Hey everyone. I was wondering if you can give me some advice on my new high fasting sugars. For the most part, I have always had fasting sugars between 110 and 130. I never pay much attention to fasting numbers in that range. Lately I have been having fasting numbers ranging from 150 to 200 almost every single day. I do not eat any sweets or drink any sugar drinks. I do however eat bread, pasta, and potatoes. I eat 1 meal a day. Some days it is a no carb meal such as sausages and a huge salad with chopped ham. A few days a week, I eat some meals with carbs in them and I use insulin to correct the high blood sugars. I usually have normal sugar levels within 2 to 3 hours of consumption. In between my one meal a day I drink coffee with Splenda and Lipton diet iced tea. I do use 1 cup of whole fat milk every day for my two large cups of iced coffee. That is 6 grams of carbs every cup. So not strictly fasting 24 hours a day, but this never raises my BG more than 10 points if my BG is not already elevated.
What makes me mad is that I am doing all this disciplined eating and I cannot control what happens when I do not put anything into my mouth. It would be much easier if this was a more simple disease to control. When I was not eating for an entire week straight due to severe gallbladder attacks, my BG was 70-80 consistently, even in the AM. It never moved. But I do realize a person cannot simply starve themselves to achieve proper BG control. Also, I have bad stomach acid problems and bowel issues that happen no matter what I eat, but really crank up when I eat meat and fat. The Keto diet jacks me up bad. I do use almond flour sometimes to make bread and tacoās though and that helps a lot. But I do not like the Keto diet at all. I hate eggs and I never eat breakfast or lunch anymore.
I still have chronic pain conditions that make it hard for me to cook up Keto bread and tacoās all of the time. It is very labor intensive and I use most of my spoons on my part time job right now. Iām just getting frustrated to the point that I am going some days just not even caring. Then I keep on thinking about my kidneyās going out, going blind, or getting more burning in my hands. My Kidney function was down to 30 last year and it is only back up to 75 percent now. Four years ago, it was at 110 percent, two years ago it was at 99 percent. It went down when I had not eaten or had any liquids for an entire week. I was getting gallbladder attacks even when eating just veggies, and even one attack with no food consumption. I was petrified to eat or even drink water. Any how, I correct my BG every morning with a 7 to 20 mg bolus of fast acting insulin and get it under control usually within 3 hours. I hate doing this though because on work days, when I start working, it will drop too low.
I always have to have 1 or 2 cookies before work (the only time I ever eat sweets) and it will spike me from 90 to 150 and then with on hour of hard work, I will be back down in the 80ās and then leave it there until dinner. Other times, I eat 1 cookie and then check after an hour of work and I have gone from 100 BG down to 70. Sometimes I use 10 units of fast acting and BG only goes down to 130 after 3 hours and even after working for an hour. So sometimes itās like playing with a firecracker. Those are the days I have to prick my fingers almost 10 times just to know what is happening inside my body because insulin for me is unstable when working. If I am just sitting on the couch and 10 units of fast acting brings me from a fasting of 170 BG to 100, I leave it alone; all is good. But going to work will lower it dangerously low. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I was considering adding long acting insulin, but how can you inject long acting when your BG are in the 80ās or hovering right at 100 every night before you go to bed?
For me those are out of the question. I call them lingering carbs as I can eat a tiny portion of bread, pasta or potato and it will show up on my cgm for about 72 hours. You seem to have the same issue and have somewhat proved it out that if you donāt eat for a few days, your blood sugar totally normalizes and flatlines in the 70-80 range. Try reducing your carb intake for your 1 meal a day and my guess is that your BG will come back down. I am also mostly on 1 meal a day and need to limit that meal to about 25 carbs. This does allow me to cheat and go out and have an additional meal from time to time, but then takes about 3 days for both my weight and my BG to come back to normal. I only take fast acting insulin in multiple daily injections and dose according to my CGM so am taking several shots a day, even when only doing 1 meal.
