Newly Diagnosed... Hard to adjust

Type 1 and LADA New to Type 1 Diabetes
1

Greetings all,

I have been recently diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes as my a1c was at 7.4 I have since been given information on diet and I take 1500 mg of metformine a day. I have seen my fasting sugar as low as 109, and my 2 hr after meal as high as 209. Grant it, the high numbers were because i ate something i shouldnt have (super bowl, traveling for work, etc.) I just wanted to know some advice to stay focused and really get a grasp on this thing. I actually tore my achilles and got an infection form teh surgery when i was hospitalized and diagnosed in November. I have been unable to work out until now, and Im a former college football player so working out was part of life pre injury. Im hoping when I get back, eat right and drop some weight that I can lick this thing, but i dont want to mess up too bad now, that its more work later and maybe not as easy to contain. Any initial advice, experience would be helpful. Im 30 yrs old, male, and African American…

Look forward to contributing and being a part of what seems to be an awesome community.

2

Welcome to our little (big) family! You’ve definitely come to the right place. An initial diagnosis is a hard thing to handle on so many levels: the emotions and so much to learn! Reading the forums on here will help you a lot as there are so many of us and so much experience and knowledge. But diabetes is also a very individual disease, which means what works for one person may not work for another in terms of food, treatment, etc. So what you have to do is find out what works for you! The best way to do this is test, test, test. As a type 2 you might be told to test once or twice a day. I don’t believe this is enough. The more you test the more information you have about how different foods affect you (by testing two hours after various meals) and how your treatment is working.

I’m really sorry to hear you are not able to work out when it was so much a part of your life. But when you are able to get back to doing that you have the skills and the habits that will be very valuable in controlling your type 2. Losing weight if you need to is also a valuable tool to control your diabetes and you might find it decreases your need for medication, or can eliminate it altogether for several years. But it’s not a cure. Too many people think it is, fall back into bad habits and then are right back where they started.

I highly recommend Blood Sugar 101 by Jennie Ruhl which you can read online or buy the book. It will give you a good overview. Then continue to read posts that you relate to and post any questions you may have. We’ve all been new and overwhelmed by this condition, what it means and how to treat it, so we all understand. Welcome to the club you didn’t want to join!

3

Welcome. It’s really great to hear that you’re testing. The meter really is your best friend, because it won’t lie to you. It’ll tell you what works and what doesn’t.

You sound a lot like one of my best friends. He was a year or two older than you when he was diagnosed, but his sugars were much higher at that point. Unfortunately many African Americans carry a lot of very strong genes that contribute heavily to diabetes. He still needed Met even after he lost weight and started working out/eating better. So, don’t take it as a failure if you put in the work and you still need meds. it would be great to get off meds, but it’s more important to do what you have to to stay healthy through old age. so keep that motivation going!

Fire off questions whenever you have them, there’s tons of people here who can help you out! Welcome!

4

209, 2 hr after meal is too high. I don’t know what they told you to eat but 60% of calories as carbs will lead to high after meal BG. I would eat only: fish, meat, cheese, nuts, and diabetic friendly veggies with little starch : cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, green beans, cabbage, peppers,celery, egg plant and many others.



When you get better you can add some friendly carbs like yams, quinoa, beans, etc.



Most of us do best without: bread, rice, cereals, patato and all the super starchy ( read blood sugary) stuff.



Best of luck.

5

Welcome! Nobody really wants to join this club/family/community, but having found tudiabetes.org is a great way to start.

You are so right: treating diabetes early and aggressively is the right thing to do. A well-rounded treatment plan covers all the important tools: personal eating plan, exercise, and medication(s) and focuses on blood glucose, blood pressure, and blood lipids (cholesterol). What the medical professionals sometimes ignore is just how important it is to have support and encouragement of other people who can relate to all the things we need to do to take care of yourself.

Dealing with “my” diabetes alone is challenging. Dealing with diabetes as “our” problem makes it easier.

Best wishes and it’s nice to have you contribute here.

6

I have Type 1, so my ‘advice’ wouldn’t necessarily be what another Type 2 would say to you. So I’ll let the Type 2’s speak up :slight_smile:

But I did want to say hi and ‘welcome to the club’.

7

It would seriously drive me nuts to not work out. I rolled my ankle and took a week off a month or so ago and was totally bonkers every day. I guess the house was tidier from me walking around in circles picking stuff up but I have been very glad to get into it. I read a story in Diabetes Forecast that suggested that early insulin in T2s can help stave of complications or maintain good BG so if you want to be aggressive, it might be worth looking in to? I am T1 as well and it is very different but stuff like Super Bowls can still be manageable with balance? Good luck on the workout stuff. If you are testing a lot, that’s the most important thing since that will give you the best data to determine what you’d need to do. It may also be useful to experiment on yourself, eating conservatively to see if that helps? I have perceived that quite a few of the T2 people here get very nice results from keeping carbs down.

8

Forgot bok choi and bean sprouts. Tomatoes ok.

9

Hey RTurner57 – welcome to TuDiabetes. People here have been an awesome resource and support group for me since I joined up – I was kinda freaking out and feeling very stressed about it. I feel much better now.

If your A1C is 7.4, that means that your average blood glucose for the two or three months before your test was 166. That’s too high but not awful.

As a type 2, the best thing you can do for yourself is to get some exercise every day. Exercise decreases insulin resistance and will bring your A1C down. Even if your leg is holding you back from doing aerobic stuff, doing free weights (lats, pecs, biceps, triceps, etc.) will still give you value in terms of lowering your insulin resistance.

Learning to watch out for and avoid too many carbs could very well take you the rest of the way to a normalized A1C. It won’t change your genes – we’ll always have diabetic genes. But exercise and avoiding too many carbs – plus the metformin – might be all you need to get back into the safe BG zone (A1C under 6) and avoid diabetic complications for life.

