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Whats the worst advice you have been given?

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Steff said:
Worse bit of advice is definitely join this forum, all these people hounding me to attend meets gets v annoying ::D🙂
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Why on earth have we encouraged you? 😉
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Because you're brilliant company! 🙂
 
"Don't eat normal" by a well meaning friend. So now I just stick everything in my ear. 🙄
 
I took away from my first diabetic consult that my sugar level should be between 4 and 8 all the time. Not sure its what the nurse meant me to take away as the rest of the time they were brilliant.

But I was testing a very short time after a meal, getting a 9 and correcting. Couldn't work out why I was hypo so much. It took me ages to 'unlearn' this.
 
When my daughter was about 9 months old, an old-style health visitor told me not to feed her between 6pm and 6am. She was never overweight (crept up the same centile throughout childhood) and I knew that a small bowl of porridge at 8pm would give me a night's sleep. So I nodded and smiled, then carried on with what worked for our family.
 
Lizzzie said:
I took away from my first diabetic consult that my sugar level should be between 4 and 8 all the time. Not sure its what the nurse meant me to take away as the rest of the time they were brilliant.

But I was testing a very short time after a meal, getting a 9 and correcting. Couldn't work out why I was hypo so much. It took me ages to 'unlearn' this.
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Erm.....that's actually correct. Anything over 7.2 is complication causing. I agree it's hard to manage but you shouldn't really be spiking as high as 9 after eating. Correcting afterwards isn't the right way to go about it - a better way is to inject earlier so your insulin keeps pace with your food intake. Or alternatively, eat foods that don't spike you.
 
Lizzzie

If Deus is correct it's a bit odd then, that when you are preg they tell you the top end is 7.8, if they know very well that will cause you complications, don't you think?

Trouble is there isn't a script is there - I mean there isn't one book that sets it all out for us in black and white and that's precisely it. And every different source you look at, there's a different answer.

Have to confess, I rarely test at 1 or 2 hours after a meal. Unless I feel iffy or something - so I don't actually know what mine ever go up to at that point. But then I am aware I'm a bit too laid back.
 
While 4-8 permanently is a laudable aim, I know that for me if I felt that it was a cast iron requirement for future health I'd drive myself mad. Frankly I'm OCD enough as it is.

I find it easier to aim for a target (whatever that is) that I actually 'own' rather than one I feel is handed down from on high.

As to the development of complications - I suspect that there is a great deal of variability here as there is with so much D-related. One person may get retinopathy in 5 years with seemingly great numbers, another might have had a very wayward period and yet excape apparently unscathed.

I've reconciled myself to just trying to do the best I can on an ongoing basis, to keep levels as near to non-D as I can without driving myself demented in the process. At any point that might be trying to get fewer 14s, or 12s or 10s, but acccepting that some of those will just 'happen' and I can't expect perfection all the time.

Generally, for me that means trying to keep the number of double figures and hypos as low as I can, ideally with a nicely compact set of numbers and low SD. But hey, sometimes life, circumstances and lovely food opportunities just happen.
 
I was told last week that I am not in the group of people that will have hypos? Im type 1 on insulin. Apparantly you have to of had diabetes for a very long time to get those!:D This was at the doctors
 
I'd have offered immediately to shoot Xu in and not eat, THEN let them tell me I'm not in the group ....

Sorry, I'd have to write and complain about that. Imagine if they said it to someone immensely stupid?
 
Yeah I know! Am glad am switched on! He was the doctor that told me there wasnt such a HBA1c as 8.1. I know theyve changed however he is an older doctor so surely he must of known that they used to be different! Am glad I was diagnosed under the hospital and have a more switched on diabetes team!








trophywench said:
I'd have offered immediately to shoot Xu in and not eat, THEN let them tell me I'm not in the group ....

Sorry, I'd have to write and complain about that. Imagine if they said it to someone immensely stupid?
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LeeLee said:
When my daughter was about 9 months old, an old-style health visitor told me not to feed her between 6pm and 6am. She was never overweight (crept up the same centile throughout childhood) and I knew that a small bowl of porridge at 8pm would give me a night's sleep. So I nodded and smiled, then carried on with what worked for our family.
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Maybe the Hv had your daughter confused with a Gremiln!
 
About a year ago my son was advised by our GP to up his Lantus by 10, or even 15u in one hit so as to decrease his HbA1c dramatically before a hospital appointment the following week. I dread to think what would have happened had we taken it up the full 15u in one go (he was on 25u at that point). I'm afraid that made me conclude our GP knows absolutely nothing about T1. Maybe a harsh assessment, but scary that he gave out that advice to someone young and who could have taken him at his word. I was in on that consultation and didn't challenge it, but told my son to only creep up by 1 or 2u at a time and discuss it with his team the next week.
 
