Chemist tested me for diabetes - sent me to the Dr TODAY urgently...please come and talk to me...

[MyHeadWasInTheSandNowNot]

These are my questions

1: The reading the chemist got was 20 - can anyone tell me what this means (ie how 'serious' it is) and if they think it could be controlled and/or preferably gotten rid of through diet and exercise.

2: What will the Dr do today.

The rest is whittering background.

Also, I just wanted to say that I'll have to go in about an hour and wont be able to get back on line until tomorrow afternoon, but I haven't done a runner and will be grateful for any help/advice.

[I'm a regular - I've namechanged because I'm not sure yet if I want to tell anyone or not and I have a few RL friends on MN. It's not that I mind people knowing as such it's just that I don't want it to turn into A Big Deal]

I have been wondering for quite some time if I might have diabetes. A few things have made me wonder about it such as

• Excessive thirst (always having to have a bottle of water on me)

• Eyes a bit blurry at night (been blaming the overhead light and the small tv screen with tivo bright red background and only a problem at night and spending too much time looking at screens)

• Occasional 'shakes'

• I am overweight and struggle with feeling like my 'blood sugars' aren't right

...but what made me 'man up' to getting tested was that last week & yesterday I had a couple of episodes of light headedness/feeling faint when doing things such as changing a lightbulb, I had also been having them in the shower, but put that down to it being hot/steamy etc

I called the chemist about a year ago to see if they did the tests, but ended up not going

I also went to my Dr about 3-4 years ago with constant tiredness and no real reason for it.... he put it down to my weight (which although I'm overweight was not stopping me doing anything, being reasonably fit etc), he really wasn't interested in looking further. I haven't been back, but am and have been pretty much constantly tired since before then. I know I should have seen another Dr but it's hard when you are overweight and they don't seem interested in seeing past that and accept their might be something other excess weight causing the problem.

I wonder now how long I might have had it for and thus how much damage I might have done already to my body, especially my eyes, that's pretty scary.

I was already overweight, but I was pretty fit - then something quite lifechanging happened and I've put on more weight, stopped exercising and I am not unfit. I'm certainly not can't move off the couch unfit - I could still easily walk 4 miles, run for the bus (i'd be panting but I could do it and would recover pretty quickly) - but something else I've noticed (just yesterday I really 'thought' about it) is that I have been putting off doing stuff like walking places (now I take the car), running up the stairs (now only ever walk), kicking the ball about with the kids etc and I realised yesterday it's because when I do I feel awful - not just tired/worn out but light headed and a bit pukey - it's been a gradual thing.

I am totally committed to exercising - a minimum of 30 minutes every day without fail (have just been for an hours walk - about 3 miles) and to improving my diet (which I fully accept hasn't been great for a while, since this 'thing' happened and for a wee bit before then).

I'm not looking for any magic cure - I just want to know if I can get rid of the diabetes through diet and exercise.

Thank you if you made it this far - or even if you didn't wade through it all but can help.

Thanks again SCOTCH I'll read up on both of those. I have read some of Diet Doctor - but that was a while ago, so will do so again.

I hate to think how many carbs I was eating before! As I said, by some standards not an awful diet (as in - not takeaways & chips & sweets/chocolate/biscuits) but lots of bread, crakers & some crisps. A very fat mouse diet. I knew it wasn't 'good' for me, but I really didn't realise how 'bad' it was for me :(

Anyway - should I test now? I hour since starting to eat or in 15 minutes one hr after finishing eating??

7.4 one hour in (after finishing eating)

I made a real boob today! Went out with a friend to a national Trust place and although I had a nice raspberry tea instead of latte I had a small florentine thinking the natural fruit in it would be good. Of course the sugars to make the sticky stuff and chocolate on the bottom didn't come into it.

Well about 20 minutes later I started perspiring (just like the old days when I blamed it on the change) and when I got home I felt so exhausted I went to bed and slept for 4hours!!

myhead time from when you finish eating.

Your dinner sounds nice btw.

Fwiw I didn't get any side effects when I started the metformin, but realise everyone is different.

You after levels seem OK with what you are eating, it is quite an eye opener though thinking about that fat mouse diet / I ate like that for years! I found when I went low carb my after levels were oK but my before levels were high despite not eating any carbs for weeks. I've had to use background insulin to bring them down.

MNM oooops :( How are you feeling now? Did you take any tests this afternoon?

