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Good luck Heather, for the record those symptoms are very similar to the ones I experienced in January and my in hospital HBA1C was very similar too. Let us know how you go.
 
Hi Heather, welcome to the forum but I'm shocked to hear of the dismissive attitude of your GP. Your sudden dramatic worsening of symptoms seems indicative of type 1, and you MUST get yourself seen in hospital urgently to rule that out - you don't want to end up in ITU with diabetic Ketoacidosis. Hope you get the right treatment and start to feel better very soon 🙂
 
Welcome Heather, hope you feel better soon, once you get your levels better you should feel a lot better, it's taken me 3 years plus to get under control, mainly because I kept eating the wrong things, better lately so you can do it 🙂
 
Hi Heather, just wondering how you are? Hope things have improved for you 🙂
 
Heather, as Northie says, those are very high levels. I would want to get tested for Type 1 ASAP, especially with ketones present. Hope all goes well for you.
 
Well over the last week I have been feeling pretty much the same. I ended up in hospital last weekend. They are still saying I've got type 2 diabetes. I'm still polyuric and I have polydypsia. My blood sugars are between 18 and 22. They are slowly increasing my ,metaformin.....which has so far not done a great deal over the last 2weeks.still got very dry eyes, dry mouth, headaches and I'm feeling exhausted.

The latest is that I saw the Gp today and he basically said to cut out all the carbs in my diet......it's bad enough having to packet read and cut out most of the sugar and fat in my diet but now carbs too? Looks like I'll be eating bloody rabbit food all the time at this rate.

Is it usual for a gp to tell you to eliminate carbs from your diet?he also told me it's not really worth me checking my blood sugars in order to see whether I'm on the right track with my diet/ changes in medication.....

I approached my go and suggested that I might have type 1.5. He asked me what that was exactly. So I explained.he said I have type 2, I asked him how,he'd come to that conclusion and he didn't answer me.

I feel like I'm getting nowhere fast!:(
 
Heather, I don't really know what to say :( I'm still not convinced that you have Type 2. There is a possibility that you have an infection which is raising your blood glucose levels and perhaps the ABs will help with that, but At the sort of levels your blood sugar is at metformin alone is unlikely to improve things much. Regarding carbohydrate: all carbs will raise your blood glucose as all are converted to glucose when digested. Cutting them out completely will not totally prevent levels rising, since in the absence of carbs the body will convert protein and fat to glucose. What are your ketone levels like? You should not have to completely eliminate carbs from your diet, although as things stand you would be advised to keep them to a minimum as it is your best tool (in the absence of effective medication) for keeping your levels down. I would also say that testing is essential in order to monitor whether your efforts and medication are having any effect.

I'm not really surprised that your GP has not heard of Type 1.5, but it is wrong of him to dismiss it - it's very real. Have a read of the following:

http://diabetessupport.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?t=47745

I think you need a second opinion, is there another GP you can see? When you were in hospital, did you see an endocrinologist?
 
Hi Heather
Good to hear from you, not good that you're still struggling. I'm a relative newbie so not much advice that I can give but I know there are lots of people on here who will be along with advice. No carb is not the usual advice at all, in fact I get nagged to eat more carb. Lots of people do go low carb, but going no carb goes against the NHS guidelines so I'm not sure that's great advice especially if your GP is suggesting that because the Metformin isn't working. I'm learning that it's not unusual for medical professionals to be unaware of type 1 in adulthood, and completely clueless about 1.5, and as far as I'm aware the only definitive test is an antibody test because the 1's are autoimmune. For what it's worth I wouldn't eliminate carb from my diet, I'd go back to the GP and discuss alternative medications/antibody testing 🙂
 
Welcome to the forum Heather. Sorry to hear you are so ill - in fact I think you should ditch your unhelpful GP and get a second opinion without delay. Your fasting BG and HbA1c are higher than my daughter's were at diagnosis, and she was just going into DKA and probably would have been comatose within 24 hours if we hadn't got her to hospital when we did! Also I didn't know you could get high ketones with T2 although maybe someone will correct me on that one. I do think you should ask to be tested for T1 though, just so that you know definitely what you're dealing with. Good luck 🙂
 
Hey everyone.
Thanks so much for your help! You guys seem more knowledgable than all the nurses and gps I've come across so far!

So I saw the gp and diabetic nurse yesterday. They increased my metaformin to 500mg three times a day. The go said he would crank it up again on Monday.

He won't prescribe any lancets or test strips for my machine.he said there is no value in testing blood glucose levels in type 2 diabetes.the diabetic nurse thinks differently. He doesn't listen to a word I say. He wouldn't even prescribe liquifilm tears for my dry eyes that were prescribed by an ophthalmologist until he sees a letter from him, despite me producing said eye drops from my bag with my name on them. I told him to forget it and I ended up buying them myself over the counter. He was even funny about giving me another box of metaformin and I only have about 15 tabs left and he's cranking the dose up.

