Well, after two full weeks of testing my blood sugars (was diagnosed officially on Oct 8 and started testing on Oct 10 but started my low-carb diet back on Sept 24 when I realized that I would get diagnosed as a diabetic), things are going great! My blood glucose readings are averaging 115 after 100 tests readings in the last two weeks.
But, I have to share this with everyone as I am sure that I am not the only one that has done this. After being on this low-carb diet for 5-6 weeks and testing a lot, I decided that I wasn’t really diabetic because I had never had a reading of more than 152 after a meal. So, my wife and I went to dinner on Friday night and I have my prime rib, salad and green beans which I have tested before and barely caused a move in my readings an hour after eating it. BUT, I decided to eat half of a black and white cookie. If you are from NY or know about these cookies, these are not small cookies and they are more like a cake than a cookie. When I tested an hour later, it was 219! I guess reality hit me smack in the face and I realized I was being a bonehead. I am clearly a diabetic and need to accept my situation.
Up until Friday, I had accepted and obviously was serious about getting control of my blood glucose. And through the low-carb diet, I had accomplished that. But I had my little pity party. When I got the A1C back in Oct 8 of 11.1, I took a few minutes to sob because it was official. But I didn’t let myself really mourn enough and I think that is why I went through what I did on Friday and Saturday. I am now back in reality and more committed than ever to keep my blood glucose under control.
I guess the good thing is that my readings that night went from 219 to 188 to 138 and the next morning I was at 89, so I clearly recovered and didn’t have prolonged high blood sugars. Tells me my body has recovered well from the constant high sugars that I had over the summer or longer. But I must admit that I didn’t feel so good after eating that cookie and it was a good sign to me that my body has gotten used to near normal blood glucose again and wants to reject the high sugars.
Has anyone else gone through this or something similar? I suspect so and would be interested in your accounts. I have accepted that this is a life-long fight and I need to treat it as a distance race, not a sprint. Like I said earlier, I more committed than ever to win this battle!
i went through the same thing, but it happened after my diagnosis. when I was first diagnosed I went straight to insulin. After eating right and working out for about 9 months I went to no meds and pills. When I saw blood sugars comming back to normal then I let my guard down and started to not make the best food choices. 2 years later I get hit with an A1C of 10.0. So at that point I knew that I did not get cured. One thing I did learn is that with the right food you can keep things under control when you are type 2. I cant go into a low carb diet because I like to bike a lot. What I get from a low carb diet when working out is a bunch of lows in the middle of the work out.
One thing you’ll lear is everthing in moderation makes type 2 easier. Dont go to the extremes with your diet, balance. I do have a sugary snack every once in a while when I know I can burn the carbs. Also over time I learned to take that one bite and stop. It does not work all the time but I resist tempation a lot better now than before. So what you go through is what I think a lot of us go through which is wishfull thinking that maybe we were not diabetic but a doctor’s mistake. I have been there several times but I do try to manage. I eat by my meter. If my meter shows anything between 90 and 110 I go eat carbs. If my meter shows around 140 before lunch I go with low carb and salads. If my meter shows 70 in the middle of the day then I will have that cookie.
I can relate to both of these posts very much. And after many years of being a t2d, I found myself slipping once in a while and eating “like I wasn’t a diabetic” out of frustration and resentment. Of course, that doesn’t help anything. Lately, I try to be less hard on myself when I get a bit off track, because a feeling of futility doesn’t foster success. I pat myself on the back for small victories and it seems to work: positive reinforcement from myself.
It can be a long grind as a t2d, and you can’t be blamed for feelings of anger and resentment along the way. I use all the tricks - like weight watchers and nutrisystem use - telling yourself a tempting dessert doesn’t taste nearly as good as it looks, eating much more slowly and stopping to feel the satisfied feeling. Most powerful motivators are that: only you can control your intake of food, and secondly, it was so much work to get to control or weight loss, that suffering a needless setback requires even more hard work to undo. Cheers!
That’s great for you, Josee. But it’s important to understand that a person with diabetes can do everything they’re supposed to and still not be able to get off medication…we don’t need people feeling guilty that they’re somehow doing something wrong if they need medicine to be healthy.
I don’t know one diabetic who hasn’t had moments of “I am not going to deal with this anymore” and does something to sabatoge themselves. It’s almost “normal”. Yet, we know what it does to our bodies, and we know that truly we are diabetics, but sometimes we get tired of it and need to step out into the world beyond meters, meds and thinking about everything we do.
I found it interesting the other day to hear Valerie Bertinelli talk about her weight loss in these terms. An alcoholic doesn’t have to drink, it’s a choice; a drug addict doesn’t have to take drugs, it’s a choice; but a person has to eat ---- the choice is what, how much and when. Well, we are the same, we have to eat, our choice is the plan that keeps us going, or the plan that will make us sick. We make a healthy choice.
But I am with you, sometimes, I just don’t wanna make a healthy choice, … it’s all things in moderation. I can have a little of a piece of cake, but not like I used to. If I have too much, I drink more water, exercise more, and scale back on some of my carbs later…I can’t just take more meds ( I’m not sure how insulin works on that front) but that’s not a choice for me.
But moderation, and not everyday…making the healthiest choice possible for myself all the time, and in all situations.
I was diagnosed back on May 9, 2009. My BS reading was at 267 and A1c was 11. I immediately started on a very low carb diet, 15 grams or less per day. My BS came down from 267 to between 90 and 115 in less than 10 days. After just 6 months, my A1c is now 5.7. My doctor has been absolutely astounded. He said that I am the most successful Type 2 he has ever had come through his office. I am mostly off the pills as well. IT CAN BE DONE! If you do all that you are supposed to do and the numbers do not cooperate, you might check for Late onset type 1. It can act much like Type 2 in the early stages. If you are Type 2, LOW CARB IS THE WAY TO GO.!
As far as the rest of it, I do not go out of my way to avoid the ailes in the grocery store containing the foods I cannot eat. I simply must deal with it. I will be faced with them the rest of my life and I even prepare things for my family I cannot eat. To me, it is just a way of life. I find that if you take a ‘matter of fact’ approach to it with little to no emotion, it is much easier to deal with it. I tell nondiabetic friends and family that raw sugar to me would be like them eating rat poisin and carbs like eating low levels of arsenic.
After dx in March, 10.9 A1c 238 FBG I was not surprised but I was angry, I had a lot of the old data in my head from when my grandmother was diabetic and had a lot of that stuff to shake loose. My wife told me I had 2 days to feel sorry for myself and that she wasn’t going to put up with any more than that. So I’m rationing it out an hour at a time. She sid 2 days but I heard 48 hours.
I started making changes right away, and I started feeling better right away, it was such a dramatic difference that I thought if I can feel this good again maybe I should consider the dx a blessing in disguise. After 6 months I’m down to an A1C of 5.7
I can be pretty OCD and I wanted to understand as much as I could about what I was dealing with and try to figure out how much of the D I can influence. initially I stayed away from a lot of favorite foods, but I got over that initial fear of food rather quickly and by July I was adding things back into my diet. My approach is that all things are possible and all foods represent a choice. If I can make it fit in my daily carb budget. To help me out with that I want to be more insulin receptive and more resistant to glycosylation. Since glycation is a multi stage process that takes some time I see an opportunity to expand food choices.
I’m taking a number of vitamins and supplements to help achieve that but so far its working for me. Its a life change but I don’t view it yet as a battle, D my have moved into my life but that doesn’t mean it gets to re-arrange the furniture.
