Just been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes and struggling a bit

[Kingsleyh]

Here’s a (random from Google but looked authoritative even if American) link to help

Diagnosed With Diabetes? Seeing Your Eye Doctor Is Essential

If you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, it’s essential that regular eye exams are part of your healthcare routine. According to a report from the Centers

www.optometrists.org

thanks for this 🙂

 

[silver minion]

I see that's very helpful - the nurse told me to have an eye test and during that eye test the optician told me I needed to buy glasses - and since I couldn't see for my job I thought they would take like a couple of days to get them and then would be ok. The optician said that he didn't think my prescription would change also - I guess that was bad advice because it's totally changed back to how it was and I feel like I bought the glasses for no reason.

I had my eyes tested last year after being diagnosed a few months earlier. I was overdue an eye test anyway and struggling to read small print with my existing condition.
The first thing the optometrist said was they wouldn't normally prescribe new glasses until my BG settled down.
Still not fully settled down yet but I needed new glasses to drive so I got them.

 

[rebrascora]

I'm also not very happy with the Libre 3 app! I can't zoom in on the graphs to see better what has happened and I can't set alarms between time periods, and I can't set percentage drop alarms, and I can't also see my reading on my phone when I use it as a night stand - which would be really nice. Also it doesn't rotate when I turn my phone which would make the graph easier to read. They seem to use some kind of smoothing on the graphs as well.

The smoothing of the graph may well be because the algorithm that the Libre uses to make up the lag between changes in blood glucose and interstitial fluid glucose causes it to over egg highs and lows. Basically the Libre extrapolates the last few readings of interstitial fluid to predict what your BG will be because interstitial fluid lags behind Blood Glucose by about 15mins.
The algorithm works well when levels are changing slowly and steadily but if levels are say dropping fast but then level out, it takes a while for Libre to catch on that they are no longer dropping and it will usually predict them continuing to drop which certainly can cause panic if they are showing you hypo and continuing to plummet 15 mins after you have taken hypo treatment, when a finger prick test will usually show that you have come back up. Once the Libre algorithm eventually catches on that levels have changed direction, it redraws the graph and the line doesn't go through the low readings it showed you. Once you get used to this through finger prick testing, you can usually just learn to interpret the Libre data and assess whether it is likely being a drama queen and give it time to sort itself out without causing you to panic and over treat a low. It does the same when levels are rising fast and often show the peak of a rise as being higher than it actually is. Hopefully that makes sense. Of course the time when you would ideally like it to be most reliable is when you are potentially hypo, but hey ho, nothing in life is perfect and the Libre is otherwise an amazing bit of kit which has really revolutionised our diabetes management for those of us on insulin.... especially those who remember collecting a urine sample, boing it up with a reagent and assessing the colour it went against a colour chart to figure out what their BG was about 3 hours previous!! Even those of us who started on finger pricking can find a huge benefit to the regular data it provides once to learn to assess when it is calling "wolf" for real and when it is just being over dramatic.

 

[Leadinglights]

What they probably meant was that you should get an appointment for retinal eye screening which is not the same as a sight test that the optician would do. They should not be prescribing new glasses in people who are first diagnosed. Some people found a cheap pair reading glasses helped and when their eyes had settled then have the sight test.
My eyes changed when I reduced my carb intake and blood glucose fell but until I read here that it could happen I wondered what was going on. Fortunately I resisted going to the optician as I wear varifocals which cost mega bucks.