Hi folks, I’m new to this site and a newly diagnosed Type 2. I guess I’m just starting to get used to the fact that I have diabetes. I’m sure it’ll be an adjustment but I’m confident that I can make whatever changes are necessary. I’ve been reading all your stories and experiences and I’m certainly glad this place is here. Thank you all for sharing.
Welcome Dude- Have Fun - Be safe
John-
Hello! Welcome to TuD! I’m glad you found us. If you have any questions please ask, someone will answer. I’ll be seeing you around.
Cherise
John,
Welcome! This cyberfamily has taught me alot since my diagnosis in 8/08. Take care.
John:
I sure wish I had this site when I was diagnosed 20+ years ago! Of couse, then they didn’t have the home computers and I wouldn’t have been able to afford one!!! Welcome. I hope you get all the info you want and need.
Lois La Rose
Milwaukee, WI
Thank you all for welcoming me to the group. I am indeed learning a lot here. At the moment, Some important things Ive learned already are that I’m not alone and I’m not the only one who gets their butt kicked by Metformin.
I am a retired Army Infantry soldier and I’ve seen my fair share of challenges and I’ve always had a team to depend upon. It’s nice to know there’s a team here. Go team D !!!
Once again, I thank each of you for being here,
John
welcome, we are all here for you!
Thanks debb and Denise. I was about to type that you don’t know how much it means to have others to talk to and learn from but of course you do, you all do.
Not a type 2, but a type 1 here wanting to say hello and welcome. I joined the site recently and have found everyone to be very helpful! Keep us posted on how you are doing. Diagnosis can be scary and frustrating. Welcome.
Thanks Di. I think right now it’s a feeling of confusion for me. I have a lot to learn about this affliction and how to live with it. Today my doc doubled my Metformin dosage. He says the 500mg tabs were a first step to get me adjusted and 1000 mg. is the dosage he wants me to have. So, it’s round two for me vs. Metformin 
We’ll see how this works out. I’m still optimistic and I’m determined to stick to the prescribed treatment.
Hi Judith. That’s a difficult thing to answer. Let me see, I will start a typical day with either a bagel or oatmeal for b’fast. Lunch is almost always a whole wheat turkey sandwich w/light mayo or mustard and two apples (I like apples). Dinner is whatever my wife makes, today we had a sweet potato, string beans and a grilled chicken breast. That’s about it. That’s pretty typical of what I eat each day during the work week.
And you thought metformin was kicking your butt. Wait 'til you hear all the opinons on carbs! But seriously, welcome to the site and to this bunch of kind, generous, caring PWDs (people with diabetes).
OK, now for the carb analysis. That bagel may have 60g of carb (or 4 carb servings). Is that good? Is that bad? All depends on you. Although quite a few dietitians will tell you 45-60 g of carb per meal is OK for a moderately active man, many PWDs find they can’t handle so many carb grams at a time, especially after breakfast (and especially if they’re not on insulin, which can be used to cover a high load of carb). This is the kind of thing to look at if your A1C, fasting, or post-meal blood sugar checks are not where you want them to be.
Now don’t forget I’m a newbie at this. I just looked at the bagel package. They’re weight watcher bagels and the pkg. says 26 grams of carbs per bagel. So I guess that’s not bad. A1C, I have no idea. I assume that’s a number the lab would have to determine? I did get a copy of my lab results but no A1C I’m afraid. The doc based my diagnosis on the BG readings. He said 3 readings of over 120 indicates diabetes. He has me testing once each morning. I seem to vary between 120 - 170. Since I started the Metformin, my BG is between 152 - 108.
The A1C is an important diabetes benchmark. It tells you, basically, your average blood glucose levels over the past 2 or so months. It’s important, because if you only test once a day, you may not realize that your blood glucose levels are high at other times.
The American Diabetes Association recommends an A1C of “under 7% and as close to normal (under 6%) as recommended by your health-care provider.” The A1C is often expressed as an estimated average blood glucose so it corresponds to what you see on your meter. A 7% translates to 154 mg/dl; a 6% to 126 mg/dl.
A1Cs are recommended at least twice a year, but more often for type 1s and people who are not on target/changing therapies/having other health issues.
PS: Those are quite low carb for bagels!
Kelly, they are Weight Watcher brand. I call them skinny bagels 
Judith, I guess I’ll have to take a closer look at the carb content of what
I eat.
At least this morning’s BG is 104, maybe due to the increased Metformin dosage.
Nice morning number!
Sorry to have to welcome you. Read everything. Lots of good info. sometimes appears to be contradictory but it really is not because the disease is so variable. Some people can eat tonnes of carbs and run marathons others cannot. you have to find out what works for you.
A1c is short for HA1c that is hemoglobin A1c which is the percentage of your hemoglobin that has reacted with your blood glucose irreversibly to form glycosilated hemoglobin. The lower the number the better since glycosilated hemoglobin is probably toxic to the body and also it is an indicator of how high your BG has been glucose is necessary for all cell but is toxic to the body at high than normal concentrations.
Thanks Anthony. I guess I’m going to have to educate myself on many aspects of diabetes. Luckily I’ve always been fairly adept at that sort of thing.
After my military service, I worked R&D in the engineering field that focused on diabetic. We developed a system that would allow doctors to test their diabetes patients to form a baseline in regard to their autonomic responses and to periodically retest them and closely monitor the nervous system and associated responses and quickly identify any degredation.
Well, there I go off on another barely related tangent, sorry about that. My point was that I do like to learn new things and I now have a good reason to do so.
Thanks so much debb. I truly appreciate it.
Dear JohnM.
That is excellant because you are an experiment of one so averages that the Doctors understand are meanigless. I used to be an R&D engineer also in the days of the dinosaurs. The disease is very variable accross the different people. We have a 69 year old running 1/2 marathons and eating 200 grams of carbs a day and there is me you cannot run at all and would end up in hospital if I ate that many carbs.
There is a lot of logic for a very low carb diet and much of this is presented by Dr. R. Bernstein in Diabetes solutions. The disease needs a lot of experimentation to see what works for you.
Basically you should find out if your pancreas is still working and how much and how insulin resitant you are. If the pancreas is no longer full speed it is best to supplement it with outside insulin. the sulphonyl ureas are bad news. And avandia very dubious. For insulin resistance there is basically metformin which does not work for me but does very well for some other people. don’t be bashful about finding out the average and standard deviation of your BG with and without your medications. after a year I found out that avandia and metformin did absolutely nothing for me the mean and standard deviation with and without were the same.
Most doctors like to wait until your pancreas is totally dead before putting you on insulin. This will make a manageable disease into your worst nightmare the more so if you are insulin resistant.
Happy learning experience.