Tina63 said:
About a year ago my son was advised by our GP to up his Lantus by 10, or even 15u in one hit so as to decrease his HbA1c dramatically before a hospital appointment the following week. I dread to think what would have happened had we taken it up the full 15u in one go (he was on 25u at that point). I'm afraid that made me conclude our GP knows absolutely nothing about T1. Maybe a harsh assessment, but scary that he gave out that advice to someone young and who could have taken him at his word. I was in on that consultation and didn't challenge it, but told my son to only creep up by 1 or 2u at a time and discuss it with his team the next week.
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...and even though an A1c is weighted towards recent weeks, I'm not sure that a week of crashing hypos would have reduced his a1c in just 7 days anyway!
 
Had been given Metformin by consultant as had put on weight and had some insulin resistance and was trying to get a prescription for strips from GP

GP: You don't need to be testing your blood. If they've given you metformin you must be a type 2
Me:No I'm a type 1
GP: No they've given you Metformin you're a type 2
Me: No definitely a type 1
GP: You're not, your type 2
Me: I was diagnosed at age 2. With ketoacidosis. Does that sound like a type 2 to you?
GP: It doesn't matter, you're on metformin your are definitely a type 2
Me: (getting irritated) Can I stop my insulin then?
GP: Yes you don't need it, you've got metformin

Good job I have a healthy lack of respect for diabetes advice from GPs
 
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sunflower_harvester said:
Had been given Metformin by consultant as had put on weight and had some insulin resistance and was trying to get a prescription for strips from GP

GP: You don't need to be testing your blood. If they've given you metformin you must be a type 2
Me:No I'm a type 1
GP: No they've given you Metformin you're a type 2
Me: No definitely a type 1
GP: You're not, your type 2
Me: I was diagnosed at age 2. With ketoacidosis. Does that sound like a type 2 to you?
GP: It doesn't matter, you're on metformin your are definitely a type 2
Me: (getting irritated) Can I stop my insulin then?
GP: Yes you don't need it, you've got metformin

Good job I have a healthy lack of respect for diabetes advice from GPs
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OH.MY.GOD!!! 😱 That has to top the list!

(nice to hear from you again SH! 🙂)
 
sunflower_harvester said:
Had been given Metformin by consultant as had put on weight and had some insulin resistance and was trying to get a prescription for strips from GP

GP: You don't need to be testing your blood. If they've given you metformin you must be a type 2
Me:No I'm a type 1
GP: No they've given you Metformin you're a type 2
Me: No definitely a type 1
GP: You're not, your type 2
Me: I was diagnosed at age 2. With ketoacidosis. Does that sound like a type 2 to you?
GP: It doesn't matter, you're on metformin your are definitely a type 2
Me: (getting irritated) Can I stop my insulin then?
GP: Yes you don't need it, you've got metformin

Good job I have a healthy lack of respect for diabetes advice from GPs
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I think he needs a copy of Diabetes for Dummies 🙂 Just incredible!
 
Fours the floor, or is it?

When I was in hospital having had surgery to remove my Pancreas I had to rely on the ward nurses to control my diabetes because never having been diabetic before my operation I knew nothing about diabetes control. I had four hypos in two weeks through lack of care. One night I woke up shaking and my BG was 3 mmol and the nurse-in- charge, the rank of Sister, said to me " its not a hypo until your reading is 1mmol." Not enough trained diabetic nurses on the wards.
 
anniehi said:
When I was in hospital having had surgery to remove my Pancreas I had to rely on the ward nurses to control my diabetes because never having been diabetic before my operation I knew nothing about diabetes control. I had four hypos in two weeks through lack of care. One night I woke up shaking and my BG was 3 mmol and the nurse-in- charge, the rank of Sister, said to me " its not a hypo until your reading is 1mmol." Not enough trained diabetic nurses on the wards.
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Oh my goodness me!!! 😱 Every HCP who ever has to deal with a person with diabetes ought to read this thread and realise how dangerous a little (or no) knowledge can be!
 
I was advised by a matron no less that if my blood sugar was less than 15 before meals I didn't need any insulin. And when I was first diagnosed the elderly sister told me to increase insulin if my blood sugar was low and decrease if high. Luckily there was a junior nurse behind her shaking her head
 
Tom Burke said:
I was advised by a matron no less that if my blood sugar was less than 15 before meals I didn't need any insulin. And when I was first diagnosed the elderly sister told me to increase insulin if my blood sugar was low and decrease if high. Luckily there was a junior nurse behind her shaking her head
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Frightening! 😱 How can they get it so wrong, and how many people went away and did just as they advised? I shudder to think :(
 
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