete data, but FWIW:
- For short-term HbA1c reduction, low-carb beats Mediterranean and paleo by a bit. Longer term, Mediterranean wins.
- For fasting BG reduction, Mediterranean wins and low-carb's ranking is way down.
Also, vegetarian and Low GI/GL approaches don't rank very highly.
SB2015
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Hi Philomena has said statins do get a bad press and I wonder whether some of the symptoms reported are ones that people are expecting to experience. Having said that I am in the fortunate position that, having had cholesterol at similar levels to yours and trying diet changes that failed, I took statins and got down straight away to below 5. I found I experienced no side effects.
Thanks for that, CathyB. Have you had an improvement in your blood results? Pleased you’ve had no problems with them.
And SB2015, that’s encouraging to know that you’ve got on well with them, too. Thank you.
Cheers, Mr Nerd!! (Eddy!). I did have a trawl through that report (and understood very little 😱) so was pleased that you summed it all up for me in very few words. I think I’m looking at going LCHF, is that the same as Keto? Have read up and watched stuff on YouTube. I was worried that eating a lot of fat, including butter, would raise cholesterol levels or increase heart problems but apparently this isn’t the case. But the more I think about diet plans and what I should and shouldn’t eat, the more confused I get. I feel I’m going round in circles and not getting anywhere. I do know that when I eat low carb my blood glucose doesn’t spike so that is good, I guess. I definitely can’t do low calorie, I know that!
And SB2015, that’s encouraging to know that you’ve got on well with them, too. Thank you.
Cheers, Mr Nerd!! (Eddy!). I did have a trawl through that report (and understood very little 😱) so was pleased that you summed it all up for me in very few words. I think I’m looking at going LCHF, is that the same as Keto? Have read up and watched stuff on YouTube. I was worried that eating a lot of fat, including butter, would raise cholesterol levels or increase heart problems but apparently this isn’t the case. But the more I think about diet plans and what I should and shouldn’t eat, the more confused I get. I feel I’m going round in circles and not getting anywhere. I do know that when I eat low carb my blood glucose doesn’t spike so that is good, I guess. I definitely can’t do low calorie, I know that!
Eddy Edson
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- In remission from Type 2
Really, I think the diet thing is only very confusing if you pay attention to YouTube, newspapers, Internet forums etc etc. If you go to expert bodies, you should find that there's a massive consensus for most dietary things. Though perhaps less clarity for how you fit diabetes into the picture.
The massive expert consensus is that saturated fat, very much including dairy fat and particularly butter, does increase "bad" cholesterol and that this in turn is bad for your heart, arteries etc. But part of the (manufactured, IMO) confusion turns on: compared to what?
Compared to refined carbs, saturated fats are pretty much a wash for heat etc health. Replacing Frosty Flakes with full-fat cream or bacon for breakfast will maybe make little difference for heart health, may be more nutritious in general (calcium, protein, B12 etc) and will likely be better for blood glucose.
But replacing unrefined carbs like fruit and oats with bacon is amazingly risky, from a heart etc health perspective, and while on the day you might see lower BG, longer term the BG benefits are not likely to be very much.
The point is that in dealing with T2D you really have to deal with both BG and cardiovascular stuff.
Again in Mr Nerd mode, this from the American Heart Association is an excellent review of dietary fat from an up-to-date mainstream perspective: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000510
In summary, randomized controlled trials that lowered intake of dietary saturated fat and replaced it with polyunsaturated vegetable oil reduced CVD by ≈30%, similar to the reduction achieved by statin treatment. Prospective observational studies in many populations showed that lower intake of saturated fat coupled with higher intake of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat is associated with lower rates of CVD and of other major causes of death and all-cause mortality. In contrast, replacement of saturated fat with mostly refined carbohydrates and sugars is not associated with lower rates of CVD and did not reduce CVD in clinical trials. Replacement of saturated with unsaturated fats lowers low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, a cause of atherosclerosis, linking biological evidence with incidence of CVD in populations and in clinical trials. Taking into consideration the totality of the scientific evidence, satisfying rigorous criteria for causality, we conclude strongly that lowering intake of saturated fat and replacing it with unsaturated fats, especially polyunsaturated fats, will lower the incidence of CVD. This recommended shift from saturated to unsaturated fats should occur simultaneously in an overall healthful dietary pattern such as DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) or the Mediterranean diet
So in simple terms: Avocados, nuts, seeds etc as sources of heart-healthy fats, plus minimally processed plant-based carbs. Maybe a moderate amount of preferrably low-fat dairy for protein, calcium etc. Fish (best) and a moderate amount of poultry in preference to red meat.
Circling back to the T2D question: how do you fit it in to these types of guideline, which always call eg for an increase in whole grains and fruit as sources of heart-healthy carbs and fibre? Personally, bread of any kind is my Nemesis as far as BG is concerned (also pasta and rice, but I never ate as much of these). And I have a suspicion that eating bread might have given me diabetes, rather than my diabetes causing my sensitivity to it - many non-diabetics display a similar sensitivity.
My solution was to cut way down on bread and replace it with seeds and more nuts. This, hopefully, gives the same fibre and other nutrition benefits as whole grains without the BG effects. Radically cutting fruit never made any sense to me for overall health but I did cut back portion sizes for a while.
Anyway, a tedious thing about T2D is that you do have to put some work into this stuff, and the official diabetes-specific guidelines are sometimes not hugely helpful, but following up-to-date expert general nutrition guidelines (rather than YouTube etc) plus individual experimentation can allow you to map out a good path forward.
