I am a T2 diagnosed 11 years ago with an A1c of 12.
Learned a lot reduced carbs increased exercise for the last 9 years I have been under 6.0 with the lowest being 5.6/ diet and exercise only
I am 74 and in the last couple of years aging family etc. Part of life.
My A1c crept up to 6.4. My doc wanted to push meds, I said no to that. Latest A1c 6.1. Minor victory,
My doc said numbers were lower but keep working at it. LOL
Some time I just want a lot of balloons and confetti.
I guess it all depends on your vantage point…but 6.1 seems like a more than fine A1c to me - well deserving of balloons and confetti. Sounds like your doctor is a bit rigid. You made significant progress in the right direction, 6.4 to 6.1!
Just a daily vitamin. I keep daily carb total goal at under 30… i have been lax on my exercise program which is why my numbers have crept up. My doctor is use to my A1c being between 5.6 to 5.8. Pretty consistent for the last 8 years.
Since I don’t take meds to lower my BG going low is not a big issue. Unless I don’t consumes a few extra carbs while hard exercise.
FYI just low carb WOE. Once when I checked my keto level and I was already in nutritional keto sis which out doing a full Keto diet.
FYI If I eat a regular full carb diet, my BG soars to the 200’s d
I am just fortunate that my body response well to LCHF woe eating. Which I was taught after diagnosis in 2009. My fasting number at that time was 328!
Up until a year ago I was running 20 to 30 miles a week. I need to get rolling again, But at 74 I find that starting over is not as easy as it once was LOL. I do have a 5 K scheduled for next weekend.
Thank you so much. I am also on low carb OMAD at about 30g carbs per day. Unfortunately I need to take insulin with my meal or shoot right up into the high 200’s. I don’t follow a Keto Diet but measure keytones once a week just to keep track and always run between 2.0-3.0 so always in ketosis. I keep my A1C at 5.6 but am having issues with rise in LDL cholesterol which is somewhat normal with my WOE but does not keep endo happy as she insists on LDL at or under 70 which I have only been able to do with a statin.
I am currently working on diet and exercise to reduce LDL which is why I asked the question in order to leave no possible stone un-turned.
I don’t agree with my endo’s assessment but alas life is always a set of compromises so LDL is coming down so I can hopefully soon reduce, rather than increase dose.
I will be 72 this year, diabetic for 30 years and could totally manage my diabetes on food and exercise alone but would not have a life beyond diabetes. My limited insulin use allows me greater freedom in international travel and enjoyment of the grand kids parties while I am still also working full time.
Yes international travel is a difficult stretch for me to keep control. I have limited long travel, my choice.
I retired at 65 because my schedule was erratic, i had my own architectural firm. And since I could retire, I did and have concentrated on exercise, rather than travel. I do admit that since I live in San Francisco there is a lot of local travel/running which is rewarding.
Family wise I am widowed and I have only one surviving adult child. No grandchildren , un fortunately.
My daughter and I do enjoy time and travel together she is very supportive., which helps.
Now a question for you. I have wondered about using some insulin. But, it appears that when my BG is. Too high that not as quickly as needed I can produce a lot to insulin, so I can hit 150 and in an hour I am back down to 100. But more often than not I am over producing insulin than puts me lower but not low about 70 or so. I don’t really know how my body would react to adding insulin to the mix, It might make matters worse or stop the over reaction or “reactive low. Hopefully you might have some input.
Yes, I think you may be able to solve your issue with fast acting insulin. Doctors are trained to start T2’s on slow acting and it took me 20 years and a CGM to convince my endo that slow acting Levemir/Lantus (Long acting) is the invention of the devil for diabetics in my situation which is similar to yours. The pros of doing Humalog (fast acting) is that it is non-addictive so you can stop anytime if it does not work for you. You can use it at will, only when needed and it will allow you a total range of foods. So, if you want a slice of pizza at your daughter’s birthday, no problem just dial in 6 or so units 15-20 minutes before the pizza. Cake and ice cream, no problem just dial in 18 or so units 15-20 minutes before eating. What is really nice with fast acting is that it is mostly gone from the system about 2 1/4 hours after taking it and virtually totally gone within 8 hours. So, if you sin a little and use it at lunch, it will be out of system before bedtime, avoiding a possible nighttime low. A little trickier to dose properly if you eat dinner. What I think you will find is that as long as you pre-bolus (take your insulin before your food kicks in which is usually about 15-20 minutes) you will find that your BG stays totally flat-lined and then most likely you will still be flat-lined and not go low an hour later. You just need to figure out proper dose for whatever you eat (your insulin to carb ratio I:C) and you learn that pretty fast.
