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.

if I ate oats for breakfast and my bg shot up and did it another day and my bg shot up - well yes, if your bg shoots up every time you eat a food thats easy. But it won't. Some days you'll eat oats and be really low after. Other days you'll carefully avoid oats and shoot up. You have to keep a lot of records and look at trends.

BG is affected by stress, excitement, worry, exercise just now, exercise yesterday, illness, immune system fighting off an illness that you haven't noticed, tiredness, a whole load of things. A food eaten in isolation will have a different effect to one eaten in combination with a whole load of other things. A large meal takes longer to digest than a short one. A high-fat meal gives a double-whammy by slowing the digestion down and then by making you more insulin-resistant 5 hours later.

There is just a lot going on and it can be hard to trace a BG reading back to its root. Admittedly my experience is with a Type 1 5yo so for you it will be a lot easier (no growth hormone for a start). Although your menstrual cycle will have an effect!

We use that FastClix lancet with the Abbot meter, cos we like that lancet better. The meter is the best for us cos it takes a tiny blood sample (0.3 rather than 0.6 like the Accu-chek ones) but adults prob get blood out easier than 5yos.

I do think you're right and you should concentrate on the weight loss first and blood sugar next. Although if you're low-carbing that'd do both, wouldn't it? But you may find if you can get your weight down, and get over the initial insulin-resistance caused by high bgs, it will get easier (because you're still making insulin, just not enough cos you're so resistant to it at the moment). So if you can get your body sensitive to insulin again, you might find that you make enough insulin for your needs again.

I will share, but I mentioned low carbing to him tonight and he looked at me as though I had gone mad. He is currently cutting down on sugary stuff, not that he ate that much before and only eating three meals a day. We don't eat red meat so he seems to be existing on veggie mince and baked beans at the moment.

I think we will concentrate on weight loss first. From skim reading this thread the food situation seems so very, very complicated.

OP if I read on of your posts correctly you said you had a fasting Bg level of about 11?
If that were me I would not be taking metformin but instead trying to get my bg levels down to at least a 7 through exercise and diet. I would also buy a Bg monitor and checkseveral times a day to see when bg levels were highest and what difference a bit of exercise makis making.

I don't take statins or metformin as both give me stomach cramps. I have told my gp that I am not completely stupid and will start metformin if my bg level rises (she assures me it will) and if I start getting diabetic symptoms. My gp says that my body will get used to the metformin after a few weeks but I'm not happy about taking medication on those terms. Menwhile I keep my blood pressure under control and try to eat a healthy diet.

I seem to have killed this thread.

Can anyone explain this?:

Blood on one morning 7.9 without eating for about 7 hours.

In true evening, spiked to 13 after dinner but within 3 hours had dropped down to 6.7.

Context info Penguinbear? Are you diagnosed diabetic, on medication or insulin? Are you self testing for other reasons? Fasting blood sugar is too high and it spiked too high after your meal...

... and presumably it also depended on what you ate?

Biwi, only to a certain extent - no matter what you eat, blood sugar should not go above a certain level, and should not be above a certain baseline level hours after eating... If they are, there are issues that need to be dealt with... Assuming the tests have been done correctly, these results a a bit on the high side, regardless of what was eaten...

That's interesting. I didn't know that. I assumed that something like fruit juice would have more of an impact on blood sugars.

(NB my father is a diabetic, which is why I'm interested)

OP... You should only get free prescriptions if you are taking medication for Diabetes... you shouldn't get them if you are Diabetic Diet Controlled.

Biwi, orange juice or similar high gi foods will spike the blood higher and faster than other foods, but in a normal person with good insulin response, blood sugar will not go above about 8ish, even after a very carby high gi meal, and should return to around baseline of 5ish within about 3 hours - higher than this suggests insulin resistance is developing (low carb diet is great for reversing that as you know!), however if a person is diagnosed diabetic, they may have higher figures than this, depending on how it is being controlled and what they are eating.

I have a number of diabetic relatives, and had gestational diabetes in one pregnancy but not subsequent pregnancies thanks to ditching sugar and I now take a keen interest in NOT developing diabetes myself by low carb diet and also regular self testing days every few months... With tweaks to my diet, blood sugars have dropped from the very high end of normal range to the low end of normal .

