Recently diagnosed type 2, and really confused.

Hi thre. Sorry about your diagnosis. My 3yro has type 1, and it can affect your mood...especially if you are too high or too low. It's going to take time to see what diet works for you best, and I dont mean diet in a sense of deprivation but of an overall healthy lifestyle change. Excercising regularly really helps stabalize blood sugars, so if you are able I'd implement an excercise program as well When my son was first dx the dr's were suggesting all these sugar free foods, told us not to give him more than x amt of carbs. When we saw an endocrinologist, she lasughed at the info we received. She told us he is a growing boy and that we should NOT restrict him, but give everything in moderation, and according to his numbers. Sometimes these general dr's and nurses don't really know the ins and outs of this disease, that's why it's important to see an endo bc they have all the up to date info.

Please don't let this disease get you in the dumps, there's been so many improvements,new meds etc, and if you take care of yourself you can live a long life without diabetes related complications.
Be blessed, I just said a prayer for you.

Ok, Im gonna weigh in on this with a different point of view.  First off 11 (198mg/dl) is just plain too high. It was caused mostly by the stuff you ate when you were out.  ANYTHING white is going to create sugar in your system and maybe even hit your bloodstream faster than table sugar.  White bread, "jacket potatoes", rice, etc. all fall into this category!  CORN and corn starch and high fructose corn syrup will convert directly to sugar in your system and are generally no-no's. If you are indeed a type 2 (and with a reading like "11" it sounds like it) red wine is off your list!  In the simplest terms, the liver is responsible for releasing sugar into your blood stream and you are screwing around with it when you drink.  Also the first drugs that the doctor puts you on for diabetes will directly affect your liver so you definately don't want to burden your liver with alcohol.

You don't have to give up tons of foods but you definately have to go to a nutritionist as what you are doing now is only going to make your disease worse and put you on the slippery slope of taking more meds to bring your numbers down to accomodate a lifestyle you should have changed!!!

Lastly, swings in your blood sugar will DEFINATELY affect your moods.  When my blood sugar was like yours I used to be very snappy and people would have to walk on eggshells around me.  As you get your blood sugar under control, you will find that the mood swings should abate.  Now for the part you don't want to hear.  You really have to test your blood at least once every morning when you get up and preferably one more time during the day 2-3 hours after you eat.  These numbers will show you and your doctor whether your meds are doing what they are supposed to.  IF YOUR NUMBERS don't come into the range that is safe for you, your doctor needs to give you higher doses or combinations of meds.  The whole idea is to get you to a normal blood sugar state and ensure that you are going to live to an old age!

Didn't mean to lecture, but if you don't start to do something RIGHT NOW about your condition, by the time something like advanced neuropathy or heart disease kicks in; 20/20 hindsight isn't going to do you much good. 

 Warren

PS: There is a ton of nutrition advice on this board, you are just going to have to read back through the diabetes posts to find some of it.

Gemstar,Please go and get your A1c checked. The A1c tells you how well-controlled your blood sugar has been over the last 3 months, so the fact that you've been eating poorly for a week or so won't affect it too much- neither will eating the perfect number of carbs! It will give you and your doctor a good reference for tailoring your treatment and give you a goal to shoot for. With diabetes, ignorance is not bliss, it's an invitation to complications that you don't want!

It's important to test your blood sugar right before you eat and 2 hours after to give you an idea of how certain foods affect you. There are many online sites that talk about the glycemic index and how to use it to help manage your food so that you don't get wild swings. The others have given you excellent advice about how different foods can affect you, and why. Everybody is different, so you may find that you can eat certain foods and not others- but you'll only know for sure if you test. You may find that you can eat potatoes if you have them with meat and broccoli, but not if you eat them alone or have bread at the same meal. You may find that even though a portion of some carb may be 1/2 cup, you can only eat 1/3 cup or your BG shoots up, or even worse, doesn't come down after a reasonable amount of time!  I have found that I cannot eat white potatoes- period. They just send me through the roof- but I can eat corn, corn -on-the-cob, corn pudding, scalloped corn, corn salsa- the list goes on (too bad I don't like corn ). But I do love chocolate and I have one 60 calorie, 5 g carb piece of deep, dark excellent chocolate EVERY SINGLE DAY! (Fortunately, I have the lipid profile of a newborn baby, so my doctor encourages this vice - to keep me on the straight and narrow - and away from those potatoes!). Soon, you'll know so much more about yourself and how your body works. Every day is a new opportunity to manage your diabetes and improve your lifestyle so you can enjoy a long and happy complication-free life! sandy

Hi gelchick, Thanks for that. I shall make sure i book back into the docs next week. It was slightly more than a week of going off the rails though, but i realise now putting it off just isn't doing me any favours. I'm just finding it really confusing, and i haven't got a clue half the time about what your all talking about. But with time i'm sure it'll start to sink in... fingers crossed. xx

Lyme, do you have diabetes? Could you share something about your own experiences? What supplements are you taking? How are your blood tests? What kind of diet do you follow? None of us here are doctors; we just share our own experiences; so I'm wondering about yours.