Thanks for the advice. I think that might be the case too. I have changed a lot over the past 6 months since Gallbladder is out. I used to eat apple fritters and inject 100 units of fast acting insulin to fix the BG spikes. I just donāt want to give everything up. What else is there left if you canāt even eat a single bite of food you enjoy. I still eat 1 large pepperoni pizza per week and 80 units of fast acting fixes the spike in 3 hours. Sometimes I even have just a 110 fasting BG the morning after that meal. The low carb meals seem to sometimes spike my BG even higher in the AM. That is what I experienced when I tried Keto for a week. I love salads though. Some days when my stomach is really messed up because of no GB and burning so bad even the antacids to not help stop acid from spewing back up. I simply eat 1 large salad with chopped ham and thatās it. Sometimes I do this for two days in a row, but since the dressing and ham have so much fat in them, I have to use digestive enzymes and OX Bile to settle down the stomach.
I just had a huge salad and some sausages. Thirty minutes of having to lean forward to burp up air and pressure. Also acid coming up and coughing spells. Just took my Ox Bile and digestive enzymes and starting to feel better. I will see what my fasting numbers are tomorrow. I was 166 when I woke up 8 hours ago. I used 10 units of fast acting insulin and was 80 before this meal. I will check in 2 hours to see what my BG are. But no carbs hardy, just a few from the blue cheese dressing, thatās all.
Thatās whatās so frustrating. Everything is the enemy. It wouldnāt be so bad if all we had to give up was cakes and candy. But all was well. I was 83 BG before the meal and 108 3 hours later. I will report back later on with my fasting numbers. I go to bed at 3 AM and get up around 11 -12 AM as I work evenings. Youād figure if fasting numbers are going to be 200 at least let me have a jelly donut. All that punishment to the body with no reward.
On the sausages, I eat Villa Roma and they do not add high fructose to their product like Johnsonville does. But still might be some carbs, Iād have to check. The chopped ham I eat has like 3 grans of carbs per serving, so does the blue cheese dressing. But it isnāt like eating a large pizza.
But you can still have a steak! Or have the sausage and walk for half an hour after your meal to get your bgs down. Iād rather reward myself with the steak.
You can inject Lantus twice per day - a morning dose and a smaller before bed dose. They call that āsplittingā the dose. You might need a snack before bed.
Painter. I need to work on the walking. I have severely messed up circulation in my right leg from DVT. I can now work up to 5 hours at a time as long as I pace myself and do not bend a lot. I also have to use pain medication if standing longer than 3 hours. I have never done this and I have been meaning to try it. I need to walk until I can no longer walk. To see how far I can go before the leg locks up. After walking too far or too fast both legs start to become heavy and start to burn and I have to stop. Right leg usually much worse. Even working 15 hours a week does not give me any stamina. I actually get weaker legs after my Monday job. The one where I work for 5 hours doing very physical work. Lifting heavy trash cans and cleaning and mopping a warehouse the size of a super market. I have chronic blood clots in the right leg and the only way to prevent having to use pain meds is to elevate the leg all day. That is how I spend most of my days when I am not working. If I do any physical activity, there is a possibility I can aggravate the leg and need meds and I do not take meds on my days off unless it is really bad. I used to be dependent on 3-4 Norco pills a day and now I only need them on work days three days a week. I can start and stop and no withdrawal issues. I prefer I this way for now.
I will look into long acting eventually. I just donāt know how to dose it or anything since I have only been using fast acting and my doc is not very educated about diabetes. There are other non-insulin injection meds out there too to try. Another doc said just lose weight and then I can get off meds and if I canāt lose weight only eating 1 meal a say, some days only 1000 calories. But I will try the walking or maybe cycling. I used to ride my bike 3 miles a day when I was young and healthy.
Fixes the spike, but those carbs come back to haunt you for the next 3 days and then you wonder why your average BGās are running so high starting with DP in the morning.
A light walk several times a day will help. Whatever you can handle. I believe you will find the answer in your diet. Find a couple of foods that you can eat and like and work on reducing your weight. Go to www.ditchthecarbs.com and find a couple of good ones.
Your doctor is right, you will need to reduce weight to make progress.
