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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.
Newbie partner to newly diagnosed diabetes type 2
- Thread starter COSMOS
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trophywench
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Bearing in mind Metformin doesn't actually reduce blood glucose, simply helps the body reduce any insulin resistance and thus use your own insulin more efficiently, I don't understand how it could have done that.
I don't believe that Bitter Melon does anything to help either, frankly - except of course the folk who are marketing it. Have a look and see what large scale clinical trials have been done for it, you just do a search on Google Scholar for clinical trials. If there have been any, they'll be there!
Been a very long time now since I've noticed anybody claiming it does anything at all for anything.
If your partner wants to control their BG via diet and exercise, first thing to do is work out properly about how much carbohydrate they usually consume in an average day and then consider how they might reduce it. Lots of our members find doing that extremely helpful!
I don't believe that Bitter Melon does anything to help either, frankly - except of course the folk who are marketing it. Have a look and see what large scale clinical trials have been done for it, you just do a search on Google Scholar for clinical trials. If there have been any, they'll be there!
Been a very long time now since I've noticed anybody claiming it does anything at all for anything.
If your partner wants to control their BG via diet and exercise, first thing to do is work out properly about how much carbohydrate they usually consume in an average day and then consider how they might reduce it. Lots of our members find doing that extremely helpful!
Thank you for you comment. The reactions to the metaformin were as listed as the possible reactions in the guidance included with the tablets. It was severe loss of appetite because of nausea that led to eating almost nothing and then low blood sugar.
Exercise is difficult because my husband also has heart failure and vertigo - so we need to build that up carefully. I have been using recipes from the Hairy Bikers diabetic meals to help lose weight - (tho lots of home cooking through the first lock down seemed to have started that already - ) and that has already reduced our carbohydrate intake. BG measurements were taken daily to report to the diabetic nurse, but on alternate days now, both fasting and 2 hours after lunch - and also if my husband feels giddy, which has happened a couple of times, when the BG had spiked, which we linked to something eaten. The target given by the nurse for the end of the year is fasting between 4 and 7 and two hours after lunch between 7 and 9. We are achieving that most of the time, but with slippage occasionally.
We have cut out sweets (except very occasional ones sweetened with stevia), cakes and sweet biscuits, and fruit juice, and try to eat fruit with something like no fat yoghurt, and eat very little cheese. I have reduced the portions of carbohydrate in our meals - and rice, pasta, bread are whole meal/ whole grain wherever possible (and always have been)
I asked about the bitter melon as " friends of a friend" said it had worked for them in lieu of metaformin, which they had reacted to. But I also wondered about asking for slow release metaformin.
I am very new to this and floundering a bit, tho the weight loss for both of us has been successful - a couple of stone in the last 10 months, a bit more rapidly when doing the diabetic menus.
I think I need to keep a food diary so I am absolutely clear about what may keep BG higher than desirable or cause spikes.
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Exercise is difficult because my husband also has heart failure and vertigo - so we need to build that up carefully. I have been using recipes from the Hairy Bikers diabetic meals to help lose weight - (tho lots of home cooking through the first lock down seemed to have started that already - ) and that has already reduced our carbohydrate intake. BG measurements were taken daily to report to the diabetic nurse, but on alternate days now, both fasting and 2 hours after lunch - and also if my husband feels giddy, which has happened a couple of times, when the BG had spiked, which we linked to something eaten. The target given by the nurse for the end of the year is fasting between 4 and 7 and two hours after lunch between 7 and 9. We are achieving that most of the time, but with slippage occasionally.
We have cut out sweets (except very occasional ones sweetened with stevia), cakes and sweet biscuits, and fruit juice, and try to eat fruit with something like no fat yoghurt, and eat very little cheese. I have reduced the portions of carbohydrate in our meals - and rice, pasta, bread are whole meal/ whole grain wherever possible (and always have been)
I asked about the bitter melon as " friends of a friend" said it had worked for them in lieu of metaformin, which they had reacted to. But I also wondered about asking for slow release metaformin.
I am very new to this and floundering a bit, tho the weight loss for both of us has been successful - a couple of stone in the last 10 months, a bit more rapidly when doing the diabetic menus.
I think I need to keep a food diary so I am absolutely clear about what may keep BG higher than desirable or cause spikes.
.....
Drummer
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Most type twos respond well to a low carb diet, avoiding low fat options as they often add carbs to compensate, and eat normal amounts of fats, as we need them to replace the calories from carbs.
My usual diet is two meals a day. I don't eat grains or high sugar fruit, no high carb anything really, but I am quite sensitive to carbs.
I find that beans and peas are a problem as most regard them as low carb, but my gut seems to see them as a challenge and manages to extract twice the carbs that most people get from them, so I have to make portions very small.
I eat a lot of stirfries and salads, and have several veges with each meal, so might boil and mash some swede or cauliflower, and then have two more veges, all sow carb choices. I roast chickens or joints fairly often so as to have some left for next day, and find that swede, in particular, roasted in a tray under the meat set above it on a rack makes it rather tasty.
My usual diet is two meals a day. I don't eat grains or high sugar fruit, no high carb anything really, but I am quite sensitive to carbs.
I find that beans and peas are a problem as most regard them as low carb, but my gut seems to see them as a challenge and manages to extract twice the carbs that most people get from them, so I have to make portions very small.
I eat a lot of stirfries and salads, and have several veges with each meal, so might boil and mash some swede or cauliflower, and then have two more veges, all sow carb choices. I roast chickens or joints fairly often so as to have some left for next day, and find that swede, in particular, roasted in a tray under the meat set above it on a rack makes it rather tasty.
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