• Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
  • We seem to be having technical difficulties with new user accounts. If you are trying to register please check your Spam or Junk folder for your confirmation email. If you still haven't received a confirmation email, please reach out to our support inbox: support.forum@diabetes.org.uk

New diagnosis and have a question that the doctors wont answer

Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
C

connolly

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hi I was diagnosed last year with type 2 I also have Primary Biliary Cholangitis and high blood pressure. yesterday I had a very unproductive talk with the nurse at my gp surgery. So hopefully it can be answered here. They said that finger prick to test my sugar level daily was a waste of time and I need to leave the numbers to them. But how do I know what foods effect my blood sugars.
Diabetes runs in my family on both the paternal and maternal side so I am aware everyone is unique.???
 
Unfortunately a lot of type 2s get told this and it’s mostly a money saving exercise because regular prescriptions of strips are expensive. But you are right, how do you know how well you are doing unless you test?
Whether you need to test or not depends on what you are doing with the information. If you are just doing it because you think you should but aren’t really using the information for anything then yes it’s a waste of time. But if you find it useful and are using the results to help you make changes to your diet or lifestyle to try to improve things then definitely carry on doing so!
Next time you see the nurse perhaps you could tell her that she does a 3-month average blood test and tells you whether it’s good or not. But how are you supposed to improve that average if you don’t know what is happening every day? It’s like getting in your car and being told that you must stick to an average of 50mph but you aren’t allowed to look at the speedometer to see how fast you are going now!
 
I tend to finger prick now when eating something new to determine what it does to me (Especially when eating out). For three months I did not, and just relied on carb content of meals in recipe books and ingredients. I started finger pricking when diagnosed, but realised there was nothing I could do if it was high as I was only taking metformin - it just ended up worrying me when I saw a 9!

So maybe the surgery has a point, but now I have it stable I want to keep it that way and see what I can handle without a spike. When I asked the nurse about testing she just shrugged and didn’t seem to think it was that important, they were more interested in the dietary and life style changes.
 
you can’t get strips on prescription for type 2 unless you are on certain medications. I couldn’t even get VAT off in Boots.
 
Sally71 said:
Unfortunately a lot of type 2s get told this and it’s mostly a money saving exercise because regular prescriptions of strips are expensive. But you are right, how do you know how well you are doing unless you test?
Whether you need to test or not depends on what you are doing with the information. If you are just doing it because you think you should but aren’t really using the information for anything then yes it’s a waste of time. But if you find it useful and are using the results to help you make changes to your diet or lifestyle to try to improve things then definitely carry on doing so!
Next time you see the nurse perhaps you could tell her that she does a 3-month average blood test and tells you whether it’s good or not. But how are you supposed to improve that average if you don’t know what is happening every day? It’s like getting in your car and being told that you must stick to an average of 50mph but you aren’t allowed to look at the speedometer to see how fast you are going now!
Click to expand...
Worse than that, he's being asked to drive down the motorway with a blindfold on.
 
harbottle said:
you can’t get strips on prescription for type 2 unless you are on certain medications. I couldn’t even get VAT off in Boots.
Click to expand...
If you buy a monitor from Amazon or other on-line it will probably be cheaper and more importantly have cheaper strips than from Boots and you don't need to pay VAT.
 
i buy my strips of amazon as they are cheaper to buy in bulk from there, and yes exactly i can tell you what increases my familes blood sugars but not mine, as i have to be careful what i eat and drink because of my liver as well.

what foods do you avoid in fruits and veg and what makes all yours sugars rise?? (i know the usual high sugar content foods are bad, im talking about the supposedly heathly foods)???
 
connolly said:
i buy my strips of amazon as they are cheaper to buy in bulk from there, and yes exactly i can tell you what increases my familes blood sugars but not mine, as i have to be careful what i eat and drink because of my liver as well.

what foods do you avoid in fruits and veg and what makes all yours sugars rise?? (i know the usual high sugar content foods are bad, im talking about the supposedly heathly foods)???
Click to expand...
In terms of carbs, the lowest are berries, middle apples, pears, cirus, high bananas, grapes, mango, pineapple and dries fruits.
Starchy veg are high, geeen veg low. People say if they grow below ground, high, on the ground medium, above ground low. As everybody has a different tolerance to foods then what suits you is where testing comes into play.
Carbs and Cals book or similar apps are useful for making those decisions about different foods or google search for Food X TOTAL carbohydrate usually given in g carb/100g so a bit of working out for the portion you are having.
 
Hi connolly, welcome to the forum.

Testing is quite an individual thing for type 2s and many health professionals deem it unnecessary.. Having said that, from personal experiences, I've found it super helpful to see the impact that certain meals have on my body.

One of the tricky things about diabetes is that some of the foods we've been told is healthy can be problematic for diabetics so it's helpful to monitor things at least for the first few months until you get some insight into the impact your diet has on you.

Most people test in the morning before food, and two hours after meals. We've got some info on our main site about testing that might be useful https://www.diabetes.org.uk/guide-to-diabetes/managing-your-diabetes/testing.
 
connolly said:
They said that finger prick to test my sugar level daily was a waste of time and I need to leave the numbers to them. But how do I know what foods effect my blood sugars.
Click to expand...
Ah what you do is call up mystic Meg and she will let you know 🙂
Seriously though if you can afford it by yourself a meter and test strips.
 
Hi @connolly unfortunately yours is a regular story told where GP‘s
discourage home testing.
Until I was so out of control (Hba1c for years was over 100) and eventually I needed insulin, until then GP didnt want me to finger prick.

Ive found testing before and after meals such a help, it helped me (together with the advice on this forum) helped me learn what food was spiking my BS levels.

amongst other things I now avoid bananas and red apples,
if I eat apples (usually one a day) it’s a Granny Smith,

I also eat berries rather than fruit, and most days eat chopped nuts & seeds.

I hardly ever eat Potatoes, although I find mauve sweet potatoes cut into home made chips
air-fryed are ok for me, although I don’t have a pile just about 6 or 8.
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Back
Top