I thought about a raspberry tea when I was at work today but I wasn't sure if there would be natural sugars in there that would raise my bsl's and anyway, they almost always give me a headache (just the smell of them - I'm very sensitive to smells).

I was permanently hot before - the only one out in a t-shirt in the snow, now I'm cold all the time! I'm not actually sure if it's a genuine change in temperature or just me - I'm putting it down to lack of carbs!?

7.2 2 hrs in

A bit livlier, ta for asking. I've had a tickly cough and have woken up coughing for the last couple of nights.

Just tested 8.9

I had a tinned bean soup about two hours ago.

I hope you can sleep tonight and wake up feeling a lot better.

I was supposed to spend tomorrow with a friend but she has a terrible cold and apart from the fact that I just don't want it anyway, I could well do without that messing with my levels just now.

Ta myhead

So - results so far:

7.4 15.50 One hour after eating lunch

6.3 20.26 Before dinner

7.4 21.41 One hour after diiner

7.2 22.45 Two hours after dinner

6.4 23.41 Three hours after dinner

6 3.44 Middle of the night when I woke up

6.2 7.53 This morning

Any thoughts?

Scales were up this morning - not impressed! Only .200 of a kg though, so upping water and not indulging in a yummy dinner tonight - will go back to normal fare.

These results surely mean you can get within normal or almost normal range with just diet and exercise. I wonder why you were having such dreadful symptoms? I've never had any and my results are always similar.

You're about two weeks into this, aren't you, MyHead? I don't know how much weight you've lost, although your posts would suggest a reasonable amount, but just to let you know that it's very common - based on everything I know about people doing a low carb diet - for the weight loss to stop in weeks 3 and 4, and sometimes there may even be a small gain. Something to do with the body adjusting to fat burning from carb burning.

It could be what's happening to you. Don't stress about it. Key thing is to focus on your blood sugar levels. They look OK to me though - aren't they supposed to be between 4 and 7?

Mirry - I hope so :)

I have no idea why the symptoms were so bad and tbh they haven't gone away. I don't feel quite so bad in the mornings (ie I couldn't just get up and go in the shower, now I can), but I still feel a bit like death warmed up at times, but ok at others (much the same as before). Until last night I'd been sleeping better - but didn't have a good night last night (however, I put that down to the high fat dinner - it does tend to upset my tummy, I just thought it was worth a go now that I'm low carbing. I didn't (TMI) have to get up to go to the toilet, but it wasn't comfortable. I was also too hot - which generally means I have an upset tummy -but it could also have been the multi layers of bedding and PJ's/socks!!). I am still very very tired. I have lots I need to do, but just can't muster up the energy. Tomorrow I'm taking my friends little one to tumble tots again - that will be quite a good test to see if I still feel light headed there or not. I expect so as I'm still having wee funny moments (ie in the shower I feel a bit funny at times).

Candida Albicans - has anyone heard of this, a link here

The syptoms are all there - it just seems a bit weird, I've never heard of it before... ??

BIWI - I'm not really sure how long I've been actually low carbing - but definitely not two weeks, on the 5th I was still eating the 'no bread bread' for breakfast which is very high in carbs (something like 48g per 100g - but no wheat) but I had cut everything else out (other than lattes). I've since dropped both of those and am only having things low in carbs - but still cauli/carrots. As I said, I'm in ketosis, but I'm unsure if it's diet ketosis or bad diabetic ketones - feck only knows. I could eat some carbs and see if that changes but tbh having got through the 'hungry' stage I'm not keen to bring that on again and I want the weight to go down not up!

I was expecting the weight loss to stop/slow down at some stage - but not this soon. Though as I said, it's only up 200g which is nothing and could just be that I didn't drink enough water yesterday to flush everything through.

I've said good-bye forever to 4.2kg (9lb) since going to the chemist on the 22nd of January (both weights on my own scales). 2 of those between the 22/1 & the 4th of Feb, 2 between the 4th of Feb & today.

No complaints - much more than I've been able to do before (but I'm also heavier than ever before). Last time I was eating much less & hungry a lot of the time (I was eating fruit and very small portions of carbs though 6/10 pieces of spiral pasta or a couple of tablespoons of rice), exercising a lot and barely losing anything.

