newbie

[sharynbn]

hi am a newbie

 

[SB2015]

Welcome Sharyn. Good to have you on the forum.
Have you had Diabetes for long?
Do you want to tell us a bit about how you manage it?

No questions are considered silly on here, and it is a great place to learn, rant and help others

 

[sharynbn]

i take metiformin and have started weighwatchers so losing the weight already but today i have felt really shaky is this part of a hypo

 

[CathyB]

Hi and welcome. What diet changes are you planning to make? Do you understand that carbohydrates are the same as sugar for our bodies? Especially rice, pasta, potatoes and bread so be careful with weight watchers. I was on slimming world when I was diagnosed, thinking I was doing the right thing, eating loads of fruit again thinking I was being ‘good’ when I was pushing my blood sugars up higher and higher. Once I cut the carbs down my bloods soon dropped back to a more manageable level. Loads of really good information here so do take some time to read back posts and then ask any questions you might have

 

[sharynbn]

cutting out alot of sugary drinks and cutting out all the c**p food haha, i dont eat much bread pasta or potatoes i will read back the forums but glad to have found this as i feel like i no nothing

 

[SueEK]

Hi @sharynbn and welcome. I think that’s how we all felt when diagnosed, certainly I did. I’m still learning things now, mostly from this forum, everybody here understands and wants to help. There is a book or app called carbs and cals which is really helpful as it also gives portion sizes so you can quite quickly learn what is what. All of us react differently to different foods so finding what you can safely have is a bit tricky to begin with but you will find out in time. A lot of us test our blood glucose levels so we can pin point what spikes us. I’m sure you will come across this when looking through the forum but we are happy to answer any questions you may have at any time x

 

[sharynbn]

hi i dont a machine to check my blood levels i think thats why am struggling as i dont know what is helping and whats not

 

[SueEK]

Would be a really good idea to get one, someone I’m sure will be along soon with the best one to get, it’s not the same one I use as I got mine from work. It really helps to figure out what really does and doesn’t like you, bread hates me which is so unfair coz I love it, also pasta but I can cope with small amounts of rice. I have recently discovered that even a small amount of bbq sauce really doesn’t like me so it is in my opinion a necessity and a bit annoying that we have to self-fund. I used to get mine on prescription but sadly my GP has left and now they won’t prescribe the strips and lancets but I believe it’s still worth doing. It also really helps you to feel more in control when you know what you can have and what to avoid. Good luck x

 

[sharynbn]

thanks i have looked into getting one myself, but unsure of the deapth of the needle you have to use, my gp considered giving me one but changed her mind i have the education programme on thursday dont know whether to say anything there and what they think i should do

 

[Cisco Ventura]

hi am a newbie

Hi Sharyn (waves)!

I'm diagnosed recently too and am getting used to Metformin and exploring things I can do with my diet. I have been given a Wavesense Jazz glucose monitor which is a great thing to have, though I have had to take a break from it for a few days as I was getting a bit obsessive about testing and restesting too often! Will go back to it when I've been on full dose Metformin in a few days.

Best tips I have so far, bearing in mind we're all different - salad and oily fish such as mackerel is great and filling, try a couple of eggs for breakfast, and check every food label to find out how much carb/sugars they contain as it's not always obvious. I have pretty much cut out bread, pasta and rice - cauli rice is great though.

It will seem a bit scary at the moment, but take it one day at a time and remember you have lots of support on here

 

[SueEK]

For some unfathomable reason they don’t seem keen on us testing because, I was told, of becoming obsessive, how insulting when all we are trying to do is help ourselves control our bg’s. Perhaps see if they mention it and take it from there. On my pen there are 5 different settings for the depth of the needle, I use 2 or 3 and I would imagine all of them have different settings.

 

[SueEK]

Hi Sharyn (waves)!

