Newbie - Type 2

[JORDJA8]

Hi all!

Newbie to the community and already findings this forum extremely helpful.

I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes yesterday which came as quite a shock. Went to the doctors after loosing nearly a stone and half in the last 4 months (going from 23.6 BMI to 20.8 BMI), had two blood test with the HbA1C readings coming back as 121 and 110. Currently been prescribed Metformin starting at 1 a day building up to 4.

Been looking through lots of the articles around food and diet to try and work out changes to my diet, the different types of sugar and low carbs options. If anyone has any advice for some everyday swaps then let me know.

I’ve also been given a blood glucose meter to log my levels but struggling to produce enough blood for a reading (sometimes having to do 8 pricks for one reading) so if anyone has any advice for that please let me know.

Hope to hear from some of you soon 🙂

 

[rebrascora]

Hi and welcome.

Sorry to hear of your diagnosis but you have come to the right place for help, support and most importantly knowledge..... because knowledge is power!

Firstly, that weight loss together with your high HbA1c results should be sounding warning bells with your health care professionals because, of all the symptoms which are common between Type 1 and Type 2, unexplained weight loss is usually only associated with Type 1, so I would be asking your doctor or nurse WHY they think you are Type 2?? Sadly far too many of us here on the forum were misdiagnosed as Type 2 to begin with when we were actually Type 1. It can be a bit of a battle getting the right diagnosis because some clinicians are under the misunderstanding that Type 1 only exhibits in children and young adults, so more mature adults are just assumed to be Type 2.
The HbA1c test gives you a diagnosis of diabetes but there is often no further testing done to establish the type of diabetes. This is partly because the majority of diabetics are Type 2 and there is no specific test for Type 2 and the tests for Type 1 (GAD antibody tests and C-peptide.... ideally on blood not urine) are more expensive, logistically more difficult and take time (approx 6 weeks) for the results to come back and interpreting the results is not straightforward, so ideally it should be overseen by a consultant rather than a GP...... but diabetes consultants and their clinics are under severe pressure due to the legacy of Covid, which has caused difficulty for people with diabetes but may also have triggered diabetes in other people, soi their workload has increased significantly. You may have to be quite persistent with your GP or nurse to get a referral and it will take time.

In the mean time, I would ask to be prescribed Ketostix, if you haven't already got some. These are used to test your urine for ketones when your BG levels are mid teens or above. Your Blood Glucose (BG) meter may flash up "ketones" if you get a high BG reading to alert you for the need to test for ketones. If you start to develop ketones with high BG levels it is very dangerous and you would need to get yourself to hospital pronto. Type 2 diabetics are less likely to produce ketones, but it is a very serious concern with Type 1, so do ask for those so that you can keep yourself safe..... or they can be bought over the counter at a pharmacy for about £5 for a pot of 100.

As regards finger pricking. The lancing device will have a range of settings usually from 1-5 or 6. Start low and ensure your hands are clean, dry and warm. Soaking them in warm water for a minute or two will help or cradling a cuppa. Once they are clean and dry and warm, give your hands a bit of a shake to stimulate the blood flow to the fingers further and then use the lancing device on the side of the pad of your selected finger. I find ring fingers and little fingers work best for me. If the lowest setting doesn't work, dial it up and try again, until you find the depth setting that works best for you..... or if you are a toughie like me just dial it right up to the highest setting and go for it. Having warm hands makes the biggest difference though.

There is a blog somewhere called "Painless pricks" which someone will have bookmarked and be able to provide a link. but You Tube tutorials are also pretty good as a visual aid to get you started.

As regards food, if you are actually Type 1 then once you are started on insulin, you will eventually be able to eat a normal diet and adjust your insulin doses to match your food, but at the moment when you don't have insulin, you may be best reducing your carb intake. I started by cutting all the added sugar, sweets, chocolate, cakes and biscuits and then I gradually whittled down the starchy veg and grain based foods like bread and pasta and rice and breakfast cereals) and fruit. Porridge was the last high carb food I gave up and resulted in me getting down into single figures. I was also eating low fat and the weight was absolutely dropping off me at quite an alarming rate. That was the point that they started me on insulin and 3 years on, it is all just a part of my life, but at the time it was mind blowingly overwhelming, so do allow yourself some time to come to terms with things and acknowledge that there is a massive amount to learn and it takes time and even if you knew it all which non of us do, getting perfect results is impossible.

