Newly diagnosed - How bad is it?

Hi Lanie and Sydnee,

Lanie, yes, like you said, meds need to be considered when we talk about Diabetes. When my Dad's doctors changed his COPD meds his diabetes went away. Any meds with cortisone in it can cause disabetes also.

Sydness, the same for Candidiasis--like you said, it also causes Diabetes. I have Polycysitic (sp?) ovarian syndrome, which they are just acknowleding is a metabolic syndrome often associated with Diabetes, GERD, IBS, etc.

Marburg

To lanieg and others. I have read more about diet for diabetics and am very frustrated. I started on Dr. Bernstein's diabetics solution book. He suggests, among other things, wasa fiber rye crackers. They cost $2.93 each. I can't afford that kind of diet. He also has figures such as "serum insulin response to glucose consumption". I don't have a doctorate or masters degree. Those things are hard to understand for me. He also suggests things like unflavored yogurt with no fruit. I might as well jump in the river and drown right now.
I haven't finished the book yet, but it is very depressing to know that I can NEVER have sweet stuff again the rest of my life. Is life worth living?
I don't mean to be so dramatic, but how do you cope with such strict diets?

BTW, I know close friends and relatives who have been on insulin for years and they do NOT have such a strict diet. How do you explain that? Why do you think I can't do as they do?

I am starting to believe that this forum is full of... no I won't say it. Am I unreasonable or are there those here on this forum who are unreasonable?

Taking supplemental insulin to balance out too many carbs is the ADA's way of helping spoiled Americans "have their cake and eat it, too". The net result of this type of over indulgence is more and more medication over time, eventual blindness and amputation. Diabetes is a progressive disease. It affects more than just the amount of sugar in your blood. It is instrumental in dementia, heart disease, kidney disease and peripheral vascular disease along with stroke and heart attacks.

Learning that I had diabetes was hard to take. I went through a period of mourning and denial. Eventually I found my way here and have been learning to take it one day at a time. I do several things to help myself and that includes making good choices for my blood sugar. I do not want to be a burden to my family because I refused to take care of myself. I have learned all that I can about MY BLOOD SUGAR RESPONSE to foods. I suggest you do the same.

Teaman,

Start by asking your Doctor about the Medications you take and elevated Blood Sugar.Most importantly don't be so hard on yourself,it will raise your Blood Sugar!

START by talking with your Doctor about the Medications you currently take potentionally elevating your Blood Sugar.Have a Hemoglobin A1C,begin Testing your Blood Sugar FBS (Fasting Blood Sugar) and Post Prandial (2 hours after Eating) and while your at it PLEASE calm down 10 notches!An attitude change can do WONDERS!

teamanfl,
I wish you well in your diabetic journey. You came to us for advice. We gave it. What you do with it is up to you. It's your life, your eyesight, your feet...

I have put you on my ignore list so I will no longer see what you post here. I suggest that others do the same. Your mocking of our hard fought gains against this disease are a waste of my computer time. Good luck.