I'm diagnosed recently too and am getting used to Metformin and exploring things I can do with my diet. I have been given a Wavesense Jazz glucose monitor which is a great thing to have, though I have had to take a break from it for a few days as I was getting a bit obsessive about testing and restesting too often! Will go back to it when I've been on full dose Metformin in a few days.

Best tips I have so far, bearing in mind we're all different - salad and oily fish such as mackerel is great and filling, try a couple of eggs for breakfast, and check every food label to find out how much carb/sugars they contain as it's not always obvious. I have pretty much cut out bread, pasta and rice - cauli rice is great though.

It will seem a bit scary at the moment, but take it one day at a time and remember you have lots of support on here

Oops sorry Cisco hope I haven’t given offence, we must have been typing at the same time. When you first have a tester we all do it a lot because everything has to be tested to see where we are with each individual food but then like you we realise we are using it a lot when perhaps we know what the outcome will be. Kind regards xx

 

[sharynbn]

hi thanks for the advice everyone, i cant wait to hear all of your stories and help me with mine, would you all suggest that i buy a monitor

 

[CathyB]

hi thanks for the advice everyone, i cant wait to hear all of your stories and help me with mine, would you all suggest that i buy a monitor

Yes definitely! You can track your bg alongside your meals and that makes it so much easier to see what does or doesn’t work for you, then you tweak, adapt and repeat until you get a good result. If I hadn’t done this I don’t think I would have been able to pull it back so quickly.

This is the cheapest I found and is used by many others..

https://homehealth-uk.com/product-category/blood-glucose/

 

[KARNAK]

Hi @sharynbn and welcome to the forum.🙂 I see in your thread there is no figures of your Blood Sugar levels (BSL) or (BGL) Blood Glucose Levels. A bit more info would be handy, may we ask if this info is available to you and could you let the forum know, only if you want too.

 

[louloulou]

Welcome x

 

[Drummer]

thanks i have looked into getting one myself, but unsure of the deapth of the needle you have to use, my gp considered giving me one but changed her mind i have the education programme on thursday dont know whether to say anything there and what they think i should do

Er - what? first of all - no needles are involved in testing - secondly, YOU set the depth of the lancet (a tiny tiny little pricker device), so you just get one small bead of blood when you press the trigger.
You can get a meter and all the kit required, and 160 test strips for under £40 from spirit health - it is a Tee 2 - there are other devices but the Tee 2 seems OK as I got one recently just to check on my progress.

 

[Pine Marten]

Hi @sharynbn, welcome to the forum. Yes, the Codefree is pretty good, from Home Health https://homehealth-uk.com/all-products/codefree-blood-glucose-monitoring-system-mmoll-or-mgdl/ and if you tick the 'are you diabetic?' box they will take off the VAT. We use the mmol reading in the UK.

And there's no need to worry about needles, as Drummer has already said - it's very simple, even I can do it 🙂

 

[SB2015]

Hi @sharynbn

Many people with T2 on here choose to test their BG regularly, or when they want to find out what certain foods do to their levels. Armed with this info the6 can make appropriate choices about what they eat and portion sizes.

Very often you will be told that there is no need to do this, even on the education courses, however that is often because the GPs do not fund the test strips. The SD Codfree has the cheapest strips, so many go with that when self funding.

 

[Felinia]

I'm a newby too and did find it a lot to take in at first. I got a book "Can I eat that?" and also followed the advice to cut right down on carbs - no bread, potato, rice, pasta, cakes, biscuits, sweets, pasties, pies, pastries etc. For the first week I felt very shaky in the morning, and just wanted to sleep, but I've adapted now. I did find the website and app for NutraCheck very good (instead of the well known slimming groups, and cheaper). For every food it measures calories, carbs, sugars, fibre, protein, fat, sat fat, sodium: it has a barcode checker: it gives you running totals of individual meals and the daily count. It may not work for everyone, but it works for me so far.
My GP practise would not give me a monitor, so I've just stuck to naturally occurring carbs in non starchy vegetables, skimmed milk, and berries. The proof will be in the next HbA1c test.