Yes I certainly have, my starting point was 22 and I am now averaging 5.5
Thank you, Eddy Edson. It’s a flipping minefield, isn’t it. I’m just getting more and more confused trying to get my head round the whole food issue. And also what diet is best for diabetes/CVD. Then I read other stuff which conflicts before I’ve realised it applies to non-diabetics and get further confused!
Anyway, I’ve started the Keto plan. Low carb, not too much protein, (mainly) olive oil...cold-pressed, and a bit of butter, with lots of veg. I started Metformin a few days ago, 500mg daily, but I’ve stopped for the time being as I’m a bit bothered that it might interfere somehow with the low carb thing and bg levels.
Anyway, I’ve started the Keto plan. Low carb, not too much protein, (mainly) olive oil...cold-pressed, and a bit of butter, with lots of veg. I started Metformin a few days ago, 500mg daily, but I’ve stopped for the time being as I’m a bit bothered that it might interfere somehow with the low carb thing and bg levels.
D
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I took all the meds that were required.
I could post more, but I really think Eddy has nailed it, so I will only say, he posts from a fact based perspective.
I could post more, but I really think Eddy has nailed it, so I will only say, he posts from a fact based perspective.
Hello! Just a little update....
Had my latest blood test results and am very pleased to say that my GP has told me I have reversed my diabetes 🙂.
Cholesterol is still a bit on the high side but liver function is now normal, blood pressure has come down a lot and the bloods, which had been as high as 55, are now 39.
I started the Keto eating plan on the 2nd January after I decided I wasn’t going to take the prescribed Metformin and have lost two stone so far. I keep my carbs round about the 20g a day level and I can honestly say I don’t miss bread, potatoes, pasta etc...I’ve completely overhauled my eating habits and love the Keto way of eating. I also now IF. I was a bit scared at first to be honest as I hate feeling hungry but found that I don’t feel hungry at all...and I feel so empowered by it. The longest I’ve gone so far is 20 hours and it was easy!
The first month or so I wrote down everything I ate and did blood glucose prick tests like a maniac. I soon saw readings in the 4s which spurred me on even more. Now I only test once in a while as I’ve got so used to what I can eat so I know the numbers will be low.
I’ve had days where I’ve fallen off the wagon and on those days I just give in and eat what I’m craving....toast, chocolate, whatever....enjoy it, then get back onto it the next day.
I’ve found a great eating plan that I know I can stick to which includes all the things I love...cream in my coffee, fatty cuts of meat, lots of veg, eggs etc (I even love spinach and avocados now!😉) and I never feel hungry.
Still have a way to go but I’m getting there!
Had my latest blood test results and am very pleased to say that my GP has told me I have reversed my diabetes 🙂.
Cholesterol is still a bit on the high side but liver function is now normal, blood pressure has come down a lot and the bloods, which had been as high as 55, are now 39.
I started the Keto eating plan on the 2nd January after I decided I wasn’t going to take the prescribed Metformin and have lost two stone so far. I keep my carbs round about the 20g a day level and I can honestly say I don’t miss bread, potatoes, pasta etc...I’ve completely overhauled my eating habits and love the Keto way of eating. I also now IF. I was a bit scared at first to be honest as I hate feeling hungry but found that I don’t feel hungry at all...and I feel so empowered by it. The longest I’ve gone so far is 20 hours and it was easy!
The first month or so I wrote down everything I ate and did blood glucose prick tests like a maniac. I soon saw readings in the 4s which spurred me on even more. Now I only test once in a while as I’ve got so used to what I can eat so I know the numbers will be low.
I’ve had days where I’ve fallen off the wagon and on those days I just give in and eat what I’m craving....toast, chocolate, whatever....enjoy it, then get back onto it the next day.
I’ve found a great eating plan that I know I can stick to which includes all the things I love...cream in my coffee, fatty cuts of meat, lots of veg, eggs etc (I even love spinach and avocados now!😉) and I never feel hungry.
Still have a way to go but I’m getting there!
@Philomena this is such a lovely post to read, well done you! Talk about positive attitude girl, you are smashing it out the water
Aw, thank you, @CathyB , for your kind words.
Honestly, I never knew I could lose weight so easily, eating foods I love, without feeling hungry - it’s never happened before! Am so pleased I discovered Keto and IF (and Dr Fung on YouTube).
I’ve learned so much from this forum and YouTube and done lots of research as I realised I had to deal with my diabetes MY way - no way was I taking advice from the Diabetic Nurse (cut down on fat, eat lots of carbs) and I knew I didn’t want to take the meds.
Cutting right down on the carbs and losing a bit of weight equals amazing results!
Hope you’re well.🙂
Honestly, I never knew I could lose weight so easily, eating foods I love, without feeling hungry - it’s never happened before! Am so pleased I discovered Keto and IF (and Dr Fung on YouTube).
I’ve learned so much from this forum and YouTube and done lots of research as I realised I had to deal with my diabetes MY way - no way was I taking advice from the Diabetic Nurse (cut down on fat, eat lots of carbs) and I knew I didn’t want to take the meds.
Cutting right down on the carbs and losing a bit of weight equals amazing results!
Hope you’re well.🙂
Ljc
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1.5 LADA
Oh wow .
I am seriously impressed in what you have achieved and in such a short space of time too.
You are in good company here in ignoring the usual nhs dietary advice , in fact till I saw my new diabetes nurse a few months ago I did not discuss my diet with the practice nurses , my new nurse however shows great promise, so I think the nhs dietary advise is slowly being dragged into the 21st century
I am seriously impressed in what you have achieved and in such a short space of time too.
You are in good company here in ignoring the usual nhs dietary advice , in fact till I saw my new diabetes nurse a few months ago I did not discuss my diet with the practice nurses , my new nurse however shows great promise, so I think the nhs dietary advise is slowly being dragged into the 21st century
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