Not reacting?

[eddieb]

Hi, My Wife is 69 yrs and is a type 2. Two and a half years ago she had a stroke, fortunately I recognised the symptoms and she was in the Heart Dep within one and half hours and had the wonder shot. The following morning she was wanting to come home and funny thing about the stroke she is actually better now than she was before the stroke, way too involved to explain.
She is unable to walk and spends virtually her entire time in bed, she take very large doses of Morphine plus a very strong pain blocker and two beta blockers for her heart. When she was in the heart ward she was told she was type 2 and was prescribed Metmorfin 500 x 2 and later she was told to up it to 1000 x 2, which caused her to have uncontrolled bowel movements so I told her to revert to the 500x2. We weren't aware that it has to be taken with food . Now that I am aware of when to take it, I asked her to try two tablets with her main meal and one 12 hours later with a snack which worked, no probs. A week later I suggested she try two and two and again she had no probs.
My Wifes eating; she lives on fruit, i.e at least 24 easy peelers, seven bananas, two punnets of grapes and four pears a week.
She eats ( pecks ) at her mid-day meal. Several years ago he GP asked her to write what she ate in a week; GP said, That's not enough to feed a sparrow.
To my question, because she never has any ups and downs she never bothered to take her sugar reading; four days ago she asked me to take hers and was shocked to the core when it read 18. I have spent the last four days making her eat only food, no fruit what so ever and her fasting reading the last two mornings have been 6.7. So has anyone heard of someone not showing any affects when a high reading is found?
We both had bloods yesterday and the Diabetes Nurse is calling us on Monday!
My apologies for the length of this posting.

 

[Inka]

If your wife’s blood sugar has gone up gradually, then she could have got used to high being her ‘normal’, so she might not have had any symptoms @eddieb It will be interesting to see what her HbA1C is.

 

[Drummer]

Hi, My Wife is 69 yrs and is a type 2. Two and a half years ago she had a stroke, fortunately I recognised the symptoms and she was in the Heart Dep within one and half hours and had the wonder shot. The following morning she was wanting to come home and funny thing about the stroke she is actually better now than she was before the stroke, way too involved to explain.
She is unable to walk and spends virtually her entire time in bed, she take very large doses of Morphine plus a very strong pain blocker and two beta blockers for her heart. When she was in the heart ward she was told she was type 2 and was prescribed Metmorfin 500 x 2 and later she was told to up it to 1000 x 2, which caused her to have uncontrolled bowel movements so I told her to revert to the 500x2. We weren't aware that it has to be taken with food . Now that I am aware of when to take it, I asked her to try two tablets with her main meal and one 12 hours later with a snack which worked, no probs. A week later I suggested she try two and two and again she had no probs.
My Wifes eating; she lives on fruit, i.e at least 24 easy peelers, seven bananas, two punnets of grapes and four pears a week.
She eats ( pecks ) at her mid-day meal. Several years ago he GP asked her to write what she ate in a week; GP said, That's not enough to feed a sparrow.
To my question, because she never has any ups and downs she never bothered to take her sugar reading; four days ago she asked me to take hers and was shocked to the core when it read 18. I have spent the last four days making her eat only food, no fruit what so ever and her fasting reading the last two mornings have been 6.7. So has anyone heard of someone not showing any affects when a high reading is found?
We both had bloods yesterday and the Diabetes Nurse is calling us on Monday!
My apologies for the length of this posting.

My blood glucose level was 17.1 at diagnosis and it was only when I dropped to normal levels after going low carb no more than 50gm of carbs a day, that I realised how down I had been feeling.
All that fruit must have been hitting hard for a type 2 - I wonder if your wife will see improvements now, if she is not eating lots of starchy foods to compensate, that is. It really does sneak up insidiously.
On my higher protein diet after diagnosis I found my strength returning and I was able to return to work - I only have a small state pension and so never actually retired, but eating carbs weakened me year on year and 10 years ago I was in serious trouble moving the knitting machines on my big jobs of servicing the machines at the arts university and had to extend the time I spent there.
You really should have been warned about Metformin - I had explosive faecal incontinence on just one a day, taken with food, but thanks to the low carb diet I don't need it anyway - I threw them and the Atorvastatin in the bin after the most miserable month of my life.

 

[Leadinglights]

Swapping those high carb fruits for lower carb berries would mean she could still have some fruit but just sensible portions a couple of times a day. A portion is 1 satsuma, 1 pear, 80g berries, 1 small apple, but the grapes, bananas are fruits that many who are Type 2 will avoid unless they are testing to make sure they will cope with them.
This link may be helpful in finding some meals that would be more balanced and would suit your wife.

Freshwell Low Carb Project - Home

lowcarbfreshwell.com

 

[dannybgoode]

So has anyone heard of someone not showing any affects when a high reading is found?

Me. Had completely routine bloods taken first week of December for a general health check and my Hba1c was 121 and my BG when measured at the diabetes clinic was >28 (highest reading the machine would give so could have been anything above 28).

Completely asymptomatic, not a hint of any problems...

 

[eddieb]

If your wife’s blood sugar has gone up gradually, then she could have got used to high being her ‘normal’, so she might not have had any symptoms @eddieb It will be interesting to see what her HbA1C is.

Thank you for your reply, I guess we'll know next Monday when we talk to the D/Nurse.

 

[eddieb]

My blood glucose level was 17.1 at diagnosis and it was only when I dropped to normal levels after going low carb no more than 50gm of carbs a day, that I realised how down I had been feeling.
All that fruit must have been hitting hard for a type 2 - I wonder if your wife will see improvements now, if she is not eating lots of starchy foods to compensate, that is. It really does sneak up insidiously.
On my higher protein diet after diagnosis I found my strength returning and I was able to return to work - I only have a small state pension and so never actually retired, but eating carbs weakened me year on year and 10 years ago I was in serious trouble moving the knitting machines on my big jobs of servicing the machines at the arts university and had to extend the time I spent there.
You really should have been warned about Metformin - I had explosive faecal incontinence on just one a day, taken with food, but thanks to the low carb diet I don't need it anyway - I threw them and the Atorvastatin in the bin after the most miserable month of my life.