Hi....sorry havnt read entire thread but following on from SCOTCH....my friend was very very overweight and had diabetes which she took tablets for. Anyway after years and years (prob 20) she decided that she would lose the weight once and for all. She too followed a very low carb diet and now she no longer needs any medication at all and has lost most of her weight and life is much better. (think there was a new man somewhere that sparked off the weight loss too!!!)

Sorry....just wanted to add that it was the low carb that she says brought down her diabetes and blood pressure. She still low carbs now but does have the occasional treat.

Awsangel, yes, many people have had the same success with low carb and reversal of diabetes- some very enlightened drs are even recommending this as an option but that's not common in the UK at present

SCOTCH.......Low carb actually seems to be the best way to reduce and in alot of cases cure alot of ailments. People seem to be making a real connection between the increase in diseases and the diet that we have been eating for the last 30 years and realising that the so called Lo Fat dieting that we have been brainwashed to eat is in fact turning out to be the worst diet ever .

I agree Angel! In fact I'm one of those nuts who, having researched it a lot over many years (starting with low carb but more recently have gone paleo/lchf), am now convinced its not simply just carbs, but that grain carbs are particularly damaging to human health, and that we should not be eating them at all for many reasons!!!

Your not nuts just very informed. And well done on eating paleo. Have you seen the site Palomg??? its brill.

Lol, people usually look at me like I have 2 heads when I start on the "gluten/grains" are killing us all slowly type comments

Not seen that particular site, will check it out now. My main go-to sites are robbwolf.com and thedietdoctor.com, both have plenty of links to relevant peer reviewed papers - I do like a bit of science!

SCOTCHandWRY I thank you for your knowledge and praise you for having the forthought to prevent the diabetes getting you.

I wish I'd listened 2 years ago

I'm going to try to get my numbers down ASAP.

Hi all

Thank you for all of your posts.

Sorry, RL has been far too demanding since Wednesday!!

Just off to catch up now :)

BIWI - thank you for the Bootcamp invite :) I've been reading all of the threads since the beginning - I'm only at week 7 (I've been reading lots of the links and tons of other stuff on diabetes).

I've been LCing ish, but right now I don't want to sign up for it. I have been really strict about what I've eaten in this past 10 days or so (in so far as the only processed carbs I've had have been 2 slices of this incredibly thin organic rye & other grain stuff (I'd call it bread, but it's nothing like it!) for breakfast with avocado and a small amount of cheese (about 25g). It's actually really high in carbs (the same as regular bread I think) but it is better in other ways. It goes lovely and crunchy, with avocado and cheese I don't feel at all hungry or deprived. This morning I only had the avocado and cheese, but I don't know how it compared (keeping me filled up as I had an early lunch with a friend in a cafe).

I did OK in the cafe - I had a small veggie sausage, beans & mushrooms. Unfortunately the sausages weren't the quorn/soy ones etc I was expecting, but a sort of vegetable mix rolled up. Peas, carrots and either rice or potato - it was small and it was nice, I ate the mushrooms and only about a third of the beans (2 tbs probably?).

I want to find a way that works for me that I feel is what's suiting me, rather than a set of rules someone else has written - I want to feel it's all my choice because it works for me, not that I'm dong it because I've said I will. I don't want to be 'on a diet' or even following a 'WOE' that has 'rules' and feel like I'm cheating. Does that make sense?

I also want to get a meter and do some test with some wholegrain carbs as well.

I feel that the ketosis inducing low carb regime is just a bit too restrictive me as a vegetarian that doesn't eat eggs.

I am fully aware that what 'works best for me' may end up being Bootcamp Lite

Bertha - thank you, that's really interesting. I thought that testing at set times after meals etc would be more 'telling' than it appears it would actually be... I guess I assumed that due to insulin dependent diabetics testing and dosing themselves accordingly, the tests would be more helpful.

Exit - Hi :) It does seem very difficult to get the diet 'just right' but from everything I've read, low carbing seems the best route. I completely fail to see how simple carbs can be the answer!? As much as that would be nice I hope your DH does some reading and can come to that conclusion himself. I fear following the NHS advice will just get him (and anyone else) a fast track to being insulin depedent.

Mirry - Yes, my FBG was 10.9 and my HbA1c was 9.3. I haven't started the Metformin yet and I'm hesitant to do so... I'm reading more first. I'd far prefer to control it with diet for as long as possible then go onto Metformin or something later on if absolutely necessary.... but I'm still researching.

I also need to understand more about blood sugar v blood glucose & exercise. It's a bit confusing.

Awsangel & Scotch :)