T2 diagnosis

[Ughughughugh]

Ffs. Please can anyone help.

Was diagnosed with pre-diabetes 3 years ago, managed to get the HB1AC down by losing 2.5 stone via low carb and got the HB1AC number back down to normal. Was absolutely devastated when the surgery phoned and did everything I could to get the number down. Lasted maybe another couple of months after getting it down and went back to eating shit and put it all back on again.

Today the surgery has called and now is diabetic. Am totally numb, cried so much the last time but just feel like this is yet another bloody thing to deal with and I don't have the energy. Have to go in next week to retest and stupidly forgot to ask for the number but guess that's immaterial.

Am 19.5 stone, 5ft 11, mid-40s, sedentary, eat absolute crap though make a healthy dinner for the family 6 days out of 7 (pizza night once a week). It is all the other snacks etc in between.

Also have a completely fucked gallbladder so if eat loads of protein/fat I get a lot of pain.

On medication for hypertension, and thyroid, and HRT, and the mini pill.

I think I need to do the Fast800 and just try and get counselling?? Or something to work through why I eat so badly and do no exercise.

Any words of wisdom welcome.

You can buy the normal machines (fingerprick) on Amazon.

Now that you have the diagnosis what did the docs say? Did they put you on meds? What did they advise/suggest? Did they put you on a diabetes course either in person or online?

The first time, it was literally a phone call to say the number had come back as pre-diabetic. That was all. I went back once had lost weight and got them to redo it and the number was fine.

This time, I had blood taken before Christmas by the nurse, as part of a check up for my thyroid bloods and they did the HBA1C check too. All that has happened is I got a phone call yesterday to advise the number is now in diabetic range and they need to repeat the bloods next week to get a diagnosis. That's all that's happened, haven't spoken to the doctor and only a brief chat with the diabetic nurse who advised the number and that it needed redone to get the diagnosis but no other information. She asked if I was surprised and I said about what had happened a few years ago and she said if I do that again it will be diabetes in remission.

Nothing else happened so far.

Of course some people will need to be on medication and that is what it is, but OP is overweight and has reversed by losing weight before. She is also on medication for other conditions so if she can avoid adding more then she should try.

Low carb diets are not a fad.

I'm 5'10 so similar in height to OP. When diagnosed I was 11 stone 5 and now 8 stone 12. I need to put a few pounds on but it's slow going when not overeating on carbs and sugar.

Gaining muscle is also key, that's where I need to improve as I have a sedentary job and weather isn't great for my walking. For a while I was struggling with this as I didn't want to burn any extra calories.

You can buy a blood sugar device and strips reasonably cheaply on amazon etc but I'd wait until you see the nurse. You don't want to get obsessed with testing at the moment though it's a useful tool at times.

Fair enough, more information and a plan might follow the definitive diagnosis. Depending on the are and what's available they can refer you for an "active" programme too with various benefits like free sessions , recommendations on various types of activities etc.

Just wanted to tell you, it's not the end if the world. Things can be done. If you get put on metformin it might help with losing weight. Making changes ,even small ones if the big ones are too scary now, will help. Starting to make better choices and focusing on long term rather than quickly losing a lot of weight will help and be better for you and more sustainable. You're in panic mode now . It's not the end of the world. You can do this. You can be ok.

Thank you both, I used to walk everywhere, miles a day, until I started driving and now only "go for a walk" eg at weekends in the woods type thing, I no longer walk on a daily basis.

Absolutely in panic mode, kept waking up last night, was dreaming about it then thinking about it when I woke up 😭

Have you had any actual symptoms OP? It would also be good to get an idea of the numbers.

I have no energy, am shattered, and if I don't eat for a while then I can feel that I need to eat something, not sure how to explain it but almost a dizzy/fainting type sort of feeling. But this doesn't happen all the time, sometimes I can be fine. No excess thirst I think. I don't think I have any other symptoms but will have a google.

Also think my thyroid is buggered and as long as the number is within range then am kept on the same dose, it hasn't changed for years - 150mcg of Levothyroxine every day. Sometimes I can be absolutely freezing when the rest of my family is boiling, which have always put down to my thyroid.

That does sound more thyroid related than diabetic related unless you are particularly tired after eating? That can be the body shutting off to try to do something with all the glucose after a carb/sugar overload.

Hopefully you will get a bit more info when you get to see someone and have the 2nd test.

I wish you all the best whatever the plan is. You are lucky in a way that this has likely been identified before any irreparable damage and it can be managed going forward.

Thank you @BigBoysDontCry that is a good way to think about it, I have been given a chance and need to make serious long lasting change, don't I. Thank you

Does diabetes cause sweating? I find if I have a small amount of sugar it helps me not to sweat. I break out for now apparent reason and feel drained.

I always thought diabetes can cause sweating but Im not sure where I got that from

Funny thing about sugar and sweating, I remember watching a documentary years ago, might be decades ago, it was someone following a caravan across the desert (a camel and live stock caravan, not a 5 berth) and the women would make mint tea when they were stopped for the day or night or whatever and the presenter commented (and showed) the women putting massive handfuls of sugar in the tea pot, like when you cup both hands together, that amount of sugar in a pile and he said that they did this to stop sweating and keep cool

@Ughughughugh , how are you?

Thank you for asking @Seaitoverthere

I'm okay thanks, yesterday I had 1100 kcals and 30g of carbs which isn't too bad considering I was just having things we already had in etc. Last night I made a list of low carb dinners as we eat vegetarian dinners as a family. Breakfast and lunch I can have meat/fish etc though. I did a bit of reading on the diabetes website which was helpful.