Thank you for the recipes CJ. Have you ever tried almond flour tortillas and bread. There is an almond flour bread recipe that you add gluten to and the bread comes out light and fluffy. You canāt even tell the difference between that and the real thing. Itās like 5-6 crabs per slice. There is also a recipe for hamburger buns, but itās like 480 calories for two buns. The calorie count is very high.
My fasting numbers are 124 even after 1 night of almost no carbs. I do not bat an eyelash at 124. I wonāt even use 1-2 units to lower it. This is a good number at least for me it is. So, maybe there is something to not having carbs. I didnāt have to use any insulin last night which is why I sometimes eat no carbs. It gives me a break from having to worry about injecting. Iām a die hard foodie. My diet before diagnosis was the worst diet you could ever imagine and it was three huge gigantic meals a day with many large sugar drinks, sweets, and candies. If I would have known what I know now, I would have changed my diet a long time ago. Itās just been a slow journey for me to change all eating habits. That is why I jumped right to insulin the first year of diagnosis. I might not have had tight control, but never going over 200 after any meal for 6 years, even if it was sweets thanks to insulin.
Yes, I use almond flour and coconut flour in a lot of the items I bake. There are a 1/2 dozen low carb websites where I find all sorts of awesome recipes, many of which taste better than their original loaded carb counterparts. It is pretty easy to eat very well and manage or lose weight at the same time with little to no exercise.
CJ, it is. I just need to get fired up and cook up a bunch of low carb breads and then freeze them. Bread lasts for months in the freezer. I know how to cook too, I just stopped cooking after my leg injury. I was thinking trying weights but only with upper body. My upper body is fine. Strong as an ox still. The only real ingredient you cannot fake is pasta though, but I do not eat much of it. Pizza can be made with fat head dough, so probably will not even notice the difference. I just do not do well with a lot of meat like last night. Every time I eat sausages or a steak, my stomach goes all crazy for 2 hours. If I did not have the Ox Bile and digestive enzymes, I would have been sick all night sometimes having some lingering pain where my gallbladder used to be.
Hello my friend,
try to cut out all of the sugar, sugar additives and sugar sweeteners, doing that will cut out the spikes. I like your idea of the OMAD but you have to also cut out the starchy food like potatoes and bread. You may notice a spike in your blood sugar but along with blood sugar is the insulin spike.
Every time you consume carbs your insulin spikes and as you know insulin is a fat storage hormone. The fat storage will first go to your glycogen storage, but once it is filled the excess is turned into triglycerides known as fat. The only place the fat has to go is for starters around your liver.
So you will start to have a fatty liver. Next is fat around your abdominal area and all of the organs in that area. You many notice obesity and fatty liver and if you are diabetic of course insulin resistance.
You could be insulin resistant for years even decades before you are diagnosed with diabetes. High blood sugar means high insulin. Carb consumption may keep the blood sugar level just high enough to create the insulin spikes and now you have the start of insulin resistance.
Be careful with your cheat days of cookie munching.
Hello
I keep posting this message whenever I see a query on high fasting BSLs. Try a small protein snack before bed. Eg. Handful of macadamia nuts, do a snack of Salami slices, cheese, sourcream dip and cucumber to replace crackers. Thereās something about the body feeding on protein during a fast that controls the release of glucagon which raises your BSLs. All the best.
Your constellation of issues is tough. All of this is hard, and Iām sorry it is happening to you.
I had my gallbladder out in 1994 and it took a while for things to normalize again. I still donāt do well with super fatty meals, especially if they have eggs. But the good news is I can eat low carb without a lot of fat (and without eggs ).
When carbs go in, BG goes up. Sometimes that lasts a while, as youāve seen. So I wonāt address that.
But one thing that has helped me with my diet is batch cooking low carb meals and freezing in individual portions. Then there is always something in the freezer I can grab, and food can be fuel most of the time. I still have the occasional splurge but I donāt worry so much about that because most of the time Iām eating well, and things I like, without a lot of daily effort.
Do you have someone who can help you once a month in the kitchen? It is not easy to cook so much at once but if you have someone to help it is a huge relief all the rest of the time. If youāre interested in some recipes or would like to see how Iām doing food right now, let me know. Iād be happy to share.
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