I don't think I'll be able to eliminate carbs completely from my diet....I have drastically cut them down though, and it's leaving me feeling hungry all the time. I just look at the big plates of salad and stir fry I've been eating and I just want to eat something nice. I guess I'll just have to stop torturing myself by watching cookery programmes lol.

The keystones in my urine are still there. I had +++++ last week. I had them tested this week and there were ++ in my urine. This test was done on the day when I was feeling not too bad, but for the last 2 days I've been feeling bloody awful again. I've lost 13kg in the last 2weeks. I just sleep all the time.

Feeling very disillusioned by it all!
 
Hi Heather

You need a new GP! It sounds like your D nurse is talking more sense so listen to her. Unfortunately you do need a GP to prescribe your medications, could you perhaps ask to see a different one, or change practices?

Reducing carbs will help a little as they are what make your blood sugars go up, so of you eat less of them then your sugars can't go up so high. I wouldn't try to cut them out altogether, thst's far too extreme, but if you can eat less carbs and fill up with more protein and veg instead then it will help.

Hope it all starts to settle down soon, your head is in a whirl at the moment, it does get easier with time x

Oh and please do ask to get tested for T1, I'm less familiar with T2 but know a couple of people with it who had hardly any symptoms at all prior to diagnosis. If you are losing weight, are exhausted and have ketones then that sounds more like T1 to me. (The older you are at onset, the slower it is I believe, so you might not become critical as quickly as my daughter did.). But of course I can't diagnose so please do find a doctor who will listen to you and find out exactly what is going on, you need to get onto the correct course of treatment as quickly as possible then you will feel loads better. Your current GP is worse than useless.
 
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Heather, I'm really concerned for you :( Your GP sounds like an idiot, to be frank, please take what ever route you can to see a different doctor. You are losing so much weight because your body can't process your food properly for energy, so it is turning to burning body fat and muscle tissue instead - the ketones are a by-product of this process. Normally ketones wouldn't be a problem because there would be insulin available to help process them out of your system - this isn't happening, which again shows a severe lack of insulin. High ketones don't usually occur in Type 2 because they usually are producing plenty of insulin - although this insulin isn't used well to process carbs for energy, it would normally act to keep ketones at a more reasonable level.

All the symptoms you have described indicate Type 1, so you must see someone who knows what they are talking about - the evidence so far indicates your GP does not. Just the weight loss alone could be damaging your body, and appears to have been ignored :(
 
Hi Heather. I agree with the others that you need a different GP, the sooner, the better.

Like you I was initially diagnosed as T2 although, unlike you. I actually look like a classic T2. A lack of family history, T2 meds that didn't really work for me and periodic high ketones whenever my numbers soared helped me get the tests that changed my diagnosis to LADA or slow onset T1. I'm doing a lot better now with the proper treatment. I really think you need to find another doctor as the one you have seems a real waste of space and hopefully then you'll be able to get the tests done to establish what 'type' you really are.
 
I would also put in a complaint in writing about him, as he has not even prescribed your eye drops and it does sound that you are type1 not 2 which means the metformin you are on is useless to you....I would say you need to see someone asap even NHS Helpline?....

Good luck!
 
I've done NHS direct 3times now. They hear 'type 2' and won't even refer you to emergency until your blood sugar is higher than 21 mmols. So I did go and see an emergency GP last weekend, and he was going to send me home on oral antibiotics. I asked him if he thought that I might have been misdiagnosed and he said no. I had to stamp my feet to get him to send me up the local hospital, who told me it was the UTI that is making my sugars high! The endocrinologist spent 2 minutes with me and asked why my GP wasn't managing my diabetes...I told him to ask the GP himself....because when I talk to him it's like talking to a plank!

Trouble is I don't know my local area. I just moved back here from Australia about 8 months ago after being away for 18 years and I don't know which gps are good and which ones are not? I just know my GP in Australia was a lot more competent and at least he had a sense of humour.
 
This must be all very frustrating and distressing for you :( It's true that an infection will usually raise blood glucose levels, but by the same token high BG levels will encourage the infection and make it more difficult to overcome. But 26kg weight loss in two weeks! Goodness me, why is that not registering with any of them?

How long is the course of antibiotics for? Hopefully they will help with the UTI, but if you continue to have severe symptoms then it seems all you can do is keep going back and standing your ground until you get satisfactory answers from your GP. Is there more than one GP at the practice? Could you make an appointment with a different one?
 
Hi Heather sorry to hear you are having a hard time. Welcome & good luck sorting 🙂
 
Heather Hughes said:
It's about 13 kg that I've lost northerner
Click to expand...

Oops! Yes, looks like I crudely converted it into pounds in my head and transmitted that thought to my typing fingers 🙄

How are you feeling today? I hope there has been some improvement 🙂
 
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