To ask for advice about blood sugar, I’m scared

[Pixydust]

Posting here for traffic. I’ve been feeling a bit off and my tummy has been upset for months. I had some blood tests and the doctor has phoned to say my blood sugar is “a bit high” and we need to talk about how to bring it down.

I am shitting myself thinking I must be diabetic. The receptionist said it doesn’t say that on my record, it just says we need to discuss it. I have to wait two weeks for an appointment.

Please can anyone advise? I’m so scared. I know I’m a stone overweight and eat too many biscuits but I’m only 42 and I didn’t expect this.

Calm down. Your body isn’t fucked, you just need to make some lifestyle adjustments to reduce your HbA1C. 42 is borderline and easily reduced.

Stop eating 5 KitKats a day, reduce chocolate and processed carbohydrate consumption, do more exercise and stop catastrophising. Millions of people get a prediabetic diagnosis each year and many can reduce their levels to normal with some small changes.

(I’m a nurse practitioner if that helps at all)

Stop being melodramatic. Your body isn’t fucked - the doctor doesn’t even need to see you.

Cut the KitKats. A stone overweight is nothing.

I have to agree with @Merryoldgoat here🙈
Calm down

My mum is pre diabetic. It's extremely common and as others have said, easily reversed x

It’s a big mistake to compare yourself with other people, and being pre-diabetic doesn’t have any moral implication. I know people who are seriously obese, smoke, drink and live on junk food whose A1c is within normal range. I’m size 10, live an active life and eat almost no processed food, and I have to eat very limited amounts of carbs or my A1c shoots up. Each person’s metabolism is individual to them, and the better you get to understand yours, the more likely you are to manage whatever the problem might be. In the meantime, go over to the Diabetes UK website, and learn about what pre-diabetes actually means for you.

Unfortunately I tend to freak out about things. I have terrible health anxiety, among other mental health issues. I’ve been having panic attacks repeatedly since yesterday and I’ve developed a sudden fear of food. I tried to eat something last night and I was literally shaking.

I’m really annoyed that they’ve just called me with bad news on a Saturday, when I’m out with my kids and can’t get any help or advice because everything is closed. I’ve asked the GP previously not to call me with a generic “you need to make an appointment to discuss” - because it freaks me out and I have panic attacks and make myself ill. They could have easily given a bit more info and said “it’s not diabetes so no need to worry, but your sugar is borderline and we need to discuss how to bring it back down into the healthy range through diet and exercise”. Instead what they’ve done is scared me and made me ill by doing the exact thing I requested them not to do.

I’m having therapy and I’m on a scheme where they call me every week to check that I’m not at risk of committing suicide - so why did they think it was a good idea to just drop this on me on a Saturday?

I know people who are seriously obese, smoke, drink and live on junk food whose A1c is within normal range.
Exactly. Not fair at all. But this sort of shit tends to happen to me. Anything that can go wrong for me, does. It’s one of the reasons why I often feel suicidal.

You've talked about eating too many biscuits and too much chocolate, but what's the rest of your day/diet like? What is a typical day's food for you?

Oh, for goodness’ sake, it happens to a lot of people, not just you! You have completely missed the point. I am slim, healthy and active and pre-diabetic. It’s not a moral judgement, or the universe hating me, or punishment for a bad lifestyle, it’s just the misfortune of being born into a family with a strong tendency to diabetes.

You can deal with it perfectly well all by yourself, without any medical intervention, by increasing your exercise, even just a little, losing a bit of weight and cutting out the KitKats (which will probably help you lose a bit of weight). I think you have a much bigger problem with health anxiety than you do with pre-diabetes.

42 is really not a big deal. If you have had any sort of infection in last three months that can raise it. A few small changes can make the difference to get it below. Likely at the appointment they will review it along with bp, cholesterol etc. Take it as an early warning to avoid complications.

As your GP is expecting to see you in 2 weeks this is a good sign. If you are diabetic, you are more likely to be type 2 which is reversable with diet and exercise.

If you were T1D, you would been rushed to A&E

Try not to worry too much its just a change of diet, fresh foods veg and fruits. Eat nothing too sweet or and reduce fats and as you sugars come down you will have more energy.

