Hello!

[Mushystar]

Hi, newly diagnosed type 2 (American transplant to the UK) here. Was just called by my gp on Monday to confirm my hba1c was a 51. I've been having symptoms for several years now but just showed as pre-diabetic (at a 46) last year.
My appointment with the diabetic nurse is this coming Wednesday for a "lifestyle" consultation, etc. I told her when she called that I would also like to discuss medication as I have frequent hypos (daily, usually more than once a day). She let me know that I have a 20 minute appointment booked in...

Being from America, its been really difficult for me to get used to the timed dr appointments...I feel like I have to rush and maybe I don't get all of my questions asked or my concerns addressed. I'm just nervous about the whole thing, and my husband would like to have some education on diabetes as he knows nothing about it.

I've just received my monitor today (so happy for the sd codefree one, wow test strips are stupid expensive!). I've been fairly careful about what I ate and the amount of exercise I've been getting since my pre-diabetic diagnosis last year, but have been on a low-carb, low-sugar diet for a couple of weeks now, and plan to continue it.

Anyways, history:

I'm 33, overweight (5ft 10 and 270lbs) and an ex-smoker (2 years quit!!). I had insulin-dependent gestational with my last pregnancy 7 years ago, and both of my babies were over 9lbs. My dad is Type 2 (was diagnosed at 42), and 2 of his brothers and one sister were also diabetic. There's also a fairly large amount of Native American blood in my background.

I'm happy for any tips, questions advice etc. And so glad that this site is here!

 

[Docb]

Hi Mushystar. 270lbs? is that a typo? If it is right then you are, by British standards, way beyond merely overweight. 170 lbs or thereabouts would be what would be considered ideal for your height. Also, are you sure you are getting hypos? You are only at risk of hypos when your blood glucose drops below 4 and for that to happen you would need already to be on insulin or some other insulin promoting drug.

Assuming 270lbs is not a typo my guess is that your diabetic nurse will focus on getting together a plan to get your weight down. That should get your HBA1C down to sub diabetic levels without too much difficulty. 51 is just over the limit and standard treatment is to start with diet and exercise as a means of getting things under control. Medication comes if that route is unsuccessful and many will tell you to avoid the medication if at all possible.

There are a lot of people here who have been where you are and their thoughts and advice are based on their own experience. Read through some posts and you will see themes emerging. You can then figure out what route to getting things right best suits you.

Welcome aboard the roller coaster!

 

[Mushystar]

No, not a typo. I'm aware of the weight problem and the goals of diet/exercise as being the first step, but I'm also positive that I need to be on something to regulate my levels.

And yes, hypos. As in shaking, sweating, dizzy, confused, thirsty, chills, etc. Usually 3-4 hours after eating it's like I go high and then crash. And it's daily.

Thanks for the response!

 

[Ditto]

This thread is a hoot! Only in the UK! So funny. I don't think 270 is a lot, my sister went up to 20stone after having her youngest. She's lost it since and is now just comfortably rounded. 🙂 I suppose it is better off than on.

Welcome to the forum mushystar. 🙂

 

[CathyB]

Hi Mushystar and welcome to the family 🙂

You say you have the code free meter, what are you daily readings like? How often to you test? How are you approaching the low carb diet? Remember that fruits also have loads of sugar, especially the tropical ones and grapes are little sugar balls so best avoided, some can tolerate a few berries but I can’t so stick to no more than 2 small apples a day. I was overweight on diagnosis and had yo-yo dieted all my life, when I started low carb I cut out completely rice, pasta, potatoes and bread other than Burgen bread that I limited to 2 slices a day I tested first thing in the morning, before each meal and again 2 hours after looking for a rise of no more than 2 points, tracking my readings in a food diary so I could see what foods worked or not, it made it so much easier to work out what I could eat. The only exercise I do is walking my neighbours dog, I am never going to be a gym person 😱! The walking was solely to keep my bg levels down, but I soon noticed that my weight was also coming down, now a year later I have lost 4 stone without really trying and my bloods and cholesterol are both back in normal range 😎

 

[Mushystar]

Hello!
When I had gd, I would test on waking, before bed, and before and after meals. I plan to start out doing the same just so I can get a better idea of what's going on throughout the day. I've only had 2 readings today, one to test the meter about an hour after eating breakfast (plain oat cheerios-the ones with no sugar with 2 percent milk and a banana), which was 11.4. Then about 4.5 hours later, I started feeling shaky etc and was 4.8. I ate (chicken stir fry, made with olive oil onion, mushroom, green pepper and cauliflower rice) and will test again in about half an hour.