Newly Diagnosed,

I don't mean to scare you in any way, but diabetes can very widely from one person to another even in the same family.  My brother who is 55 manages vey well by checking his BS several times a day and watching his diet pretty close.  I on the other hand lost both my legs far above my knees at age 46 and am considered legally blind because of it. I can see OK during the day or in a well lit area with very strong glasses.  At night though I can't see much farther then 15 or 20 feet in front of me and then it's quite fuzzy.  For about three or four months before losing my legs in December 2007 while I could still walk a little and not using a wheelchair I used to have to use a white cane at night to find my way so I wouldn't bump into things.  Now that I must use a wheelchair all the time when leaving the house I just don't go out alone at night.  I tried it a couple times going down the block to the neighbors and had a very hard time getting back home.  It's very hard to use a white cane and push yourself in a wheelchair.  I'm younger than my brother at age 47.  Age isn't always a factor either.  I think it's more heredity than anything else, but I could be wrong. My mother had it real bad form about age 52 and needed to have both legs amputated as I did when she was 55, almost completely.  She lived twelve plus years after losing her legs.  Her sister never got it at all and lived into her eighties, although their father, my granfather had diabetes along with hardening of the arteries.  He need to have his legs amputated about six inches above his knees when he was about age 70.  He only lived a few months after that.  Like I said in the beginning, I don't want to scare you, but you need to take the disease very seriously right from the start and take care of yourself. My case, as well as my mothers and grandfathers are on the more extreme side but it does happen. According to my doctor leg amputations from diabetic patients are on the up swing the past five years or so.  He said many more of them  are do to the poor diets of many baby boomers, eating to much junk food and becoming over weight. Just take care of yourself the best you can with your doctors help.  You don't want to wind up legally blind pushing yourself around in a wheelchair for the rest of your life like I must do.  It isn't any fun at all.  I never thought it would happen to me even though there was a family history. I manage quite well considering these things, but still regret I didn't take it more seriously at first.  I doubt it would have changed the eventual results but it may have put them off a few more years at least.

Wheelchair Bound

Linda

I'm not a doctor or a dietician nor do I believe anyone else around here is (I could be wrong) but here are my

opinions:

1) I'm a Cheerios man myself :)  What I found was that shortly after being diagnosed, my regular morning full bowl with skim milk and a glass of apple juice would really produce a spike (high reading ... over 7.0 to 10.0 Canadian scale).  After reading about food contents on the food packages, various web sites and this forum, I learned that:

    a) most juices are very high in sugar

    b) milk is high in sugar (yes, skim milk is worse than 2% or 3%)

    c) cereals are high in starch (the other part of the carbohydrate equation)

So I did some experimenting.  What I found works for me was to cut back to 1/2 a bowl of cereal, 1/2 the usual amount of 2% milk and no juice.  Later on, I found that I could get used to Crystal Lite (artificially sweetened juice ... no sugar or carbs)

I also learned that eating a bit of fat (a piece of cheddar cheese works) before the cereal slows down the absorption/breakdown of the carbs and gives me lower after-meal readings.  Because I'm an early riser (5am), I too was worried about giving up my morning routine as it is difficult for me to operate complicated machinery (stoves, ovens, etc.) at that time of the day

The R.D.A. figures are for normals - non-diabetics, however, I would check with your doctor before ignoring them completely.

Yes, spikes are bad but 1 or 2 here and there over the course of a month or a year will not cause irreparable damage.  Again, check with your doctor.

2) and 3)   I agree about the conflicting/confusing information about diets.  What I love about the 'eat nothing white except cauliflower and a bit of cottage cheese' diet recommended on this forum is that

    a) it is easy to understand

    b) once you understand how it works, you don't have to count anything

    c) when in doubt, just eat less quantity

    d) it works!

As of this morning, I am down 36 pounds since July 2008 and my glucose readings are virtually that of a non-diabetic.  I don't feel regimented in any way nor do I feel like I'm missing anything.  As I told my doctor last week, I actually eat more food and more often (about 7 times a day) than I used to.  The only change I really made was to eat different foods.

I am still diabetic and will have to watch what I eat for the rest of my life but I've decided that's OK.

The rest of your questions, I'm sure, can be better answered by your doctor.

