Newbie

[purplefrog]

Hi Am newly diagnosed and just started medication. I also have MS. Feel like I have just been told to take the tablets and get on with it see you for a blood test in 3 months. I know this dreadful virus is affecting things but I feel a little lost.

 

[purplefrog]

Hi i am 50 yrs old , had a well woman check bloods were 54. I said i was already a member of Slimming world ( have lost 2 st already but taken 2 yrs) nutse said to kerp to diet and try to get it under 50. She explained numbers for pre diabetes and that i should be under 48 but then just said bpok another blood test for 3 months. I went..lockdiwn has hit my diet badly....up to 57 this time. I had to ribg surgery several times to get someone to tell me what this meant for me. Finally doc rang and just said its up a bit take metaformin slow release and blood test in 3 mths again. I am trying to walk when i can but my mobility isnt always good. I have to be with someone and hubby at work.

 

[rebrascora]

Hi and welcome from me too.

It is all a bit overwhelming to start with but with the help of this forum you should soon be finding your way forward. To be honest, the members here have provided far more information and advice than health care professionals for many of us regardless of the virus situation and it is tried and tested experience by people who live with it day to day, so we probably have a more in depth insight into what works and what doesn't and why.

My top tips would be :-
1. Take the Metformin mid meal with a substantial amount of food to reduce the risk of digestive upset.
2. Start keeping an honest food diary of everything you eat and drink.
3. Invest in a Blood Glucose meter so that you can test before and 2 hours after meals to see the effect that food has on your BG levels and use that info to tailor your diet to manage your diabetes.

We recommend cheap and cheerful when you are self funding as they all have to adhere to the same standard of accuracy. For that reason, the SD Gluco Navii and the Spirit Healthcare Tee2 are the ones used by most people self funding on the forum. They are approx. £15 for a basic meter kit but you will need additional test strips. For these meters they are £8 for a pot of 50 but many other manufacturers charge double or triple that for the test strips for their meters which can soon tot up the costs because you get through a lot of test strips in the first few months of testing. It is worth buying at least 2 additional pots of strips with the meter you select..... if indeed you can afford to and decide to follow that advice or you can persuade your health care professional to supply you with a meter and test strips but unless you are on insulin or certain other medications, they are not obliged to and many will even discourage home testing even if you are self funding, but the vast majority of people here on the forum who use them would not be without them as it tells you day by day and meal by meal if you are getting it right or need to make adjustments rather than finding out in 3 months time when you have another blood test at the doctors that the changes you have made have perhaps not been effective.

Keep us posted but as @Anitram says you are only just onto the diabetic scale in the 50s so it shouldn't take too much effort to push it back, Unfortunately SW is not an ideal diet for diabetics as I believe it is quite high carb and low fat and many of us find that low carb and higher fat is better to control both our diabetes and our weight.

 

[Deleted member 27171]

Hi @purplefrog

welcome to the forum, you’ll get plenty of support here as you've seen already. Sorry you’ve found the approach of your HCP a tad dismissive, I would like to be reassuring and say this is caused by the measures required to control a pandemic but sadly it wasn’t an uncommon experience prior to that.

The slimming world diet does work for a lot of people, but it’s certainly not suited to everyone. Many people do find that carbohydrate in particular is a menace for both blood glucose levels and weight. As I understand it SW is particularly high in carbohydrate which may make it difficult for you to lower your bgl and a lower carb approach may be worth a try to see if it works better for you.

 

[Ian Brown]

Best of luck purplefrog.

Any questions, just ask, there's a wealth of expertise on the forum.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @purplefrog

We are a friendly and experienced bunch. Ask any questions you have. 🙂