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Blue Norm

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Type 2
I have had type 2 diabetes for about 5 years. I was prescribed Metformin but had problems with stomach pains my doctor at the time told me to stop taking it. He has since retired and i was told to start medication again with Alogliptin 25mg one per day after 6 months my HBA1c had risen to 58 from 49 I now have a finger prick recorder and use it twice a day also take Gliclazide 40mg twice a day along with the Alogliptin I have an average according to the recorder of after 7 days 7.3 mmol/L and after 14 days the average is 7.4 mmol/L
I have been told it should be 5-6 but no lower that 4 I don't want to increase the medication
because it is causing other stomach problems.
If I seem to be confused it is because I am I've been accused of ignoring the diabetes nurse at my practice (its recorded on my notes).
I thought I was doing OK but I'm not sure now
can anyone suggest any thing i could be doing wrong or any way of lowering these figures
 
Hi and welcome on this glorious Sunday afternoon.
Sorry to hear you are having problems both with medication and misunderstandings with your health care professionals. They do not always give the best advice for diabetes and many of us find the best way to manage it via the generous input of other members of this forum.

What are you eating? If you have been continuing to eat a normal amount of carbohydrates, then your pancreas may be getting tired and medication becoming less effective. Following a low carb diet is usually helpful with type 2 diabetes. That means cutting out not just sweet stuff like cakes biscuits and sweets but significantly reducing starchy carbs like breakfast cereal, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes etc and eating more veg. particularly leafy greens like cabbage and salad leaves. This can be made more enjoyable by cooking them in a little butter or adding a dollop of cream cheese and stirring it in or using dressings like oil and vinegar (I love balsamic) and avocado always makes a salad taste better in my opinion and provides a healthy source of fatty calories. Try a mushroom or cheese omelette for breakfast instead of cereal or toast or porridge. I have a large side salad with my breakfast omelette and it really helps keep my blood glucose readings lower and stable. It is a good idea to test your blood before eating and then 2hrs after, so that you can see which foods cause your levels to rise the most and then replace those with something else. It is challenging initially to get your head around a low carbohydrate diet but once you get used to it, it becomes quite enjoyable and sustainable.

Good luck getting your readings a little lower. Those averages are not desperately bad and may come down very easily with minor tweaks to your diet.
 
Hi @BlueNorm, welcome to the forum. I second the good advice that rebrascora has already given. It really helps to cut down on starchy carbs, losing a bit of weight if necessary and doing some exercise (if you don't already).

Do ask any questions you might have and we'd be happy to help.
 
Thank you for your comments,
So I can have an Omelet with cheese ( i have been having Porridge every morning for months)
I am awaiting a heart operation so exercise is at a minimum I do need to lose a couple of stone,
hopefully all the information will help me now
Where do I find a list of low carb food if there is such a thing?
Norman
 
Mmmm, cheese omelette sounds good! I often have omelettes with mushrooms/ham/cheese/few peas as they are quick, easy and filling without the carbs. I seldom have porridge now as it spikes my levels a bit, but now and again is ok.

There are various books which give you good info - I have one called Carbs & Cals here: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Carbs-Ca...ywords=carbs+and+cals+book&qid=1561302627&s=g and I think you can get apps of it too (I'm not techy...). It's good as it has photos of different foods with their listings of carbs and calories, and is a handy guide. If you google you can find lots more.

You could also have a read around the food and recipes sections on these forums to get an idea of what other people have found works well.
 
Yes, porridge was the last thing I gave up, thinking it was healthy and my stubbornly high readings (I am talking in the 15s) started to drop the minute I substituted with an omelette. If you have heart problems then you may need to be a bit mean with the cheese or consider mushrooms/onions/aubergines/peppers etc instead or add a little cheese to some of those other fillings.
Nuts are a good low carb snack and so are olives. Oily fish is particularly good to have. I have salmon at least once a week with a big plate of broccoli and asparagus or whatever green veg is in season.... beware of peas as they can be quite high in natural sugars.

There is a book called Carbs and Cals by Chris Cheyette & Yello Balolia which gives you an idea of how many grams of carbohydrates are in most foods. It is a good reference book for diabetics. The dietician at the hospital gave me a copy of it. I only ever look at the amount of carbohydrates in a food and don't worry about the calories.... I can only concentrate on one thing at a time and if you reduce your carbs, the likelihood is that you will lose weight anyway. When you are shopping look at the Total Carbohydrates which will be in very small print with other nutritional info on the back of the item. There will be information on the front about sugars but you really need to know the total carbs, so it is important to look at the back.
Unfortunately most health care professionals suggest you eat a low fat diet and that usually means higher carb as manufacturers add extra sugar and starch to replace the fats. Those carbs are what make us fat a lot of the time and put a strain on our hearts and livers and pancreas. Reduce your intake of them and it takes the strain off. Increasing your level of exercise, even if it is only a 10 or 15 min walk each day will speed up the weight loss.