Chris

Team--You're diet doesnt have to be strict. If you go to diabetic classes, you just learn how to modify your eating habbits. For example: MonkeyA normally eats 3 heaping scoops mashed potatoes, 1 can green beans, 2 chicken thighs, sugar soda. MonkeyA goes to class and learns about how to manage. So now MonkeyA eats 1 cup of mashed potatoes with gravy, 1/2 can of green beans, and 3oz chicken, diet soda to drink. Hey if you want a donut, its ok, but you make sure to remember that donut you had at your next meal and eat less carbs so you can counter act the sugar intake. I personally found it easy to remember I need 12 units of carbs a day (one unit is 15 carbs). So when I'm hungry I eat, I eat what I want, and then take away from my 12 units. Like if I had a ham sandwhich..say bread is 2 units of carbs. Then I have 10 units of carbs left for the day. As for your friends and family, if they are eating as heavy as you say, they are endangering themselves. I have lost friends who didnt take care of the diabetes. One got his leg amputated then died a week later. Another went in a coma, and died. All we are trying to do here is help you realize the complications that can arise if not taken care of. Another example is, my apologies Linda, Linda is in a wheelchair for life. Hon, think about it, life is too valuable. You said it yourself you dont want to hurt your wife. Think about it, do you really want to be in a wheel chair and have your wife constantly caring for you? Or do you want to die because you didnt manage your diabetes and make your wife very sad? If you wont learn for yourself do it for the wife. She deserves that at least.

Again, Linda I'm sorry for using you for an example.

Hi Donnaeil,

If you read back I think you will see that teaman did receive a warm welcome but it appeared later that he saw us as the bad guys who were out to take his favourite foods away from him.  I suppose this is understandable; I was a bit angry when I was diagnosed.

I hope he comes back ... he was in the right place for help :)

Chris

Post Edited (TVEditor) : 2/10/2009 11:37:03 AM (GMT-7)

I was googling around for supplements and diabetes and stumbled on your post. I live in New York and have actually seen night time fires with tenants on one side of a wall unaware of flames shooting out of the apartment next door. Only screams from the sidewalk passer-bys get their attention. I am reminded of this reading these posts.

Please listen to these informed people on this list, you are extremely lucky to have found them instead of ADA dietitians and the rest. Most people find these sites AFTER years of following ADA recommendations and they have lost their pancreas and are starting to loose limbs. You still have a pancreas which is barely working. It needs rest (not stimulation from drugs,) it may recover a little bit.

I've been eating low carb for 4/5 years, and after the change, it's no big deal. Like many people on Low Carb, my GERD, my gum disease, and arthritis morning stiffness went away. My pancreas doesn't produce much insulin.

I just want to add and couple of things to what they have said.

Research shows that when you blood glucose levels go above 140 you start destroying your beta cells in your pancreas. You are already there . It's not fair, but the very first damage high sugar levels cause is to the very cells in the very organ that keeps the sugar levels down. You can't detect this. Use your meter (just buy one and start using it). Going through life with 1/4 of a pancreas is easier than none. It is extremely important to find out if you are insulin resistant or not. Your pancreas may be pumping out large levels of insulin, (which means it's still working well), but your body doesn't use insulin correctly. This has been described as criminal behavior, but the docs will keep testing your blood glucose level without finding out the insulin level until it's too late.

I want to repeat this slowly because you asked "An example is the figure on page 48 “Serum insulin response to glucose consumption”. Maybe he wrote this to be a textbook for use in college."

NO, he wrote this for you. If your doc did not test what your blood insulin level is (serum insulin level) then he knows NOTHING about whats going on.

I know it's all confusing now, but it's confusing to the Docs and dietitians, too

Here's some good web sites with interesting reading.

http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14045621.php

Eat natural fats.

http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/index.html

Try googling and reading about the inflamation therory on heart disease.

www.lowcarb.ca

www.weightoftheevidence.com

www.proteinpower.com

Oh, and ByTheWay,

"Some here have admonished me for saying “I don’t have symptoms”. They say that high blood sugar IS a symptom. I reject that theory. I’ll bet I can eat lots of sweets the day before a blood test and even though I had no food at all for 12 to 15 hours before the blood test,"

YOU DO HAVE SYMPTOMS

Heart disease
Gerd

Good luck.

