New T2 type cat :)

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eg78

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Type 2
Hallo boys and girls!

I'm a 32 year old chap from the north, working abroad for the year. Just had a series of "routine blood tests" at my US doctor because I've been on painkillers long term for old sports injuries, and they wanted to assess potential liver and kidney damage before signing me forward for more of the same.
The tests indicated my kidneys are fine, teensy bit high on the cholesterol, liver a bit roughed up with the painkillers and poor diet, and blood sugar a bit on the high side, and cell count indicating it's been on the high side for the last three months. They're not medicating me but suggest that if I see my GP over xmas when I'm home for a few days that they'll probably want to put me on something. So it seems that they're suggesting I'm diabetic but not in such a bad way as to panic.

Anyway. Thought I'd drop in and say hello, as I suspect I'll be looking for ideas and support over the coming months. I'm in an odd situation that I can do the diet part of diet and exercise, but those old sports injuries mean I hobble around like an invalid. Slightly screwed there! I've ditched all the pasta, rice, noodles and breakfast cereals from my cupboards, thrown out the sugar, given away the white wine, and waved goodbye to the case of red bull in the boot of the car. I've kept hold of the red wine as I read this isn't too sugary and can help slow down the liver's responses so sugar spikes aren't so bad. Gotten a load of veg in, avoiding spuds but taking sweet potatoes instead. Lots of greens and roots. Fresh meat (lean), eggs, etc. Popping fresh cranberries (tis the season, here!) into things like curries and so on to provide the sweetness instead of brown sugar. Minor self indulgence of pepsi max which I don't suspect affects diabetes?

Any tips for other things I can enjoy as indulgences? I do have a sweet tooth. Also, hidden nasties I need to ditch or avoid?

Thanks!
 
Welcome eg78.

Many people diagnosed with diabetes as young adults start off on diet and exercise, and only if those measures are insufficient, are they started on medication, usually metformin first (choice depends on kindneys & liver), and only if that is insufficient do they move onto insulin or other injectable medication. Even with medication, diet and exercise remain very important parts of self management of diabetes, whatever type you turn out to have - even type 1 diabetes tends to develop much slower, over months or years, in adults, plus there is LADA and MODY (MODY is rare and strongly genetic, so unlikely unless blood relations also have it).

You're right that Pepsi Max is no sugar; there are no sugar versions of Red Bull or equivalent. The food swaps you mention are all lower GI than the originals. As well as food types, portion sizes are important - a small amount of something you like may be as sensible a choice as a larger portion of something you don't like as much.

You mention old sports injuries - even if you hobble, there is probably still some activity you can carry out - even walking can be faster and more energetic with poles, which ease stress on knees; cyling or swimming or kayaking might also be possible?
 
Good thinking on the exercise. The difficulty I have is that it's one ankle that's pretty much mullered. So I can cover about 100 yards on a bad day, a third of a mile or so on a good one, before it's really really bad. Limited flexibility means regular bike is out of the question, but I own a recumbent exercise bike back in blighty so that's always a good option. Pretty much my only option I guess. I know I can do a good hour on that a few times a week so should be workable - hopefully to keep me off meds! I think the lack of exercise is why the doctors here in the US are suggesting meds are likely.

Incidentally, in terms of foods, how bad are jars of pasta sauces? I'd imagine with the preservatives and flavouring they might be a tad heavy on the sugars... I used to use them all the time to make pasta bakes, and following some experimentation this week made a few recipes swapping out the pasta for the sweet potato, leek, cranberries, and spinach as the filler around the meat, over which the sauce was poured. However if the sauces are bat I'll take a look into pasata and similar things, add some garlic, dried herbs, and so on to make my own. Just a lot cheaper and easier to buy the jars...


