Hi Joe welcome to the forum. With the right info and a bit of determination you’ll soon get this beast under control. A few people do manage to kick this into touch, maybe you will be one of the lucky ones, most of us gain very good control . You
I am a bit of an old duffer too, their are a few of us in here so you’re in very good company
🙂.
Knowledge is power , so ask all the questions you need to about diabetes and we will do our best to help based on what has worked for us, you see diabetes is very individual in its likes and dislikes food wise, ie porridge, it’s healthy right , we’ll some if us dare not touch it with a barge pole as it shoots up our blood glucose (BG) levels.
At the top of the newbies forum you will find a thread called ,
useful-links-for-people-new-to-diabetes ( click on it)
I suggest you start with this very informative but long Letter
maggie-daveys-letter-to-newly-diagnosed-type-2s
Then
test-review-adjust by Alan S
If you decide you want to test to find out how the various carbohydrates affect you so you can make informed choices , do ask your Gp practice first if they will provide a glucose meter and test strips,
Sadly it’s most likely they will say no.
The SD Codefree meter is the cheapest one we know of to self fund the ongoing cost of the test strips they are are around £8 for a pot of 50 where brands sold at chemists are £15+ for 50
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Codefree-Glucose-Monitor-Monitoring-Testing/dp/B0068JAJFS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=drugstore&ie=UTF8&qid=1506485682&sr=1-1&keywords=sd+codefree+meter+mmol/l&linkCode=sl1&tag=xfm-21&linkId=f39210144fdc26c27738e45b6d957003&th=1
You will also find lots more helpful info, books etc on the Useful links forum.