Non diabetic before meals 4 - 5.9 After meals under 7.8
Type 2 before meals 4 - 7 After meals under 8.5

So I seem to be in the 'acceptable' for a diabetic T2 before meals and not far off 'non diabetic' and (while low carbing) 'non diabetic' after meals.

Breakfast of 30g cheese, 1/3 of an avocado and 25g of mixed seeds

2 hrs later - 6.5

So fed up of feeling so bloody tired all the time... any idea of either what levels I need to be at for that to stop or what else I should be looking at?

Liver readings were OK - (ALT slightly elevated 57 should be between 0-50)
Kidney results OK - 2.1 (Actually low creatinine which is good)
Thyroid 2.1 (range .35-5)
Cholesterol HDL 1.28 (so just inside the band)
LDL 3.57 (just over recommended)
TRI 1.64 (so inside the band)
TOTAL 5.6 so a bit high, but not hugely.

Urine test 1.7 (range 0-3.5)

Myhead - What about your blood pressure? Have you had that measured recently?

OMG OMG OMG

5.7 Yes FIVE POINT SEVEN

3 hours after eating breakfast - I even went and rinsed my hands again in case it was the soap (I have been washing them everytime, so I thought I might not have rinsed the soap off well enough).

Mirry - yes, it's been taken 3 times. Chemist - She didn't comment that I remember (too worried about the result of the finger prick), Old Drs (once again, don't remember if she even said anything - too focussed on blood test) but neither of them made a point about it, so assume it wasn't high (or noteably so), then the diabetes nurse who said it was high (170/100 and she wants it down to 135/70 this week) - but I was quite stressed about the whole diabetes thing and I'd been held up on the way there so was a bit flustered. She said to go back this week and put my arm in the auto sleeve and hand the results into reception, so I'll do that tomorrow.

I have an appointment with the Doctor (the nice one) tomorrow (for something entirely unrelated) - I think I'm going to tell her that I'm not taking the metformin, I am self testing and what my results are and see what else she can suggest. I'm definitely going to ask to have my B12 tested (my mum has low B12, I have in the past and I'm veggie - so good reasons to request a test imo).

The other thing to consider is Vitamin D deficiency. Surprisingly common, apparently, and especially if you are a vegetarian (no eggs)

have a read of this

BIWI - thanks, I've added that to my list for tomorrow :) I'll have a read of the link after lunch.

Reading of 6 before lunch. Not sure how quickly it all reacts though, as I licked a bit of avocado and homous off of the spoon when making lunch - about 5 mins ago.

Lunch - Avocado & homous (obviously!) - carrot, red cabbage, mushrooms and some St Agur (blue cheese - high in protein 16g per 100, low in carbs .2g per 100). Really didn't need blue cheese, homous & avocado, but I'd already put the blue cheese in when I remembered about all the avocados going a bit soft - so added a small one as well. I'm sure the vitamins in it will do me good.

I'm impressed with your lower readings myhead Keep it up!

MNM I was just replying to you, waffling on, when it dawned on me - what if my monitor is faulty?? I don't have any of the 'test solution' - it didn't come with any. Is there any other way of testing it??

OMG! You've just realised you've got little to worry about . Enjoy the readings or borrow someone elses monitor (clean lancette of course). The nurse could compare your reading with hers tomorrow to check if it's out.

Not to mention I still feel like shit (this is nothing new!). Right now my head is hot, my feet are cold, I have a headache, I feel a bit achy, my eyes are dry (and my skin is too - but that's new since changing my diet) and I feel like I could sleep for a million years. I am so fed up with feeling like I just want to sleep, never having any energy or enthusiasm for anything and basically just 'getting through' each day. I'm fed up with just 'getting on with what has to be done' and want to actually live my life. Sulk.

But in the 'good news' camp - I've just looked at the Heinze tomato soup in the cupboard and it's 13g per half tin, I could probably manage that for lunch one day if I was 'careful' for the rest of the day - so all is not lost. Of course the buttered baguette would have to get a big fat swerve but you can't have everything!

Anyway, how are you feeling today?

I would ask at the chemist but I'm a bit suspicious about her monitor

Or I could do as you say, enjoy my readings, ignore anything else and pretend it's all been one huge fuck up and I don't have DT2

Or I could have the latte & chocolate I'd love and see if it goes up

Or I could just find a gun and shoot myself - it's just as well I don't live on a farm But seriously, I am so over feeling like this.

How much water are you drinking a day, MyHead?