If you were in my position, what would you do ...

[johnvoisey]

Good afternoon to anyone reading this.

I'm 55 and Type 2 diabetic.

This is hardly a surprise, several years ago I injured my achilles tendon (not terminally, but enough to lay me up immobile for a while) and when you add to that a high stress IT job which I could do from home but as a result did it 20 hours a day for every day I was immobilised ... on went four STONE onto a frame that was already under duress (!) and nothing I have done since has shaken more than a stone of it ...

Add to that the fact my mother is type 2 diabetic my brother is type 1 and has to inject and you can see why a routine blood test for my high blood pressure medication (oh, did I forget to mention that, sorry, that flaming job put me to 220/160 ...) that suddenly showed a fasting glucose of 7mmol when for the past decade none had ever showed more than 4.5 and you can see why I say "this is hardly a surprise".

A second fasting blood glucose test a month later racked up 6.5 or was it 6.75 and got me pigeonholed at the GP's as type 2.

That was three months ago.

A comedy of errors (you have to laugh or else you would cry) has meant several appointments to attend a GP diabetic clinic have had to fall by the wayside. Most comical was the fact that four days ago I collected some sort of 24-hour chucking up bug, got over it JUST in time to make the clinic at long last ... and found she who was holding it had just called in sick with an apparent chucking up bug ...

SO ... I still have nto had any "professional" help.

But hey, I WAS a biochemist, my father in law went type 2 diabetic about two years before the prostate cancer got him and HE controlled it by measuring out peas and veg by the teaspoonful ... sol if he can do it with the rest of him being ravaged ... how hard can this be ...

Well here's how hard. Try as I might (right now I'm like a tobacco addict on cold turkey I have not tasted "free sugar" other than in no-added-sugar fruit juice for WEEKS and I feel like Benn Gunn in "Treasure Island" marooned and not a bot o cheese in sight) I CANT get my morning blood sugar below 7.0 (measured with one of those boots / Freestyle optium meters) and an hour after eating my glucose level is motoring around the 11.0 / 12.0 level.

SO

Should I

"Chill out, it's not good but hey ot could be a lot worse"

"Call NHS Direct"

"Call A&E and ask them to reserve a bed ..."

"PANIC !!!!!"

... or something in between. I mean, just HOW bad ARE those numbers.

If it helps, breakfast this morning was about 150ml of orange juice diluted to about as pint with water, a cup of tea with milk and no sugar, and that was it.

Lunch was a sainsbury's haddock fillet with two slices of white bread and a scrape of butter and two crispbreads again scraped with butter. Add two more cups of tea with milk but no added sugar into the pot .....

And that's ALL. Yes I know, about as balanced as the Shallow Hal boating scene ....

So I figure someone on here has stood roughly where I am standing .... and yes, I read all the caveats in this site's T&C's that say no-one can give advice that measures up to that available to me from professional sources, but hey, I've been waiting three months for that and it's not coming any time soon, so I thought I ought to be able to find someone, somewhere who can at least tell me if I'm worrying about nothing OR it's time to call the undertaker while I can still recite the credit card number ....

thanks in hope of a reply nearer the former than the latter

john V.

 

[Copepod]

Welcome to the boards, johnvoisey.

A few pointers:

You can work out for yourself the carbohydrate content in 150ml orange juice - generally around 10g per 100ml, so 15g in 150ml. Depending on siza and type of bread and crispbread, that could be a relatively high CHO lunch. It's total carbohydrate that matters, not just sugar.

The recommended time to test is 2 hours (not 1 hour) after eating, and guideline values are here: http://www.diabetes.org.uk/Guide-to-diabetes/Monitoring/Blood_glucose/Blood_glucose_targets/

Are you taking medication for your high blood pressure values?

Can you exercise now?

There's a Weight Loss Group section of this forum, where you'll find lots of tips, encouragement etc.

Hope you get to meet with a HCP soon - they do get ill sometimes, sadly.

