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Symptoms

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T

Tony1960

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hi there,
Just joined not usually a group type of person, and not exactly a newbie. But thought I would give it a go. I was diagnosed over a year ago and must confess was quite shocked and worried. After the consultation with the GP who gave me the news quite matter of factly some leaflets, my first course of med an appointment three months in the future with the DN and sent off to begin my new journey. I must confess the support was surprisingly poor and advise very contradictory at times. Any way a year further down the road and quite a bit of reading later, I am 4 stone lighter and by blood sugars are in the normal range. But the one constant is the lack of support.
 
Hello @Tony1960 , welcome to the forum.
Sadly your experience with lack of support/ info is not unusual.
Well done in your weight loss and getting your bg (blood glucose) levels into the normal range .

We have some very knowledgeable people on here, so if you have any questions re diabetes, just ask.
 
Yes, absolutely typical.
I am getting on towards three years back in the normal range, diagnosed in 2016, lost a similar amount of weight, classed as in remission, but not seen my GP since diagnosis - possibly sulking. I am absolutely fine now, so no worries.
 
Hello Tony and welcome to the forum and congratulations on dealing with your weight loss and sugar levels

I'm sorry to hear about your lack of support, I read about this often on here
Since I was diagnosed I have moved to another area, so I have lived with diabetes in two parts of the country, and in both of them the support and advice has been good
So you could say I have been lucky, but really that is the wrong point of view; I have simply received what should be normal and available to everyone

Nevertheless, I think that we can do a lot to help ourselves by reading around the subject, as we used to be told at college -

this forum
library books
books from Amazon; I have always found their used books to be in reasonable condition and good value. Though once you start Searching it can be never ending, and you start to wonder just how good and useful some of them are
YouTube; There are a lot of videos about diabetes, diet and so on, but as with anything on t'Net and YT you need to be cautious

Have you joined Diabetes UK? They have a useful magazine; organise events around the country; and there may be a local support group near you
 
Hello @Tony1960 and welcome from me as well.
I hope that you find the forum useful, if you have a browse around you will see that there are many diverse topics being discussed, and it is a good place to share ideas and concerns.

Unfortunately many of us have experienced the lack of support, but I think it is gradually improving.
It does mean though that we have to become self reliant, and find out information for ourselves.
We are all different and there is no one-size-fits all solution.
The important thing is to findout what works for you, and that it is sustainable.
You have obviously been very successful in doing this, and very well done on your weight loss, and blood sugar control.

We would be interested to hear what eating and exercise plan works well for you, if you are happy to share it.
Also let us know if there are any particular things you would like to know more about, and we will try to give you some pointers.
 
Hi everyone thanks for the welcome, glad to see I’m not alone in my assumptions. This is how I tackled T2 after being diagnosed age 59 and HB1 of 91, in hindsight completely wrong if I’m honest with myself.
Firstly I stopped all sugar and carb intake and decreased the amount of food quite drastically the Metformin gave me terrible stomach upsets and for the first four month and the toilet was my best and only friend, something I kept bringing up with the doctor who simply said I would get used to them, I didn’t. And this I think was the main driver for the weight loss early on. I then discovered that there was a slow release version of metformin but the doctor seemed unwilling to prescribe these I have no idea why, but since It was now six months into my journey sent me for blood test. This showed my HB1 had dropped to 64, so reduced me from four metformin a day to one SR, my symptoms reduced but but was still an issue. I began reading lots of books and started to increase my food intake and introduced some carbs back into my diet and I seem to have now found what works for me. I am now on Sitaglitin one a day and on my last blood test before lockdown my HB1 was 39. But with lockdown I have seen a slight increase from my own daily testing but nothing drastic. My stomach problem remain an issue and for relief I stop my meds for three day or sometime more and at the same time reduce all sugar and carbs. Not ideal I know but works for me to relieve the symptoms.
My advise to anybody would be don’t panic like I did as it made me quite poorly, make small changes to see what works best, read as much quality info as possible and question the professional if you think it’s not going well, keep to a healthy diet lots of vegetables and some reasonable exercise and with luck you can get through this. I hope this brief example of a T2 is of help. I would be interested to hear if anybody else has the same stomach issues and found a solution.
 
Hi Tony
Apart from the fact that metfartin commonly causes gastric issues, why the hell is your Doctor assuming that the issue with yours is caused exclusively by the drug?
 
Welcome to the forum @Tony1960

Well done on the changes you made and glad to see your latest HbA1c reinforced how successful your strategies have been. Your advice will be very useful to others starting on this journey.

I find this forum a great place for asking questions that come up in my management, and there has always been plenty of help.
 
Hi there the doctor has suggested further investigation, but and a very big but in my case I had surgery about 8 years ago for suspected appendicitis that left me with a perforated bowel and a colostomy bag for three years and a final operation to remove a piece of bowel and the whole affair has left me a little jaded when it comes to health professionals, as I said I do take a break from the meds from time to time and the symptoms go and I am free from the problem for about two week but then it returns. It’s no where near as bad at the metaformin but still gets me down. One thing I am considering is to stop the meds and try diet only control after reading some books about it but I will not try this until my next blood test is due and confirm it’s still in the normal range
 
Well - whatever you do for diabetes, personally I'd absolutely want to enquire what 'further investigation' exactly, my GP was meaning!
 
Welcome to the forum @Tony1960

Hope you find support, hints, tips, friendship and a sense of ‘shared struggle’ here, at the irritations diabetes can throw your way - even though you’re not really a group person 🙂

The great thing about an online forum is that you can dip in and out as it suits you, and while there are occasional meet-ups organised in various parts of the country, you can quite happily contribute and be a well liked and active member without ever having to actually meet anyone!
 
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