Gem,
I would suggest that you check your local bookstore or purchase online a book that basically outlines a good Type2 diabetic diet. There are some available from Amazon that look great. You don't want a cook book, but you want a book that outlines the food plan.

Here in the US we diabetics are not restricted from eating any foods. We just have to make sure that we don't spend our calories on non-nutritious stuff like candy or soda. We don't usually label a food as bad, just a choice and some are better choices than others. I'm thinking that maybe your doctor has you on a reducing diet to help you lose weight. This will make your body use the insulin that you make much better. You most certainly will not have to stop eating bread for the rest of your life, just until you get yourself in better shape.

The alcohol is a bit of a problem, regardless, because it is metabolized (broken down) in the liver and puts extra work on that organ. It also doesn't mix well with diabetes medications and can cause low blood sugar attacks.

Can you tell us what the pamphlet your nurse gave you is called? Maybe that way we can help you more.

Michelle,
You're on the right track! It's the more veggies - less starches way to go. I have hubby and grown son at home and I have to fix things they will like also. The secret is to keep track of your portion sizes and let him eat what he needs. Often, I will fix a dinner with meat and a starch (you will learn about good and better starches as you go along) and two veggies for everyone. Then I add either bread and butter or corn for the guys so they can meet their own calorie needs.

The secret to helping your body control blood sugar spikes is to mechanically make the food slowly available for absorption. Whole grain foods where the grain remains large, like brown rice, barley or oats keep their carbohydrates inside of the cell walls for a longer time as they pass through our intestines. Because the body has to digest the foods to access the starches before it can break them down into sugars it's like a time-release of carbs and this leads to a more level blood sugar. You want to try to keep your blood sugar level smoothly average throughout the day without huge highs and lows. This is also what makes vegetables so good. The carbs are encased in the plant cells and are slowly released into the intestine for absorption.

Fruits, milk and sugar all have 'ose' ingredients, fructose, lactose and sucrose. These foods are carbs that are already in the sugar stage and so we are careful in their use. We should make choices in the high sugar ('ose') foods that are also very healthy. If you have a choice between an orange and a pear, choose the orange which is a good source of vitamin C and potassium. Pears have very little nutritional value besides some fiber and their fructose carbs. Does this make sense?
Also, it's better to eat whole fruit than juice because the whole fruit must be broken down by the body before it can access the fructose, where as the fructose in the juice is available for absorption all at once as soon as it hits the intestines. 1/2 cup of orange juice may have the same number of carbs as a small orange but the juice will lead to a blood sugar spike more quickly than eating the whole fruit. (This is why you give someone with low blood sugar orange juice, not a whole orange.)

High sugar levels in the blood make the blood thicker as the large sugar molecules try to move around, much the way maple syrup is thicker than maple sap. Thicker blood with big sugar molecules is more difficult for the body to pump to all the little capillaries in the fingers and toes and that is where some of the nerve damage occurs.(neuropathy) The nerves don't get their food and oxygen because the pipeline is clogged up with big sugar molecules. These same large sugar clumps also cause problems in the small filters of the kidney and can lead to kidney failure. Sugar molecules can also clog the tiny blood vessles of the eye and they can rupture, bleed and heal causing scarring. The scars, unfortunately happen in the place where our eyes perceive images, on the retina, so high sugars lead to a type of blindness called diabetic retinopathy.

Just like sugars, there are some fats that are better than others. The fats in fish are good for our hearts and cholesterol levels. Saturated fats and partially hydrogenated shortenings and trans fats are not good for our lipid (fat) levels in our blood and should be limited but not eliminated. Most meats contain saturated fats but they also contain protein, iron, B vitamins and a host of other things we can use to keep our bodies going. So the secret to the fat thing is to use lean meats, fish and good fats like olive oil, rapeseed or canola oil, and nuts. Fats have very little effect on your sugar levels and they mechanically slow down the absorption of carbs while helping you absorb your fat soluable vitamins from the food. Small amounts of fats are necessary for skin health and vitamin absorption. They help keep hunger at bay and delay stomach emptying time.

I didn't mean to turn this into a book, but I want you to understand that you are going to need to find a way to choose your foods. You can make a chart with the foods you eat most and learn their carb, fat, protein amounts or you can follow a food plan in a book. I used a program I found online called CalorieKing that helped me in the beginning. You can do whatever you find easiest. If you keep a record of what you eat with amounts as well as sugars two hours after a meal you can then track which foods cause the highest sugars and use them in moderation. (For me it's potatoes, corn, white bread and white rice.) Eventually, just the same way you learned your multiplication tables in school, you will learn the food values and serving amounts of foods and be very able to choose what you need to eat. You will be able to fix a regular healthy meal for your family and choose your serving amounts from the foods so that you are within your food plan guidelines. You may have to measure some things in the beginning to find out how much a serving of macaroni is, or how much a serving of meat is, but very soon it will become second nature.