I have been T1D since childhood.

Breakfast is two slices of toast with eggs or cheese or something. At weekends a bacon sandwich or a cooked breakfast. Lunch is soup or sandwich, or leftovers from the night before. Dinner is a cooked meal such as spag bol, curry, chilli, paella, roast chicken with veg and potato, etc. I have a pizza maybe once a fortnight and a takeaway once every couple of months. Maybe 2-3 cappuccinos a week at the coffee shop. I drink black tea every day but no sugar.

My general diet isn’t bad, but my portions are too large and I eat too much crisps and chocolate on top of my food. I have about 4-5 KitKats or chocolate snacks a day. Losing a stone would put me at normal BMI but I could easily lose another stone or two on top of that.

Maybe tackle the carbs first, less bread and wholemeal when you do, and fewer sweet treats.

You really do need to cut the chocolate/biscuits/crisps out! That's way too many, never mind too many carbs.

As @LIZS says, cut the carbs as much as you can - so no toast for breakfast, no rice/pasta/potatoes with your evening meal. Substitute them with extra veg and/or salad.

What are you drinking, besides coffee? If you're drinking fizzy drinks (especially if they're full sugar), then I'd also be looking to cut those out.

I only drink black tea and water. No fizzy drinks. My problem is chocolate and crisps basically. I comfort eat because I’m so unhappy. I never lost weight after being pregnant because my stomach was so badly damaged with loose skin and stretch marks. I started to diet but the more I lost, the worse my stomach looked. So I stopped dieting.

You don't need to diet as such, just small positive changes, one at a time, which are more sustainable.

Do you have the nhs app? Your dry should load all testes, consultations and medicines on your nhs records which the app uploads. You can then check your blood tests yourself. It gives links so you can understand.

Dr not dry

It's not fair I agree when there are people who have worse diets, are much more overweight, I agree. I wonder though if some of them were tested might they actually be prediabetic, but ATM they just don't know. And there are other risk factors to consider, your stress about your health being one One good thing you could do straight away is cut out the chocolate bars. Yes there are other things to change the diet but that would help you immediately and you'd probably lose some weight, add a bit more exercise too which will help
You're lucky, you've had an alarm call that you are heading towards the prediabetic zone, you can keep it below and if you alter your diet a bit more then you will go lower and that will give you a margin if you have other experiences that raise your blood sugar. Finding I had actual prediabetes really knocked me for 6, I am doing something about it because I really don't want diabetes and the health problems that can come with it
Have you spoken to the doc about help lowering your general anxiety and stress, that might well be a good thing to consider

Are you able to speak to your therapist this week? Because it sounds like your mental health is way more of a pressing issue right now than your slightly raised blood sugar.
Also, if you're really eating that many Kit Kats a day, then you do have a very simple (though admittedly still hard to do) fix to just cut those out. That should have quite an effect.

I’m going to call my therapist this morning. I’m regularly convinced I’m going to die of some awful disease, so this has tipped me over the edge into hysteria. I’ve had a pain in my ribs for months and I’m convinced it’s cancer or worse. Now I have blood sugar to worry about too, and it’s made me afraid to eat.

Not eating is likely to affect your health and wellbeing more than slightly high blood sugars.

Diabetes is one of my big fears. Along with motor neurone disease, MS, Alzheimers and cancer. Also I’m afraid of food that’s too hot or cold. This has freaked me out because it’s one of my worst fears coming true. Now I’m afraid of sugar and white bread too.

I didn’t think I was eating a ton of chocolate tbh. A biscuit with a cuppa in the morning and afternoon. A sweet treat after lunch and dinner. But obviously it is too much and I didn’t realise 😩

I have PCOS and insulin resistance aka prediabetes. Not overweight, healthy lifestyle. Only affects me in that I need to carry snacks with me in case of a hypo.

Your GP may put you on a medication like metformin as well as suggesting healthy lifestyle changes. Try and stay calm, totally manageable/reversible.

There won't be medication for bg 42 without other underlying issues. It is barely prediabetic level. Just advice and perhaps monitoring in a few months' time,