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Introduction

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NeilBHartley

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hi guys.

My name's Neil and type 2 diabetic. I'm on 1500mg Metformin a day (3 x 500mg tablets) I'm also on 15 units of Novarapid
And 15 units of levemir, every time I inject.

When I was diagnosed my levels were 104 and I was in hospital for about a week.

My last visit to my consultant my meter reading was anywhere from 6 to 10. Was told this is was too low for me so had my units reduced and now they are anything from 12 to 15.

At the moment I would be greatful if anyone could give me advice on food. I have never been overweight but recently I have dropped from 84kgs to about 72kgs.

Can anyone recommend filling snacks. I seem to forever have the munchies. Also, I am still constantly thirsty. I try to drink about 2 litres of water a day but then I get a massive sugar craving which seems to go once I've had a coke or a Lucozade sport. But then I get massively thirsty again. This is going around in a massive circle and it can't be doing my bladder any good aha as all i wanna do is pee.

Any advice would be greatfully received. Look forward to chatting to you guys soon

Neil
 
How long have you been a member of our 'club' Neil?

Of course you feel thirsty all the while - your BG is far too high!!! It was fine before you saw the person who told you what sounds like utter rubbish to me.

Have they done the tests - GAD65 and C-peptide - to establish whether you are definitely Type 2 ?
 
Hi @trophywench

I was diagnosed in 2017. When i was first diagnosed I was borderline 1 and 2. But they kept me as type one on insulin. Later after more tests they realised I was type 2 so kept me on insulin and gave me Metformin to take as well.

Those tests you mention don't sound familiar. When I'm home from work at 16:30, I'll upload a copy of my last result sheet they sent me. I'm due for about 6 or 7 more test soon as well. I'll upload what they are for at the same time. See if you know what they are etc
 
Hi Neil, I struggle to believe that any decent medic would say that BG readings of between 6 and 10 were too low! Though I do accept that a cautious doctor wouldn't want you to go below 6 when taking Insulin.
Still you can consider yourself lucky that they didn't tell you to just eat more carbs and keep the doses the same!

I am/was a slim Type 2 Diabetic (now a slimmer Pre-diabetic). There are probably at least 10% of Type 2's who are slim (known as Thin Outside Fat Inside or TOFI), but there are also late onset Type 1's and as trophywench says above it is important to confirm which it is that you are.
 
Welcome to the forum @NeilBHartley

I too am surprised that you were advised that readings of between 6-10 were too low. Were these readings done before or after meals. That would make a big difference. If they are readings before meals then you would want them more consistently at the lower end of that range. Was this the doctor or nurse at your GP practice?

As @trophywench said your thirst would be explained by the high glucose levels, especially if they have already reduced you insulin to lift them even higher. If you then quench this with coke or lucozade, which are loaded with more carbs, your glucose will go even higher and so make you more thirsty. The secret to sorting this out is to get your levels back in range.

I would encourage you to get referred to someone else, who understands what normal levels are. You are not getting appropriate advice regarding your insulin doses.
 
Weird - your HbA1c is utterly 100% fine at 5.8% / 40. (old way of expressing it/newer way) But your actual BG taken from the same blood sample (ie what you'd have got had it been a fingerprick test using your meter) was 9.6.

Blimey - were mine 9.6 most of the day, my HbA1c would be far higher. All the other tests are just ones they do to have a quick check on certain bits of the rest of the body; make sure it's still functioning well. (I always have to look em up, if the results are on our GPs computer system before my appointment - just in case I've started to fall apart without noticing! LOL)

What is your normal home BG testing regime?
 
trophywench said:
Weird - your HbA1c is utterly 100% fine at 5.8% / 40. (old way of expressing it/newer way) But your actual BG taken from the same blood sample (ie what you'd have got had it been a fingerprick test using your meter) was 9.6
Click to expand...

So I'm assuming that's Good? So why am I told it is too low?

I always do a blood read about half hour after I have eaten
 
Well that's exactly what I want to know, Neil.

Do you test before and 2 hours after meals, to see if what you ate was OK, cos you'd need to cut down on foods or the amount of those foods, which increase it too much. Idea is, before/after ideally should not increase by more than 2,8 - but we generally say 3 !
 
Oh I'll have to start that from Tomorrow. I'll test when I wake up and then I'll test after my breakfast. I tend to have a couple of slices of toast and a sugarless tea so that shouldn't make much if a difference?

I'll do that throughout the tomorrow too. See what happens as well ☺
 
Being on insulin, you've to watch out for hypo's (going too low). While a hypo is below 4, my understanding is medical people like you to 5 or more (before food) to give you a bit of room.
Now, if you're getting 6s after food, that could be why medic said you're too low. On the basis that it's higher than before you ate. At a guess.
6 before eating is another matter, as it's well above 4.
Now, the time of the test matters. You've to give the food chance to hit the blood stream. (This can vary.) The standard time quoted is 2 hours after eating.
Trophywench knows more about timings & levels for people on insulin.
 
Hi. I agree with the others that testing half an hour after eating is not really going to tell you anything. Test before and then 2 hours after.
For your information, toast is quite high in carbohydrates. I wonder if anyone has explained to you that it is not just sugars which cause us diabetics problems, but all carbohydrates which means both sugars and starches, so bread, rice, pasta, couscous, potatoes, breakfast cereals, even otherwise healthy porridge is high is carbs and fruit too, so all these foods will increase your Blood Glucose (BG) levels, as well as the obvious sugar, sweets cakes and biscuits, some to a greater or lesser degree than others.

It sounds like you are on fixed doses of NovoRapid so you need to be careful about how many carbs you eat with each meal. Reducing them suddenly could cause you to go too low (hypo), so I would advise that you don't make any radical changes to your diet but maybe experiment with small changes, depending upon the BG results you start getting from your new regime of testing before and 2 hours after food.

I would also be interested to know when you inject the NovoRapid.... ie how long before you eat, as that can have quite an effect on how your BG readings behave after eating. For instance, I need to inject NR an hour before breakfast to avoid my BG skyrocketing and then plummeting. Other people might find themselves comatose if they injected that far in advance, so you need to do any adjustments in timing as slowly and carefully as adjustments to your carb intake. At lunch and dinner time I only need to inject 20 mins in advance of eating, so there are lots of variables to consider with using insulin and monitoring your BG quite closely when you are making changes is really important.

It sounds to me that you are likely Type 1 and I think you should ask if C-peptide and GAD antibody tests have been done. The only reason I could think of for your consultant to say your readings were too low at 6-10 would be if he was assuming those readings were 2 hours after food rather than 30 mins or if you were newly diagnosed (which clearly you aren't) and they were trying to bring your levels down slowly.

I think you should be contacting your Diabetes clinic and explaining that you are suffering from high blood glucose levels and associated symptoms... ie thirst and constant weeing. Please don't be tempted to drink the sugary coke or Lucozade when your BG levels are high as that is dangerous. Try to stick to plain water otherwise you are counteracting your body's attempts to sort the problem out by weeing the glucose out. Ask them about giving yourself correction doses of insulin when your BG levels are too high like that.
 
Welcome to the forum @NeilBHartley

I am also confused by the ‘too low’ comments - I wonder if the Dr perhaps didn’t express themselves very clearly? Maybe they didn’t mean that at all!

The guideline for ’ideal‘ readings for an insulin user are more or less:

5-7 on waking
4-7 before meals
no higher than 9 by 2 hours after meals.

And as few readings below 4.0 as you can possibly manage.

If you can aim for those results at least 70% of the time (with less than 4% of readings below 4) then you are doing really well.
 
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