It will take a few weeks/months to get into the whole mind set of eating low carb but it can be quite enjoyable once you figure it out and stop craving the carbs. I feel so much better for losing the weight and now eating more healthily and everyone says how fantastic I look now despite my diabetes diagnosis.
 
If you can find a copy of Dr Atkins 'New Diet Revolution' online there are lists of foods, amounts, recipes and meal plans in there - it is rather US orientated, but it is quite a good starting point.
I too was expected to take the tablets once diagnosed, given no advice on diet - I am just lucky that I started to eat low carb back in the 70s - in the teeth of ferocious opposition.
 
rebrascora said:
Hi and welcome on this glorious Sunday afternoon.
Sorry to hear you are having problems both with medication and misunderstandings with your health care professionals. They do not always give the best advice for diabetes and many of us find the best way to manage it via the generous input of other members of this forum.

What are you eating? If you have been continuing to eat a normal amount of carbohydrates, then your pancreas may be getting tired and medication becoming less effective. Following a low carb diet is usually helpful with type 2 diabetes. That means cutting out not just sweet stuff like cakes biscuits and sweets but significantly reducing starchy carbs like breakfast cereal, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes etc and eating more veg. particularly leafy greens like cabbage and salad leaves. This can be made more enjoyable by cooking them in a little butter or adding a dollop of cream cheese and stirring it in or using dressings like oil and vinegar (I love balsamic) and avocado always makes a salad taste better in my opinion and provides a healthy source of fatty calories. Try a mushroom or cheese omelette for breakfast instead of cereal or toast or porridge. I have a large side salad with my breakfast omelette and it really helps keep my blood glucose readings lower and stable. It is a good idea to test your blood before eating and then 2hrs after, so that you can see which foods cause your levels to rise the most and then replace those with something else. It is challenging initially to get your head around a low carbohydrate diet but once you get used to it, it becomes quite enjoyable and sustainable.

Good luck getting your readings a little lower. Those averages are not desperately bad and may come down very easily with minor tweaks to your diet.
Click to expand...
I had a chicken casserole with vegetables. The recipe was taken from diabetes u.k. The following morning i had a reading of 6.1. Had cheese omelette for breakfast . Following evening prior to ( evening meal again chicken casserole) 5.3. 2 hours later a reading of 5.1
This morning 7.8. The only difference on intake was 2 sugar free mints and 3 glasses of sugared free flavoured still water.
Any ideas what i'm doing wrong, if anything. I intend to take another reading 2 hours after the morning omelette.
Any help would be appreciated,
 
2 Hours later now a reading of 6.3 can someone please explain what is happening.
at the moment this is the only place I feel I can trust for information.
 
Your higher morning reading may be due to dawn phenomena (DP) where your liver releases glucose into your blood stream to give you a surge of energy to enable you to go out and hunt for a woolly mammoth for breakfast. Not necessary in today's world, but these built in instincts are sometimes slow to adapt to environmental changes. Maybe a brisk walk or run if you are able before breakfast would help that.

Generally those readings seem pretty good though. I would be pretty happy with them.
 
Hi. When you did your morning test (7.8) was it directly after waking or had you been up a short while , our levels often start going up when we’ve been up a while . 7.8 as a waking number though not ideal it is not that bad.
Also our fasting (waking) level is often the last to start come down, I have no idea why this should be.

Those after meal levels in your last post are very good, what your doing is working well for you.
 
First understand that nobody's BG is ever the same number constantly - not just us lot - non-diabetics too - it's just that 99.9999% of non diabetics never test their BG!

Late last night we were watching a recording of Celebrity Gogglebox on which they showed the bathroom scene from Fatal Attraction. I'd utterly forgotten exactly how violent it was so it was a BIG fright. I'm not whatsoever surprised that my BG was up this morning ! (Shock causes your body to release basically adrenalin into your blood stream, again the primeval 'fight or flight' reaction to trauma and guess what that does? - raises your BG!)
 
Good to see the positive response to the changes you are making in your mealtime results @BlueNorm - hang in there and keep at it while your morning levels gradually come into line.

You may find that a low carb snack just before bed keeps your liver happy so that it doesn’t dump glucose in the early hours.

Good luck and well done!
 
Yup dawn phenomenon was a new one to me too a few months ago, but it makes sense really so don’t panic over your numbers, you are doing well x
 
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