Still haven't ordered a monitor though, the Libre freestyle seems to get quite mixed reviews.

Mentally I want to eat and eat but now there is a blocker saying no can't do that.

@Ughughughugh I’m glad you are ok. Abbott offer a free trial on the Libre. I have one on at the moment as wanted to see what my BG is doing. DH hasT1 and now which has been life changing for DH after 40 plus years of having T1.

I was looking at the display graph the Dexcom 7 has and personally prefer the Libre one. They aren’t perfect and have a tendency to fall off after a shower so a waterproof patch is a good precaution. Also if you lie on them they can show an artificial low.

Great start to have a plan. I think having a Libre or similar will be helpful as it removes that abstract nature of what goes in and the effect it has on your body, well it has for me. I thought I was pretty certain to be pre diabetic but actually I don’t appear to be. I want to try a kind of glucose tolerance to see how that goes and am not totally convinced that will be totally fine but we’ll see. I have a feeling that if I had one 9 weeks as 7kg ago things might have been a bit different.

Good luck and please let us know how are you are doing if you don’t mind doing so.

Thank you so much, I will have a look at Abbott and thanks for the tip on the patch!

That is a great point about seeing the impact, less chance to stick my head in the sand then.

The ironic thing is yesterday and today have really wanted something to eat in the morning, despite usually not eating til lunchtime. But I suppose eating properly at breakfast, lunch and dinner is still better than eating crap from lunchtime onwards. Maybe I'll be able to fast until noon in a couple of weeks time.

I will definitely keep you updated, have had so much support and encouragement, I am really grateful.

Glad to hear from you OP. Can I just add from personal experience to try not to get too obsessed and focused. I ended up making myself quite ill as I got so focused on the numbers and what I couldn't eat that I basically gave myself an eating disorder. At one point I was struggling to eat at all, losing weight I couldn't afford to lose, failing faint, racing heart rate etc etc.

Got sent to hospital from a GP appointment and had to give myself a shake. I basically started this journey last April and am now showing (high end) normal hba1c. Eating well and sustainably and if this keeps up they will remove the diabetic marker from my record which they'd only just added. It took a while to get a diagnosis as it was difficult to figure out what was going on as I'd dived straight into keto without any visits to GP. I'd basically randomly tested my own blood glucose and had a reading of 19.1.

So yes, you go for it and you can definitely improve things, maybe avoid further medication, but also don't get completely obsessed to the point that you are reading fractions of grams of carbs in stock cubes and weighing them out. Yes I went there!

That's funny you should say that, I did have half an Oxo cube as a drink yesterday and debated if I should log it! Thank you for the sensible advice, I will try and keep on an even keel, hopefully.

When they remove the marker does that mean you no longer have to tell eg travel insurance?

That’s excellent advice from @BigBoysDontCry , so sorry you went through that and really pleased to hear things have improved.

Little steps @Ughughughugh , as you say a sensible breakfast, lunch and tea is great. Your menstrual cycle is likely to affect how hungry you are amd also your weight loss which isn’t linear. This is a long term thing and it is going to take some time and then after you have lost weight you need to learn to maintain the loss (as do I!). Make sure you are kind to yourself and if you can maybe work in doing a few things that you enjoy over the next couple of weeks - whether that is a current hobby, starting something new, meeting a friend etc so your focus isn’t purely on this.

I would guess that I would no longer be classed as a diabetic so wouldn't be subject to nhs clinics but yes I suppose it has an effect on other things.

The only indication of an actual diagnosis I had was an appointment for a blood test and to see the diabetic nurse but gp called after the blood test to tell my my level was now normal. I'd never received the result of the previous one. She cancelled the appointment with the nurse there and then as she no longer considers I'm diabetic but said they'd check in 6 months time and remove the marker if appropriate. That was the beginning of December. My level at the hospital in July was 47. December was 41 but she said the restult in September was 51.

So no idea if I need to actually declare it on anything at this point?

Avoid carbs as much as possible, avoid ultra processed food, eat lots of veg, and do some exercise. It all helps.

I'm also lucky in that I'm reasonably tolerant of stevia type sweeteners so I do make little low carb granola type bars and cookies for when I need an extra wee something. I still need to pack on the calories so every bit helps.

I also use PhD diet whey which is low carb/sugar but make it with whole milk (or sometimes cream) instead of water, again for extra calories.

All my other health indicators are good though so I'm not worried about the fat etc even though I'm not keto anymore.

It feels weird to be trying to add weight especially when I've finally lost my baby weight 23 years later 😂

Just thought I would update, today is day 8. Have stuck to under 100g carbs each day and no more than 1200kcals per day, which is more than I said upthread but I feel okay with it. Have had a lot of veg and so far my gallbladder has been okay.

Was 125kg (clothed/shoes) at the doctor's just before Christmas and today am 122kg at home.

Have felt so much better already which is quite scary - more energy, less tired in general.

I start Bodyslims this week.

Thanks to everyone who was encouraging.

That’s great news @Ughughughugh , thanks for updating. Really pleased your gallbladder behaving, have had gallbladder pain and know how horrible it is. That’s so good you are feeling better already.

Thank you @Seaitoverthere

Just as an update - I have reduced the HB1AC from 67 to 49. 67 is the result from bloods taken before Christmas, results given early January. 49 is from bloods taken last week, results today. So unfortunately still diabetic and have to see the nurse in a few weeks, but going in the right direction.