Dietwise, I haven't ate bread for about a year. If I want something breadish-its a wrap with a tortilla. I don't eat crisps or chips (maybe once a month), pasta is only maybe 2-3 times a month...but I've been eating a ton of rice. So that's going to cauliflower/sweet potato/brown rice from now on. I don't drink anything with caffeine in, no coffee or tea or soda. I might have juice a handful of times per month.

I don't have much fruit. Usually a banana in the morning, sometimes a clem or tangerine. I love blackberries and strawberries but I can live without them. I've read that apples are relatively ok in moderation...

I eat mostly chicken, fresh vegetables-i quite like salads for lunch with lettuces/spinach /rocket, carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, cheese. Light salad dressing that's vinegar based. Margarine instead of butter. Don't frequently have milk (bit of a lactose intolerance since having my gallbladder removed in 2010). No cakes, no chocolate or sweets etc. Nuts or peanut butter as a snack. LOADS of label reading.

I walk avg 1.5-2 miles per day, avg is around 50 miles per month. I drink alcohol only a couple of times a month.

However, I love pizza, veggie samosas, spring rolls... All that delicious fattening pastry.

I'd like to lose at least 50lbs. I'm hoping that being super strict on myself dietwise will get me to that goal.

 

[HOBIE]

Welcome Mushystar & well done for cutting the tabs (smoking) Pls keep active as you can. Good luck 🙂

 

[Mushystar]

Thanks! It was just the first bit of the long journey to being healthy!

 

[Docb]

Apologies to Ditto and Mushy! I was trying to raise the issue without causing offence and when it comes to ladies and their weight it can be a bit tricky. Thanks for taking it it in good humour.

Needs somebody far more knowledgeable than me to work out why you are getting the symptoms you describe. May I suggest you get a note book and start a diary, recording everything. What you eat and when you eat it, what blood glucose measurements you make and when you made them. Take the diary with you when you go to see your diabetes nurse. That way you don't have to rely on your memory, and somehow the medics will take more notice of what is written down rather than what is said.

Watch the rice, that is very carbohydrate heavy and in terms of carbohydrate it really does not matter if it is white, brown or green. Anything with wheat flour is a bit of a no-no for me. White, brown or green bread, pizza, samosas, tortillas completely off the menu. Fruit also a problem for me, got a big spike off one apple. One thing that comes across from a lot of people is that individuals react differently to different food stuffs - what is good for one is not good for somebody else. This leads to a fundamental truth about diabetes, you cannot expect somebody else to tell you how to fix things for you. Listen to informed opinion and act on it but you have to take control.

 

[Mushystar]

Oh, no offense taken at all! I mean it is what it is after all.

I'm writing things down and trying to keep track. Ive just done my bloods again and it was 7.8 so I'm alright with that.

I didn't think about rice before, I was just considering that it wasn't bread or pasta but since deciding on the strict diet ive realised how awful it actually is. I'm not too picky, so cauliflower/squash/sweet potato rice is the deal for now. I'm happy for the fact that I love vegetables and so have a ton of options for meals.

I appreciate anyone's input. I'm still new to the gp stuff in the UK and this will definitely be a new adventure.

 

[Drummer]

Sweet potato and brown rice - soooo high carb - best avoided. Also tortilla - that is bread like - and all those a little here and a little there high carb foods - they will probably cause a spike and make ketosis less likely.
Butter, not margarine is the better choice, avoid hydrogenated seed oils - olive oil is good - even the fat from meats - I cook in a halogen oven and collect the fat from pork and beef and lamb for my stir fries. Cream is better than milk. Might seem crazy - but all that calorie counting and low fat simply doesn't do the job. Not for me - not for many, no matter how much will power is dragged out - it doesn't work, and it often leads to high spikes - so no good at all.
Watch out for things labelled 'light' as they are often low fat and higher in carbs to make up for the lack of taste or texture.
The fruits you eat regularly are high carb banana, citrus fruits and apples are highish carb - chose blackberries strawberries and other berries, I set a limit of 10 percent carbs on just about everything except high cocoa chocolate, which is always in moderation.
I do not eat pastry, pasta, rice, porridge, potato, and make low carb bread with lots of seeds, fibre, ground nuts - added to my normal bread recipe to make twice the amount or more. I add in rye flour and milled seeds to disguise the fact that the psyllium flour I have goes purple when cooked. I waited for a second normal Hba1c (well - 42 - nearly in range) before adding it back from time to time - not every month, and I use muffin tins to make mini loaves.
You should find, with any luck, that once you get your blood glucose into normal figures that you can lose weight and also volume almost by magic - I dropped down to 220lb without even trying. I only realised I must have lost weight when my clothes started to slide south as I was pushing my trolley around the supermarket. I put the scales away when I reached 264lb on the high carb low fat diet which was supposed to be lowering my cholesterol - I don't know exactly what weight I got up to, but it was a lot. I am still shrinking - I am down from XXL to being able to buy a M by mistake - it fitted, but I am never a medium - can't be.