Anyway, as regards practical dietary advice..... breakfast is probably the best meal to start with adjusting because most of us have a similar breakfast each morning so getting into a routine with something that your body can cope with more easily can mean that your levels don't start the day by going into orbit. Many of us enjoy full fat natural Greek style yoghurt with a few berries (berries are the lowest carb fruits, although I am currently using rhubarb from the garden, stewed with a little sweetener and ginger as it is also very low carb) and mixed seeds and/or chopped nuts. Another option is eggs however you like them.... with bacon and/or mushrooms, scrambled, poached or I like an omelette as you can vary it with different fillings and you don't have a runny yolk that begs a slice of bread/toast to mop it up. I have y omelette with a large salad and a big dollop of cheese coleslaw.

I am sure others will be along tomorrow with more suggestions but do push to get your diagnosis checked out because your young age (28), normal BMI and sudden dramatic weight loss all make Type 1 much more likely. Good luck and feel free to ask any questions you have, particularly if you don't understand anything I have typed.

 

[Leadinglights]

You should make it a priority to get a proper diagnosis as that will make quite a difference as to what will be a sensible dietary regime to follow in the long term.
You might find it useful to keep a food diary and note everything you eat and drink with an estimate of the TOTAL carbohydrates you are having along with blood glucose readings from your monitor, testing the effect of your meals by testing before you eat and after 2 hours, if the increase is no more that 2-3mmol/l then the meal is Ok. This should give some evidence to show to your diabetic team to help with confirming a diagnosis.
Once you get your technique sorted out it is a very simple thing to do. You only need a pinhead sized drop of blood to apply to the strip. Warm hands and keeping your hand below your heart helps, if you need to squeeze gentle pressure just behind the prick should be sufficient. Get everything ready before you start. (It is possible to get 200x more blood than you need from a finger prick if you get the technique right)

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @JORDJA8

Hope we can help you along your way as you begin to learn and discover the particular ins and outs of your own unique diabetes experience.

Hopefully you can adjust your lancing device to make the depth right for a reliable sample, but still relatively pain-free.

Hope any additional checks help to clarify your diabetes type too. As has been suggested, rapid unintentional weight loss might suggest LADA or T1, so it would be good to get your classification confirmed.

Keep asking away with any questions!

 

[Deleted member 34756]

Hi @JORDJA8, I'm glad to see that your finding the platform very helpful! I have attached some links on healthy snack swaps so hopefully these are useful - https://bit.ly/3kSSFlW and https://bit.ly/34eoyA8. Let us know how you get on. 😎

 

[JimG]

Hi all!

Newbie to the community and already findings this forum extremely helpful.

I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes yesterday which came as quite a shock. Went to the doctors after loosing nearly a stone and half in the last 4 months (going from 23.6 BMI to 20.8 BMI), had two blood test with the HbA1C readings coming back as 121 and 110. Currently been prescribed Metformin starting at 1 a day building up to 4.

Been looking through lots of the articles around food and diet to try and work out changes to my diet, the different types of sugar and low carbs options. If anyone has any advice for some everyday swaps then let me know.

I’ve also been given a blood glucose meter to log my levels but struggling to produce enough blood for a reading (sometimes having to do 8 pricks for one reading) so if anyone has any advice for that please let me know.

Hope to hear from some of you soon 🙂

I was diagnosed in 2009. For many people the diagnosis is a shock. It was not for me, at least not immediately. I had had an insect bite that was slow to heal and there were some other signs. I just felt justified that I was right when I had the diagnosis. The shock came when I collected my first set of metformin, simvastatin, glucose meter, sharps safe etc. I put everything on the table at home and suddenly felt that this was the end. I was doomed to be at the beck and call of drugs. Pretty soon I came to terms with diabetes. I do not define myself as a diabetic person. I am a person with diabetes.

On the diet front, I stopped my cans of Irn Bru. I used to take a can to start the day when I got to work. I stopped buying multipack bags of crisps in the weekly shop and bought the occasional bag as a treat. I was never one for sweet things and so the diet consisted of swapping wholemeal bread for white, oatcakes instead of biscuits, peanut butter rather than jam or marmalade on toast etc. and then just having less on the plate. If you like tinned peaches etc, buy cans in juice and not syrup. I am of a generation, I'm now 68, where I was brought up to eat everything on my plate and so I could only achieve eating less by putting less on the plate. I also started going for a walk at lunchtime most weekdays (meetings permitting) and in the evenings. It must have worked because every time my daughter came to visit she said I was melting away.