Incidentally, I note the numbers people use here are things like "my blood sugar is 7", and so on. Since I'm temporarily outside of the UK system I don't know how to draw equivalents. The numbers I have are that in my metabolic panel scores glucose serum was at 136 mg/dL (with 65-99 being 'normal' reference interval). Does anyone know what this translates to and therefore its meaning? Marginal? Out of control? Dangerous? Lifestyle manageable? Your thoughts would be appreciated.
 
eg78 said:
Incidentally, I note the numbers people use here are things like "my blood sugar is 7", and so on. Since I'm temporarily outside of the UK system I don't know how to draw equivalents. The numbers I have are that in my metabolic panel scores glucose serum was at 136 mg/dL (with 65-99 being 'normal' reference interval). Does anyone know what this translates to and therefore its meaning? Marginal? Out of control? Dangerous? Lifestyle manageable? Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

You multiply our numbers by 18 to get the equivalent in US units, so a pre-meal range of 4-7 mmol/l for us translates as 72-126 mg/dl 🙂 As you can see, your 136 mg/dl is only slightly above this.
 
Northerner said:
You multiply our numbers by 18 to get the equivalent in US units, so a pre-meal range of 4-7 mmol/l for us translates as 72-126 mg/dl 🙂 As you can see, your 136 mg/dl is only slightly above this.
Click to expand...

He seems to have scored a diabetic HbA1c as well ..."and cell count indicating it's been on the high side for the last three months".
 
Hi eg78

You should get hold of a BG meter ('glucometer') that you can do fingerprick blood tests with. That way, you can test before a meal, eat it then test at 1 and 2 hours later to see what 'spike' if any it gave you. If it's too high then either cut it out entirely or try less of it next time.

You may be able to get the test strips on prescription here or not, depends on how pro-active your GP is and also the stance your PCT takes. You can get a free meter in the UK from Abbott Healthcare and also buy strips direct from them, they were about the cheapest to buy but there are some newer makes around which I've seen mentioned that may have overtaken that info.

It's basically the only way you are going to know what your BG is doing and what foods are OK for you.

The dietary steps you've taken are all good 'uns.
 
Welcome to the forums eg78 🙂
 
eg78 hi and welcome to the forum from me
 
Welcome to the forum eg78,

As you suspect, exercise is a really useful tool in keeping the diabetic symptoms at bay. Beyond what you've already said, I'd have though a regular swim would be the ticket for you.

For me exercise and resetting my diet to something more reasonable has meant I've been able to steer clear of the meds (apart from the first three months after diagnosis).

Good luck with it all,

Andy 🙂
 
eg78 said:
Good thinking on the exercise. The difficulty I have is that it's one ankle that's pretty much mullered. So I can cover about 100 yards on a bad day, a third of a mile or so on a good one, before it's really really bad. Limited flexibility means regular bike is out of the question, but I own a recumbent exercise bike back in blighty so that's always a good option. Pretty much my only option I guess. I know I can do a good hour on that a few times a week so should be workable - hopefully to keep me off meds! I think the lack of exercise is why the doctors here in the US are suggesting meds are likely.

Incidentally, in terms of foods, how bad are jars of pasta sauces? I'd imagine with the preservatives and flavouring they might be a tad heavy on the sugars... I used to use them all the time to make pasta bakes, and following some experimentation this week made a few recipes swapping out the pasta for the sweet potato, leek, cranberries, and spinach as the filler around the meat, over which the sauce was poured. However if the sauces are bat I'll take a look into pasata and similar things, add some garlic, dried herbs, and so on to make my own. Just a lot cheaper and easier to buy the jars...

QUOTE]

Glad the exercise comments were helpful. Hope you get back on your recumbant soon - they scare me, having only tried a couple in car parks on cycle week trial sessions, but I'm happy on any one of my 3 sit up bikes.

Re pasta sauce - it all depends on reading the nutritional labels and ingredients. Often cheaper and lower sugar to start with tinned tomatoes or passata and add onions, garlic, peppers / capsicums, leeks, herbs etc. Pasta bake sauces are often relatively heavy on cheese and fat.
Click to expand...
 
thanks for the welcomes, folks. Much appreciated.


btw my recumbent is a static one. I would hate to be on the road on one of those things! It was bad enough trying out a chopper style motorbike when I'm used to street-bikes and sports machines. Feet forward and cornering is not a nice sensation. Like sitting on the arm of a chair and leaning to one side waiting to fall off.
 
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