 

[Mushystar]

Good for you on the loss! I'm trying to keep carbs under 100 per day, closer to 50. If you knew the type of c**p i used to eat in America... Lol. I'm eating 1000 times better than I used to. I'm positive about it all, and know that I can deal with whatever just nervous about talking to the nurse.

 

[Drummer]

I went from Hba1c of 91 to 47 in 80 days from diagnosis eating no more than 50gm of carb a day - I didn't know if I ought to laugh or cry so I did both - I had a 40 year battle with my HCPs about eating low carb to feel well and lose weight and ended up with full blown type 2 - sheesh!
No wonder my GP isn't talking to me.

 

[Mushystar]

That's excellent. I think that the only difficult part foodwise is that I'm eating differently from the rest of my household and it's a bit of a faff... But everyone is super supportive so that helps.

Wish my work atmosphere was a bit different as everyone is always passing a biscuit tin or bringing in cakes for a birthday or some such malarkey. I'm not ever really tempted, it's just a bit irritating to be surrounded by sweets all the time

 

[Eddy Edson]

Hi & welcome Mushystar! My guess is that the big thing for you is simply to lose some weight. You clearly have a working pancreas (because you're in the 4's a few hours after eating) and you also clearly have insulin resistance (because you go into the teens just after eating). Losing some weight should deal with that; going super low-carb probably won't.

(Your "hypo's" are no doubt what people call "false hypo's" - lower BG than yr bod is comfortable with but not actually threatening. BG in the 4's is not a serious issue, for just about everybody, and as you get used to lower levels the hypo-ish symptoms should go away.)

As we all know, the big challenge with weight loss is making it sustainable. The more extreme yr changes to eating patterns, the harder that will be. Really, I would guess that your best strategy is to cut down on portion sizes, cut out obvious c**p, up the exercise, and gradually adjust yr eating as necessary towards the standard recommendations for healthy eating. Cutting out fruit, whole grains and other good carbs is maybe a necessity (perhaps temporarily) for people with worse diabetes than yours, but it is always a misfortune if so.

FWIW, I've dealt with my T2 by losing some weight (even though I wasn't particularly overweight to start with), keeping track of which carbs effect me the most, not cutting carbs more than I had to (and so helping my insulin resistance), increasing fibre and moving my diet in the direction of heart-healthiness. There was nothing drastic or heroic in any of this, and it's certainly not the case that super-low-carb approaches are the only ones, or the best.

 

[CathyB]

Great to see you are really thinking about this @Mushystar, small changes can make a huge difference, especially when you work out what works for you. Don’t forget that if you reduce the carbs you can go higher in healthy fats, olive oil, butter, avocado etc, your body uses these for fuel rather than carbs/sugars and you will still get weight loss (honestly!!). This might also help balance your numbers out, got to be worth a try 😛

 

[SueEK]

Hello Mushystar and a big UK welcome. You sound amazingly positive and are really determined to get to grips with things. I can’t really add to what the others have said except to say we are all behind you and good luck, there is always a listening ear on this forum.

 

[Paul123]

Hi Mushystar & welcome to the forum. You’ll receive great support & advice on this forum. You can still eat rice as long as it is Basmati rice, it has less of an impact on bs. I wish you well as all of us battle with diabetes daily. But thankfully diabetes does not define who we are .

 

[Leonora]

Welcome. I'm a rice monster. Love it but have had to restrict it. Last night I had brown basmati rice. My BG had hardly moved 2 hours later. Have a go. Maybe you can tolerate it. You never know until you try and test. Good luck in your journey.

 

[Drummer]

Rice can be deceptive - I find it very easy to digest, two hours after eating the spike is long past. It is still a grain, and still 2/3rds starch - it has to go somewhere.....