I never had a real problem with the blood pricks and so I have no real life advice other than what is in the leaflets. The consolation for you to look forward to is that once the blood sugar levels have dropped with diet and metformin, you don't really need regular prick tests with type 2 and you should be able to rely on the routine HbA1C tests at the regular review with the Diabetes nurse/GP. After about six months I stopped regular testing, only testing if I was feeling symptoms of hyper or hypo.

Every journey with diabetes is different. Good luck with yours.

 

[PattiEvans]

Hi there and welcome. The "painless pricks" advice spoken of above is by Alan Shanley, a friend of mine, albeit he lives in Australia. The link is here http://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/2006/10/painless-pricks.html Alan's whole blog is worth a read.

However, I agree with @rebrascora and @everydayupsanddowns, your symptoms do sound more like late onset T1. Unfortunately GPs seem to know little or nothing about that. I was wrongly diagnosed as T2 purely because of my age. I was subsequently rediagnosed correctly. Do query your diagnosis, as treatment is very different for T1s and T2s.

 

[JORDJA8]

Hi all, thank you so much for all your advice!!

Went shopping yesterday to swap out a lot of stuff for the healthier options (highly recommend Curator pork puffs) and been tracking my food (150g carbs today and 33g of sugar - 11g of this from natural sources).

Had a bit more success with the finger pricks with soaking my hands in warm water for a few minutes and then waving my arms around, it looks weird but seems to be working.

Had a call from the diabetes nurse this afternoon, they’re getting me in Wednesday to start me on insulin injections as she’s confident I’m type 1. This has hit me pretty hard, I’d began to accept being type 2 and living with the healthier diet and tablets and got my head around this being glad it wasn’t type 1 due to being extremely petrified of needles and witnessing an old colleague having a couple of bad hypos. I also go on holiday Friday so I’m worried how this will be with eating out and being away from home. The nurse didn’t go into too much else so I’ll see what she says Wednesday. If there are any questions you think I should ask her to go through with me then please send them over and thanks again for all your help and comments it’s really appreciated.

 

[Leadinglights]

Hi all, thank you so much for all your advice!!

Went shopping yesterday to swap out a lot of stuff for the healthier options (highly recommend Curator pork puffs) and been tracking my food (150g carbs today and 33g of sugar - 11g of this from natural sources).

Had a bit more success with the finger pricks with soaking my hands in warm water for a few minutes and then waving my arms around, it looks weird but seems to be working.

Had a call from the diabetes nurse this afternoon, they’re getting me in Wednesday to start me on insulin injections as she’s confident I’m type 1. This has hit me pretty hard, I’d began to accept being type 2 and living with the healthier diet and tablets and got my head around this being glad it wasn’t type 1 due to being extremely petrified of needles and witnessing an old colleague having a couple of bad hypos. I also go on holiday Friday so I’m worried how this will be with eating out and being away from home. The nurse didn’t go into too much else so I’ll see what she says Wednesday. If there are any questions you think I should ask her to go through with me then please send them over and thanks again for all your help and comments it’s really appreciated.

I don't know if you drive but if you do there are requirements if you are taking insulin and you must inform the DVLA. I think this link explains. https://forum.diabetes.org.uk/board...tness-to-drive-bg-testing-requirements.29604/

 

[rebrascora]

Good to hear your nurse is on the ball and whilst I understand it will be even more overwhelming now having a diagnosis change and getting your head around starting on insulin, at least you are not having to battle for that as some members of the forum have.
The timing of your diagnosis just before going on hoiiday is certainly not ideal, especially when you are just starting on insulin. Assuming you are going abroad, you will want a letter from the nurse to say that you are an insulin dependent diabetic and need to carry insulin and other diabetes kit, just in case you get stopped by airport security.
It is a coins toss as to whether you might want to hold off on the insulin and eat low carb whilst you are away (bit of a bummer when you are on holiday I guess) or take the insulin and eat more normal meals but be left without support for the week when you are just starting to use it..... other than perhaps logging into this forum if you get stuck.
Hopefully they will start you off on a very conservative dose to begin with, so that there is no risk of a hypo but if you are going to a hot country and do a bit of sport or plenty of walking, then you might still hypo so you must be prepared with plenty of hypo treatments with you are all times and carry your test kit with you. Being prepared and keeping yourself safe is really important with insulin.

As regards the needles, they are absolutely tiny.... really short and really fine.... so you are unlikely to feel intimidated by them once you are shown them, especially if you are managing to prick your fingers with the lancing device.