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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.
Newly diagnosed Type 2 50 year old
- Thread starter Bezman
- Start date
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Hi there, I found out during my yearly well mans check up at the Doctors. They took some blood then did some more just to double check and then a quick phone call to tell me the news.
How am I doing ?? not sure to be honest as I'm a carer for my wife whos had Parkinsons for 22 years I've just been concentrating on her really and neglected myself. I'm a little over weight but they said thats not the only reason why I've got it. So now the big thing is trying to find out all I can online about diabetes which will be a struggle as I'm not computer friendly and trying to find things out like money meaning I'm on universal credit and do I need to tell them and DVLA plus other things. Its a bit scary at the moment but I'll just try to get on with it.
Thank you for replying
How am I doing ?? not sure to be honest as I'm a carer for my wife whos had Parkinsons for 22 years I've just been concentrating on her really and neglected myself. I'm a little over weight but they said thats not the only reason why I've got it. So now the big thing is trying to find out all I can online about diabetes which will be a struggle as I'm not computer friendly and trying to find things out like money meaning I'm on universal credit and do I need to tell them and DVLA plus other things. Its a bit scary at the moment but I'll just try to get on with it.
Thank you for replying
Windy
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Hi Bezman, you sound like you have a lot on your plate being a carer too.
If you're happier talking to someone, there's a helpline at Diabetes UK that you can call:
My understanding is that unless you're on medication which can give you hypos, you don't need to inform the DVLA, so unless you're on insulin or gliclazide (and maybe other medications, the helpline will be able to confirm), you shouldn't need to tell them.
But we're all happy to try and answer any questions you have,
Best wishes, Sarah
PS ask at your GPs if you can go on a diabetes course, they're about a day long, or two half days and you can ask any questions you have there along with other people with type 2.
If you're happier talking to someone, there's a helpline at Diabetes UK that you can call:
0345 123 2399
might be easier than having to search on the intranet for your questions about driving etc.My understanding is that unless you're on medication which can give you hypos, you don't need to inform the DVLA, so unless you're on insulin or gliclazide (and maybe other medications, the helpline will be able to confirm), you shouldn't need to tell them.
But we're all happy to try and answer any questions you have,
Best wishes, Sarah
PS ask at your GPs if you can go on a diabetes course, they're about a day long, or two half days and you can ask any questions you have there along with other people with type 2.
trophywench
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Hiya - it's your genes! Yes being overweight can certainly 'encourage' your body to object but it isn't always the case even if people are 'morbidly obese'. It's more than possible to be TOFI - ie Thin Outside, Fat Inside - this means that your own body is working against you by laying down fat around your internal organs instead of or as well as, underneath the skin and thus causing those inner bits to become sluggish instead of mega fit raring to go and working perfectly.
Best thing you can do to help yourself and therefore as a side effect, your wife - is to take this as a wake-up call (a kick up the bum!) by starting to pay more attention to your own body's needs. It's not a difficult concept (although the inner workings of the human body certainly are) because the simple explanation is that the body converts everything we eat or drink, into glucose - cos every cell in our body, whether it's in the right big toe, the heart, the skin or the brain, uses glucose for fuel to make them and therefore the organs they are in, function.
It's easy for the body to extract glucose from carbohydrate therefore if there's plenty of it going in, it'll always convert that first in favour of converting the protein or the fat we consume. Hence to begin with, it's the easiest to start by trying to reduce the amount of carb in the diet. You won't be able to reduce it to Nil and no-one's suggesting you try - but certainly, cut it down. In the days when a meal was meat spuds and another veg, you cut the amount of spuds down. If you use thick sliced bread, change it to thin or medium sliced. Change having a 'Large' loaf to a 'Small' loaf. Absolutely reduce or remove sugar in drinks, cos sugar is almost 100% carbohydrate whether it's stirred into a cup of coffee or in full sugar soft drinks - almost all the popular soft drinks have 'diet' versions.
If you have rice or pasta, reduce your portion and have a bit more whatever you serve with it, to compensate - eg Spag Bol - less spag and more bol. There are low carb/carb free substitutes for the rice and the pasta should you need to reduce the carb even more.
Anyway - enrol in the Diabetes UK Learning Zone and work your way through the modules at your own pace, to learn more about your diabetes. And jolly good luck with it, cos you are important!
Best thing you can do to help yourself and therefore as a side effect, your wife - is to take this as a wake-up call (a kick up the bum!) by starting to pay more attention to your own body's needs. It's not a difficult concept (although the inner workings of the human body certainly are) because the simple explanation is that the body converts everything we eat or drink, into glucose - cos every cell in our body, whether it's in the right big toe, the heart, the skin or the brain, uses glucose for fuel to make them and therefore the organs they are in, function.