You may need insulin injections some day, but my doctor recently said something that made sense to me, “You could just inject more and more insulin to overcome your insulin resistance, but it would be better for your long-term health to eat a healthier diet and get more exercise, so you need to inject as little insulin as possible.” For me, healthier means very low carb and watching my portion sizes (not overeating low-carb foods).

There is a bit of a debate going on right now about how many carbs are good, but I think that eating around 45 grams per day is about right for me – that works out to 10 for breakfast and 15 each for lunch and dinner. I’m trying to get most of my carbs from green vegetables (broccoli, lettuce, asparagus, cabbage, etc.) and almost none from grains like rice or corn, starchy veggies like potatoes or flour products such as pasta, pizza, bread, etc. If you’re young and very active, you might not need to go that low. Some people go as low as 20.

The way to find out is to test, test, test, test. Write down what you eat and then test at one hour and two hours. You’ll quickly see what you can and cannot tolerate.

10

I love Gretchen Becker’s books. She’s so helpful and reassuring.

11

On the home page near the top on the far left there are some blue tabs. I would check out the New to Diabetes tab and the Type 2 Diabetes tab. There is some really great information there.



There is this newer show on Discovery Health calledLow Carb Cooking. I really like this show, except that he uses a lot of ground pork rinds as a substitute for things like bread crumbs. I don’t like pork rinds. He has some great ideas, though.



One thing, too, is your meds are prescribed based on what you have been eating, if you drop to low carb too quickly, those meds may drop your bg and enough low blood sugars, and you want to say “to H-E-double hockey sticks with it.” Don’t give up if you get those lows. Be patient with yourself.



You were diagnosed with a chronic condition that will never go away. It is okay to feel sorry for yourself for a little while, just not over a rootbeer float. = ) None of us are grateful to be diabetic, except a few people who are slightly psychotic, or something. = ) We just learn to live with it. We learn to laugh about it. Those who love us learn to put up with us when we are throwing our high or low blood sugar temper tantrums. I actually cry when my bg gets low and I have a tantrum when it gets high. We’re all different. Welcome friend to our communtity. Glad to have you.

12

Hey, welcome to the forum! I am Type2 as well and yes, unfortunately, we have to keep the carbs down - it sucks and yes, its a hard adjustment. How long have you been taking Met? It can take a while to “kick in” for some. For me, it really only took a couple days but you still have to do a lower carb diet to have good numbers two hours after eating. What you can eat may vary compared to others on here.

I notice that just walking on the treadmill brings my numbers down - I don’t even have to run. Doing too intense a workout, getting the adrenline kicking in and can RAISE numbers and you don’t want that so don’t be too worried if you can do an intense workout. I also noticed that muscle training has worked for me to improve insulin sensitivity - once you are healed and are able to do this, you might notice this too.

The rule on the carbs, for me, is the refined carbs are the worst (and of course anything sugary - you probaby knew that) - bread, pasta, potatoes, rice…have lots of “fast acting” carbs (meaning they hit the blood faster and cause more spikes. Also, lowering your carbs will help you drop the weight too. I went super low carb at the beginning and the weight melted off (and I didn’t even need to lose any - I was already thin!) Lots of people think cutting out all fat is the answer and I have found that to be wrong. Not that you should pig out on fatty stuff but too many carbs are really the culprit.

Anyhow, it is really is going to be a long experiment and learning experience to see what your body can’t and can not handle. Every one is different but too much sugar is something we all tend to avoid (the body turns carbs into sugar) The Met will help but you do need to change your diet (portions too!) and exercise. Sounds like you are already used to the exercise part so I think you really need to just get the diet part going - that is the hardest part in my opinion. If you put your mind to doing it right, you will find a diet that works for you. It just takes time and research. People here will offer lots of advice (don’t rely on your doctor to help you out with the diet part - they never do) so you have come to the right place! Good luck!

13

Welcome Aboard the ship - I am fairly new to my diagnosis of Type2 - and learning continues. I recommend checking in with a diabetes educator for advice on meal plan, carbs, working out - they will guide you well. There is awesom information on this site and many others. I am recovering from information overload which happened because I was trying to learn everything there is to know - ha. Experience is teaching that experience is the teacher. Good luck to you and keep coming back!
Best,
Denise

14

Welcome to the club, RT.

I have a little experience as a Type 2, because that was my initial diagnosis seven years ago, but it’s been years since I’ve lived life as a Type 2. Nonetheless, there are many things that have carried through from my initial diagnosis to my current plan as a Type 1 (or 1.5 . . . . whatever).

One is awareness, which you seem to have to shortage of. Be careful about thinking you can ‘beat this thing’ by making it go away. It’s not going away, but we can ‘beat it’ by controlling it.

Second is exercise. Do some every day. It doesn’t have to be an exhausting workout. You don’t even have to raise a sweat. But do something active daily - walk instead of drive, walk instead of television, stairs instead of elevator, It all counts. Even yardwork and housework. Even moving boxes around the garage.

Third is nutrition. Eat right. A .Holko’s guidelines are a good start as to what to avoid. A healthy diet for diabetes isn’t much different than a healthy diet for anyone else. Avoid the processed flour and sugar.

Fourth is, unfortunately, that it never goes away. Pay attention all the time. It’s not that you have to become obsessive, you’ll just build it into your life. Fight the disease, not the lifestyle.

Fifth is patience with your freinds and family. They’ll say many stupid, silly, ignorant and even hurtful things. Usually its motivated by love and caused by lack of knowledge, but sometimes not. See threads here on the subject.

Welcome again. Hope to see you around.

Terry