One last thing, about the meat, a serving of meat is about the size of a pack of cards or a piece of meat about the size and thickness of your palm of your hand. Hope this helps and sorry to write so much.

Jeannie, Sure hope you kept a hard copy of that last response!  You may not have ment to write a book, but you certainly have the basis of one.  Clear, concise, understandable, doable ... all the features we fail to learn from the 'professionals.'

Eventually we figure it out, but it is tial and error on our own without any/many guidelines.  Can you imagine how gemstar would have felt had your text been given to her at the time of diagnosis instead of the phamplet about bs lows? 

What a blessing you are!  Thanks... 

Walker here! Newly diagnosed (Oct.'05) Learning all I can
about this disease. Just turned 50 this year. WooHoo!
Gal with a great guy.(high school sweetheart) Have good
days and bad, as far as dealing with the big "D".(get bummed out once in a while...why me...how can I deal with this for the rest of my life...can't eat now,#'s too high.) Exercise
is key. Portion sizes are wayyy important. Would appreciate
any feedback on diet,mid-day lows,before bed high #'s. I took
the diabetes education class and feel I'm up-to-date on info.
Watch D-Life on Sundays @ 7 p.m. on CNBC...get lots of good
info from that.Have a great doc and he's happy with all my #'s-
including cholesterol, A-1C, weight and daily blood sugar
readings. Still hit 200 from time to time, but I'm shooting for
no higher than 180 (after meals) and keeping levels as close
to 80-120 as possible. Take glipizide and metformin twice daily
and Lantus once daily before bed. Doc assures me that I may
be able to get off the injected insulin eventually. Any comments on that goal? Thanks for listening. Feel free to
post any comments or suggestions!

  about 4 pm yesterday afternoon my doc called to tell me I was now diag. as diabetic. I have been very depressed ever since. I didn't eat dinner last nite, I rushed off to work the fall festival at church, an event geared for the kids. Hotdogs and hamburgers were served, cheese burgers too, and tons of candy was there. All my favorites, lots of chocolates.I left it all alone. I drank a small glass of whole milk with my bedtimes meds.( for fibromyalgia) This morning I had no appetite either and drank a small glass of oj with my bp meds. Finally about 30 minutes ago I ate 1/2 peanut butter sandwich on whole wheat. Not from hunger but because I knew I should eat something. I'm scared and don't know what to do or eat. I just don't want anything, except for this to go away. Doc says i need to come in and learn to use a glucometer? I already had an appt. for the 8th, so i guess I will go then. I think I need some help before that, advice on how to proceed from here. Doc says this should be able to be controlled with diet. Why do I feel I have been given a death sentense? This is the first I have told of this, I haven't mentioned it to anybody. I am sure most of my family will not be a big support system. I feel really alone. Can you help me get thru this initial shock.

Thank you so very much for your sweet, and very much needed response. I keep remembering something I heard not too long ago. Eat to live, not live to eat. It make sense, but I enjoy most of the stuff thats not good for us. Whats a southern girl supposed to do? Do I learn to cook all over again? What is safe to eat now, like what would be a good menu for a whole day. What does a good choice food label say opposed to a not so good choice. I haver never read labels or cared, maybe thats what caused my problems. Again thank you for your time, well wishes and info.

Hey Gramm! wmnak is right. It's all about the numbers:
The blood sugar numbers (ideal between 80-120) and
the carbs you consume, which is what causes those
numbers to rise. One 'carb serving' =15 grams of carbo-
hydrates.(lable reading) Most sandwich bread is around
15 grams per slice which means a sandwich with regular
bread would have 2 'carb servings'. Look for the low carb
bread which is about 9 grams of carb per slice. Then you
get about 1 'carb serving' with 2 slices. Then you and your
doctor (and your blood sugar(bs) numbers) will determine
how many'carb servings' per meal and thruout the day that
you can have to keep your bs levels consistent. It takes
some trial and error to figure it out, but be patient.
You'll learn what and how much, makes your bs numbers
go too high and then adjust accordingly. Also, exercise
will knock those numbers down. A 30 minute walk is all
it takes. I have my bigger 'carb serving' meal at breakfast,
(2-3 'carb servings')then less at lunch(2 'carb servings')
and very few at dinner. But that's for you and your doc
and maybe a dietician to figure out;what works best to
get your numbers level. Of course, real sugar is no good.
I use Splenda on my cereal and in my coffee. Low fat is
good whether you have diabetes or not. Whole grain is
better...whole wheat bread,not white bread. You'll pick
it up along the way. Keep asking questions, like I said
before...here and at the doctor's. Keep at it and don't
get discouraged. We're here! And we can all continue
to learn and help each other. Go get 'em!!