It's easy for the body to extract glucose from carbohydrate therefore if there's plenty of it going in, it'll always convert that first in favour of converting the protein or the fat we consume. Hence to begin with, it's the easiest to start by trying to reduce the amount of carb in the diet. You won't be able to reduce it to Nil and no-one's suggesting you try - but certainly, cut it down. In the days when a meal was meat spuds and another veg, you cut the amount of spuds down. If you use thick sliced bread, change it to thin or medium sliced. Change having a 'Large' loaf to a 'Small' loaf. Absolutely reduce or remove sugar in drinks, cos sugar is almost 100% carbohydrate whether it's stirred into a cup of coffee or in full sugar soft drinks - almost all the popular soft drinks have 'diet' versions.
If you have rice or pasta, reduce your portion and have a bit more whatever you serve with it, to compensate - eg Spag Bol - less spag and more bol. There are low carb/carb free substitutes for the rice and the pasta should you need to reduce the carb even more.
Anyway - enrol in the Diabetes UK Learning Zone and work your way through the modules at your own pace, to learn more about your diabetes. And jolly good luck with it, cos you are important!
gll
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
- Pronouns
- She/Her
100% echo what @trophywench has said
Hope this helps to answer some of your questions:
DVLA.
https://www.gov.uk/diabetes-driving
And the leaflet for driving when being treated with non insulin medication explain the instances where you should contact DVLA (usually you wont need to)
https://assets.publishing.service.g...vers-with-diabetes-treated-by-non-insulin.pdf
UNIVERSAL CREDIT. Nope, there's no reason to inform them at all about your own health conditions unless you are applying for sickness benefits yourself. It won't effect carers in any way (either the UC addon or the stand alone carers allowance)
Wishing you every success in getting on top of things. Its said here often but no question is to silly to ask. Just fire away if you need some answers or you just need to vent off some frustrations about the whole situation. We all "get it".
Hope this helps to answer some of your questions:
DVLA.
https://www.gov.uk/diabetes-driving
And the leaflet for driving when being treated with non insulin medication explain the instances where you should contact DVLA (usually you wont need to)
https://assets.publishing.service.g...vers-with-diabetes-treated-by-non-insulin.pdf
UNIVERSAL CREDIT. Nope, there's no reason to inform them at all about your own health conditions unless you are applying for sickness benefits yourself. It won't effect carers in any way (either the UC addon or the stand alone carers allowance)
Wishing you every success in getting on top of things. Its said here often but no question is to silly to ask. Just fire away if you need some answers or you just need to vent off some frustrations about the whole situation. We all "get it".
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Welcome to the forum @Bezman
Sorry to hear about your diagnosis
Did you have any diabetes symptoms that were lurking in the background? Or did things come completely of the blue? Hopefully things were caught early before your metabolism was struggling too much?
It’s perfectly natural to feel overwhelmed and a bit knocked sideways to begin with.
One of our mods @Docb has some good knowledge about how to access carer support and might be able to give you some pointers?
Fire away with any questions after you’ve started to dip into the learning zone, or if you have any other questions or concerns 🙂
First of all I would like to thank everyone who's welcomed me and given me some advice it is thoroughly appreciated.
@everydayupsanddowns the only symptoms I had which I found out about afterwards was that I had blurred vision and tiredness but I had put that down to old age for the eyesight and looking after my wife for 15 hours a day for the tiredness and me being medically morbidly obese obviously doesn't help at all. Because the doctors only told me over the phone they haven't said alot but I have an appointment in 2 weeks but they did say last year my hba1c i think was 43 but now it's 54 (I'm sorry I'm not sure what else he said because I was confused about it all) so all these numbers are a complete mystery to me and not sure what it means. I'm not sure what else to ask because I'm not sure what any of this means yet.
@everydayupsanddowns the only symptoms I had which I found out about afterwards was that I had blurred vision and tiredness but I had put that down to old age for the eyesight and looking after my wife for 15 hours a day for the tiredness and me being medically morbidly obese obviously doesn't help at all. Because the doctors only told me over the phone they haven't said alot but I have an appointment in 2 weeks but they did say last year my hba1c i think was 43 but now it's 54 (I'm sorry I'm not sure what else he said because I was confused about it all) so all these numbers are a complete mystery to me and not sure what it means. I'm not sure what else to ask because I'm not sure what any of this means yet.
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Don’t worry about feeling a bit confused and knocked sideways by it all. Hopefully at your appointment in 2 weeks you’ll get some good pointers and support.
Your HbA1c results are towards the low edge of the diabetes zone. Results between 42 and 47 are termed as being at risk of diabetes (sometimes referred to as prediabetes), and 48 and over gets a diagnosis with diabetes.
But we have plenty of members who have been diagnosed in the 80s, 90s or 100+
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