 

[Katieb]

Hi John. Firstly you have come to a great place for good advice and support (I should have been at the Manchester meet today, but a stinker of a cold has put paid to that! Have felt rubbish all day!). To answer your question (though I am no expert!) 7 is the fasting BG threshold which puts you in the 'diabetes' catergory if you are tested at 7 or more on more than one occasion. So your fasting readings are not horrendously high. Secondly your readings of 11+ depend very much on when you tested and what you have eaten. If you read the links at the top of the Newbies section, you will get some great advice on how to test and how to use this to control your BG levels. Also, the Gretchen Becker Book on Type 2 Diabetes - Your First Year is an invaluable read and will explain a lot of what you need to know.#

In the meantime, if you need to lose weight, try to switch to a low GI diet (lots of links on this site), watch your portion size, especially carbs, cut down on fats and up your exercise if you can. Even a moderate amount, say a brisk walk each day, will help. I have managed to lose 3 stones in a year and get my BG under control to avoid medication. Not saying this works for everyone. Diabetes is a funny thing and very personal. Hope this helps for starters and the best of luck to you. Katie

 

[Vicsetter]

First off John, don't panic. Stress (i.e panicking) is bad for you, so take it calmly. As others have said you need to take a 2hr reading not a 1 hour. All that orange juice and later the 2 slices of white bread will put you up and 11/12 while not good is not bad considering what you have eaten.
As part of your weight loss (can't really advise as I don't seem to be able to lose any weight) and to control your diabetes is to reduce you carb intake. So firstly don't eat white bread - it's evil. Try Burgen linseed bread, if you have to eat bread.
You didn't say what you had for your evening meal, that will probably determine your morning reading. I regard 7 and below as a good morning reading and aim for below 7 before every meal if I can.

It would be interesting to see how many over 50 yr old ex IT workers end up being overweight and diabetic, thats 2 of us for a start. Whilst you are correct you cannot give medical advise we can relate our own experiences, and if I was you with those readings I would concentrate on losing weight and forget the diabetes. Diet and exercise are called for, so cut down on the flour based products and do some exercise, see how you go.

Good luck.

 

[trophywench]

Good afternoon to anyone reading this.

If it helps, breakfast this morning was about 150ml of orange juice diluted to about as pint with water, a cup of tea with milk and no sugar, and that was it.

Lunch was a sainsbury's haddock fillet with two slices of white bread and a scrape of butter and two crispbreads again scraped with butter. Add two more cups of tea with milk but no added sugar into the pot .....

john V.

Well from your choices of what to do right now, I pick the first one, every time, but only the first bit of the first one, ie Don't Panic.

It serves no useful purpose, and plays complete havoc with your BP AND your Blood Glucose.

Panic = Cortisol production, yep that 'natural' steroid. And what do steroids do? Raise your BG. Natural does not necessarily = Good !

Soooo - you are having for your brekkie more than enough orange juice to cure a really BAD hypo for a T1 in one fell swoop.

Then lunchtime you are lobbing in 35-ish grams of bread carbohydrate, plus a minimum of another 13g of crispbread carbs. The butter will slow it down a bit. But not enough.

Your pancreas is struggling, right? - so let's overload it by shovelling in the very thing that causes it to rise, so it rises and then it's on catch up, so I'll just shovel another bucketful in ......

Perhaps it might be a tad better to drip-feed the carbohydrate so Mr Pancreas can drip feed the insulin in too, and then maybe you wouldn't get such violent swings upwards?

Natural insulin production has 2 phases - first is the minute the cabs are detected in your mouth through the sides of your cheeks. Then Mr P considers what else you eat after that, and produces just the exact amount of insulin to deal with it. Unfortunately, in a lot of T2s their First Phase insulin production plant has either been closed down completely or so many staff have been made redundant (though there was some natural wastage as some of em have been off sick so long they've been dismissed, and some of em died and weren't replaced. The Phase Two line is still in production but they are working to rule. They don't have the same level of training as the Phase 1 guys and have refused to change jobs anyway, and if Management expect them to do the work of two departments, then Management better have another think about that ...... they are only emplyed to do Phase 2 work and have contracts to prove it. If Management don't watch out, they may decide to walk out completely .......

 

[Mark T]

Welcome to the forum John 🙂

As ever there is good advice around here! You might find some good advice in the weight loss group on how to shift those 3 extra stones! It's not necessarily going to be easy to do so.

You might also want to go searching some of the breakfast threads. Your body is at it's most insulin resistant in the morning (lots of natural steroids floating around trying to get your started) and feeding yourself any type of carbohydrate isn't going necessarily be a good thing. All carbs will raise your BG regardless of whether they are sugar, fructose or lactose (milk).

 

[Vicsetter]

As a test I had 2 slices of white toast with peanut butter this morning. Pre-breakfast reading 6.9, after breakfast 11.3 and at lunch time I was still at 9.1. Mind you I did have a lie in and breakfast wasn't until 11am. But it still show that white bread is not good (and I'm on insulin).