Teaman, I share your skepticism of internet advice. What I think makes this particular forum safe and different is its reliance on common sense as a basis. Added to this is its collective agreement that diabetes (probably every other disease as well?) is personal and demands personal attention, in the form of research, homework and finding out for yourself what is true and what isn't, what works and what doesn't, simply because you, personally, have the most to lose or gain.

I do not believe that anyone here is interested in discrediting the medical community or the A.D.A./C.D.A. In fact, I think you will find as I did that most would like to help this group to better understand our successes and failures.

I trust my doctor implicitly. In the beginning, he offered me 2 choices:

1) Continue with my then current lifestyle. He would make ready pills and injections to prescribe that would allow me to eat what I wanted.

2) Try to control my condition through modification of lifestyle (diet, exercise, etc.)

He warned me that choice #2 was not easy and might not succeed but I gave it a try anyway. I read everything I could find and talked to everyone I knew with diabetes.

Parenthetically; yes, I know quite a few too. Some are fat ... some are thin ... some have symptoms ... some don't. One has died recently, others still suffer side-effects of the medications and the disease itself an still others live seemingly normal lives. Interestingly, most all agreed that the cure is usually worse than the disease, in that the pills make you sick, the insulin makes you fat, etc.

The common thread seemed to be acceptance of the disease and traditional treatments. I'm pig-headed when it comes to acceptance and taking drugs to solve a problem so I looked for other possibilities. Luckily, I happened across this forum and before joining in, I read all the posted messages. Nobody was talking about snake oil cures or radical approaches -- just common sense and hard work for the most part. I noted that those with appealing ideas got the most replies and questions so I read those missives with more attention. (I note that the thread you started is up to 3 pages ... going on 4 ;)

You said you quit smoking so obviously you know what an addiction is. Even though you feel that you are addicted to food, no one is suggesting that you quit eating. The suggestion is to try and eat differently.

Oh, by the way, good food isn't always more expensive (trust me -- I'm poor;-). There are alternatives suggested around here and other places. Just ask.

After about a month of hard studying and only 7 or 8 months of eating differently, I am eating more, eating more often, losing weight and feeling better. My doctor has verified that I am on the right track. This isn't the result of doing everything that is said in this forum but rather the result of my own personal commitment to take control of my physical health. This place just happened to be one of the best sources for my selfish endeavor.

There's a lot of honesty around here. That sometimes can be mistaken for personal attacks on one's beliefs but rest assured, no one is out to cause you more trouble than you already have.

Keep coming back.

Chris

Post Edited (TVEditor) : 2/12/2009 4:59:23 PM (GMT-7)

Teaman,

You talk about 'scaring you' about heart problems.

If you have diabetes you have a heart problem. Perhaps not active, coming to get you problem, but the diabetes works against your heart. I'm taking medication to help my heart, and I don't have ANY diagnosed issues with my heart. The medication is simply to help the heart to NOT run into problems.

It is obvious you aren't ready to acknowledge what diabetes is, and how to live with it. Just PLEASE, do not ignore it like I did. I now have pain that is totally intolerable from both knees down without my medications. My ONLY help is METHADONE and MORPHINE all day and all night, along with Lyrica and Cymbalta. Then there are other medications to help the heart and kidneys, and others for directly responding to diabetes. I don't know what will happen if I build up a resistance to Methadone and Morphine. I guess I just pray between now and then.

I didn't need to have happen to me what has, but I denied completely - even after having my father taken by diabetes when I was 14. I'm 53, and denied until May of 2008 when MY diabetes decided it was tired of sleeping.

So, take the advice of the good folks here. I wish I'd had them to give me advice and tell me what was coming if I decided not to take it.

You'll have to accept the truth of what they are saying. Either now, and live better for it. Or deny it until it is too late and then pay more dearly than you can today imagine.

Believe what sounds like it can't possibly pertain to you, because it does - or at least will. YOU decide whether you do something about it now - or later.

Sorry about the long rant. Just PLEASE make a better choice than I (and probably many of us here) did, since you still seem to have that option.