You really should have been warned about Metformin... I agree totally . She has been a fruit addict for 69 yrs and is finding it very hard to abstain.

 

[eddieb]

Swapping those high carb fruits for lower carb berries would mean she could still have some fruit but just sensible portions a couple of times a day. A portion is 1 satsuma, 1 pear, 80g berries, 1 small apple, but the grapes, bananas are fruits that many who are Type 2 will avoid unless they are testing to make sure they will cope with them.
This link may be helpful in finding some meals that would be more balanced and would suit your wife.

Freshwell Low Carb Project - Home

lowcarbfreshwell.com

I let her have a pear today because her figures were relatively good. It is no good her looking at any recommended because she eats so little.

 

[Inka]

If her diet largely consists of fruit, maybe she has a vitamin or mineral deficiency that’s contributing to her lack of appetite @eddieb ? A lack of zinc affects appetite, for example.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @eddieb

Glad your wife’s glucose levels bounced back without the fruit. There might be away to accommodate smaller amounts of the fruit she likes?

Let us know how you get on at your appointment next week 🙂

 

[Lucyr]

To my question, because she never has any ups and downs she never bothered to take her sugar reading; four days ago she asked me to take hers and was shocked to the core when it read 18. I have spent the last four days making her eat only food, no fruit what so ever and her fasting reading the last two mornings have been 6.7. So has anyone heard of someone not showing any affects when a high reading is found?

If she eats a lot of fruit, didn’t feel high at all at 18, and is down in the 6s since then I have to ask the simple explanation of did she wash and dry her hands before testing for the reading of 18? A bit of fruit residue on the finger could have given the false high.

 

[eddieb]

Me. Had completely routine bloods taken first week of December for a general health check and my Hba1c was 121 and my BG when measured at the diabetes clinic was >28 (highest reading the machine would give so could have been anything above 28).

Completely asymptomatic, not a hint of any problems...

Thank you for your reply. I should have said on my OP that she is a strange creature because things that affect people normally, don't affect her i.e Alcohol, she will and has drunk big drinking men under the table, doesn't affect her at all ( although she stopped drinking 20 odd yrs ago ) neither does Mary Jane, which she tried once when she was younger and couldn't understand why everybody liked it! She also has an incredible tolerance to pain.
She has accepted that her fruit diet is a thing of the past, seeing the figure of 18 shocked her.
To those I didn't say thank you to, I do now, Many thanks to all who answered.

 

[Lucyr]

I let her have a pear today because her figures were relatively good. It is no good her looking at any recommended because she eats so little.

If she eats so little as well then I wouldn’t be refusing to let her have the food she likes

 

[eddieb]

Welcome to the forum @eddieb

Glad your wife’s glucose levels bounced back without the fruit. There might be away to accommodate smaller amounts of the fruit she likes?

Let us know how you get on at your appointment next week 🙂

Will do.

 

[Leadinglights]

I let her have a pear today because her figures were relatively good. It is no good her looking at any recommended because she eats so little.

It not just a matter of how much food it is having the right food for her condition.
I suspect if she not mobile then her energy needs will be quite low but trying to have protein and healthy fats rather than sugar would be better for her blood glucose level.
When you say relatively good what were they like.

 

[eddieb]

If she eats so little as well then I wouldn’t be refusing to let her have the food she likes

The fruit is what is causing the high reading , the only other thing is she has naturally high sugar reading and we know there is no such thing!

 

[Lucyr]

The fruit is what is causing the high reading , the only other thing is she has naturally high sugar reading and we know there is no such thing!

It’s one high reading, and you haven’t confirmed if she’d even washed her hands for whether it was a true reading. Testing before and 2hrs after different fruits to understand which ones work in which portions and spacing it out through the day would be the way forwards here, not simply banning her from the foods she likes eating.

 

[eddieb]

It not just a matter of how much food it is having the right food for her condition.
I suspect if she not mobile then her energy needs will be quite low but trying to have protein and healthy fats rather than sugar would be better for her blood glucose level.
When you say relatively good what were they like.

Her fasting figure for the last couple of mornings were 6.7. Which logically is poor because she needs to be around 4 to 5 to give her any chance of eating anything like normal. That's what I set out to do about four weeks ago and I am now seeing good figures, i.e today's figures..5.5, 6.0, 4.9. That's fasting, After lunch and after evening meal.

 

[eddieb]

It’s one high reading, and you haven’t confirmed if she’d even washed her hands for whether it was a true reading. Testing before and 2hrs after different fruits to understand which ones work in which portions and spacing it out through the day would be the way forwards here, not simply banning her from the foods she likes eating.

Lucyr: I'M 79 and in my working life I was in computers, long before most people had ever heard of them. I am one of those who pure logic is natural, what you suggested is exactly what I did, I also did that to myself to get down to where I am now.

 

[Lucyr]

To my question, because she never has any ups and downs she never bothered to take her sugar reading; four days ago she asked me to take hers and was shocked to the core when it read 18. I have spent the last four days making her eat only food, no fruit what so ever and her fasting reading the last two mornings have been 6.7.

You can’t possibly have systematically tested every type and portion size of fruit, repeating the test to verify results, over the last four days… whilst also having made her avoid all fruit completely

I am one of those who pure logic is natural, what you suggested is exactly what I did,

Also I’m taking your silence on the hand washing to mean that step was skipped and so it was probably not actually a reading of 18 anyway