The cons are now that you can eat anything you eat more variety of foods and it is such a pleasure that you need to watch weight gain, which can be curbed by eating more fats which will kill your appetite but also affect your cholesterol. I am battling that now to reduce and hopefully eliminate my statin use. Another con is that as we get older, rigorous daily exercise is not so attractive. It is too cold or rainy today etc. and so easy to just take a few units of fast acting at mealtime and BG remains stable. I had needle phobia and originally told endo I could never take a needle. She said no worse than a mosquito bite and she was right and it took about 3 days to get used to injections.
Bottom line is that I would ask doctor to prescribe 1 box of fast acting Humalog Pens and give it a try. You have nothing to lose as you can drink OJ or eat candies if you go low at first so there is no risk there and you have everything to gain. Like everything else in diabetes, one baby step at a time and you will find what works. If you want to talk about this more over the phone, just PM me.
That’s for the info strangely it helps a lot. Maybe not in the way you thought.
Like you a long time well controlled with diet and exercise. But I don’t really desire “treats”. Maybe a veggie pizza. LOL the only time I would eat ice cream is when I had a very sore throat. But I have always wondered about a t2 using slow acting insulin, I agree does not seem like a great idea.
The problem that I experience is more of eating something I thought was ok and it ended up not. My daughter wanted to try a Burmese restaurant the food was great, seem to be ok, but it must of had a lot of rice based products so my BG soared. There in lies the problem for me I do a pretty good job of controlling my BG if I know what I am eating. It is when I’d does not work I would need to add fast acting insulin. So as I said it was good info. But maybe not the solution. LOL
I will keep your online info for the future Thants. There are not many of us long term diet and exercise only.
I’m a T1, so my situation is different. However I am a vegan and very picky about ingredients. You’d be surprised at some of the hidden ingredients when you eat out, A favorite is sugar added to dishes, they will say no sugar added but it will have a “sauce” they use that has sugar in it. Another example, a almond cookie I would get from a bakery, I was assured it was just almonds and some agave baked, it turned out in talking directly to the baker they also used potato starch to hold it together. That was fine, but until I asked the baker it wasn’t being disclosed as an ingredient.
When I go to an unknown restaurant, I always take a few extra units of insulin, like 4-6 units, because of the sugar they add in sauces and other crap that increases BG. Then if that worked out, end of story. If BG still too high, I make a mental note or put note in my smartphone that next time I go to that restaurant, I need to take xxx units in advance rather than 4-6. That also works for foods that I may want to eat from time to time. The ice cream, cake and pizza were really extreme examples to make a point, although with 6 grand daughters for me that does happen very occasionally.
Be careful suggesting any dosages to anyone. We all are very different; some are insulin resistant and some (like me) are very sensitive to insulin. Although I am a T1 and have been diabetic for 53 years, if I took the dosages that you suggested (like 18 units), I would be hospitalized with extreme lows. Few of us on this forum are doctors, so we all can talk just from experience, not from medical training. I agree with the suggestion that if someone tries insulin for the first time, the dosages should be low and should be under the guidance of an MD (even if many times they are not right, either!).
At Chick-Fil-A, the Polynesian sauce has 14 carbs per tiny packet. I use two of them for my 12-count nuggets. The sauces seem so small but that’s 28 carbs that must be accounted for, to prevent an unwanted bg-rise.
I would never suggest any particular dose to anyone. I am not a doctor or medical professional. All I can do is relate my own experience and an approach that may be worth trying. It is all about the approach, not the actual dose. The actual dose, will of course vary by individual, what they eat and their I:C ratio. In the case of cake and ice cream which was an extreme example, it would of course vary on the number of carbs in each as well as different brands having a huge variance and then adjusting for your I:C ratio. This seems pretty basic to me but maybe I should have concluded YDMV, which is often but not always done on this forum but pretty much understood.
Hello all,
T2Tom, I feel ya. I am T2 also
I recently called my doctor to get on Synjardy XR but they put it in and it was almost 600 bucks! They didnt have any samples but they did have Jardiance which is the same thing without Metformin so I have added this into my cocktail of stuff so far I have seen numbers change. But I to do alot of exercising. Right now i am experiencing some low numbers because I was always in High 100s, but this is very frustrating even when you cant get the drugs you need!
