New to this...

[RoyB]

Hi everyone, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes about 3 weeks ago and have since been reading as much as I can to help to reduce the pretty prominent symptoms I was experiencing. Through eating carefully, exercise and medication I feel so much better but I am only beginning my journey. Hopefully with your help I’ll be able to start to get a real hold on diabetes and how it affects my daily life. Cheers, Roy

 

[Vonny]

Hi @RoyB and welcome to the forum. There are people here with so much knowledge, so just fire away with any questions and someone will be able to help...I've learned so much here, but still have a way to go!

What medication are you on? And are you on a low carb diet?

 

[RoyB]

Thanks Vonny, I am 40mg of Glicazide and have basically come up with my own diet after doing a bit of research. I’ve been pretty strict so now might start to spread out a bit and try different things.

 

[Docb]

Hi @RoyB and welcome from me as well. Do you know what your HbA1c was on diagnosis? I'm guessing it was decently above the 48 diagnosis level if you were getting symptoms and you were put on gliclazide from the start. If you are on gliclizide then you should have been offered a meter which your research should be showing you could be a very useful tool in adjusting your diet to get your levels down.

 

[RoyB]

Hi @RoyB and welcome from me as well. Do you know what your HbA1c was on diagnosis? I'm guessing it was decently above the 48 diagnosis level if you were getting symptoms and you were put on gliclazide from the start. If you are on gliclizide then you should have been offered a meter which your research should be showing you could be a very useful tool in adjusting your diet to get your levels down.

Thanks Doc, not sure what my HbA1c was but, yeah, I was very symptomatic -pretty much a clean sweep of them all! I am checking my glucose levels 4 times a day and they have come down dramatically and are remaining at decent levels. Early days though.

 

[Docb]

Next time you talk to your surgery it is worth asking for your HbA1c result. Most of use use that as a measure of the status of our diabetes and how things are changing in the longer term.

Congrats on getting things down, no doubt a combination of gliclazide and the changes in what you are eating. Same thing happened to me after my HbA1c went from 50 to 82 and spot readings in the 20's with little warning. Within three months it was back in the low 40's. Out of curiosity, do you need to lose any weight? I did not, and I think that was a factor in the speed with which the blood glucose levels came down in my case.

 

[RoyB]

Will do, thanks for the advice. I did (do) need to lose weight...piled it on during lockdown but it’s coming off steadily now.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @RoyB

Sounds like you have made an excellent start. Great to hear you are able to monitor your own BG levels, and that your numbers are coming more into range.

Hope your symptoms begin to abate as your BG normalises.

Ask away with any questions you have. We are a friendly bunch, and there are hundreds of years of lived diabetes experience on the forum, so there isn’t much that folks here haven’t come across. No question will be considered too obvious or ‘silly’. 🙂

 

[RoyB]

Thanks Mike, much appreciated.