Re: Overwhelmed Newbie

Paul L wrote: 
Howdy Folks ... as many before me I'm sure I just don't know where to
start.


Absolutely.  You're not alone there.

Was just diagnosed with type 2 on Friday afternoon.   I had scheduled
   a physical to determine cause of my loss of weight (190 lbs down
  to 162 lbs over 2 1/2 months.   My classic symptoms apparently were
  also thirst and frequent urination.  The portable test read 373 in
the
  Doctor's office.   I have not had a fasting blood sugar level test
yet.
  I am 52.


Sounds pretty conclusive.

He set me up on Metformin and testing kit ... 

A good start.  How much metformin?

My numbers have been
really
  high.  If I eat anything at all I get numbers in the 400s and 500s.
Just
  this am I went from 293 to 417 an hour after eating a small amount
  of oatmeal.   I am really concerned about these numbers and after
   doing a small amount of online research about Metformin it's hard to
  be optimistic that it will have any appreciable effect on blood sugar
   levels.

OK the first thing you have to know is that metformin takes about 3 weeks to work up to becoming effective. It has to build up to become effective at first and then you keep it at "maintenance" level if you like.

In the meantime, your best immediate help is from diet and exercise. After the metformin kicks in, you need to keep the diet and exercise going as well, but for now they are your only tools.

Exercise will help to drop your BG (blood glucose) immediately and also help for the rest of the day and to some extent for the next two days. It has many other benefits such as helping the heart etc, but we can talk about those later.

Diet - Can you tell us what you have been advised as far as diet is concerned? The first thing you have to know about diet is that all carbohydrates raise BG. Its not just sugar - although sugars are some of the carbs which raise your bg the fastest and by the most. White bread is just as bad for example. Some ways of preparing potatoes make them hit your BG faster and harder than sugar.

Many of us here deal with this by reducing carbs overall and by making sure that the carbs we do eat are as slow as possible. So perhaps reduce bread, potatoes, root vegetables, pasta, rice and replace with veggies - particularly green and leafy ones.

Now that sounds a bit basic, so read this:
http://www.alt-support-diabetes.org/NewlyDiagnosed.htm

By using your meter you will be able to find out what effect certain foods have on you. To work out what to eat for now, have a read through some of the recent posts on here and see what other people are eating. The more you can stick to "safe" food combinations - as used by others in our position- then the quicker your bg will come down.

Part of the reason your BG is so high is that it has been at a high level for quite some time. If you can resist overdoing the carbs for a while then your bg will come down and you will feel a lot better.

First thing in the am has been 353, 321 and today 293 in my first 3
days of
  testing.  But my daytime testing numbers have been really high.

There are a lot of different estimates, but somewhere around 2/3 of all type 2's are more resistant to insulin in the morning than afternoon. This means that we can tolerate foods in the afternoon and evening that we cannot in the morning.


Any thoughts appreciated.

Just a quick suggestion - make an omelette for breakfast tomorrow. Maybe some onions, cheese, peppers if you like. No bread. No oatmeal. No juice.

Hopefully a couple of hours after that you will see a significant difference in your BG from today's. Would be good to see you have a better start to the day with your BG. You will find it hard to bring the numbers down at first but it is possible to overdo it.

If you start to feel wobbly, faint etc then eat a small amout of carbs. This could happen from a drop in BG where your body is used to running on very high for a long time.


Paul


Welcome to the group by the way. Sorry that you had to join us and I know there is a lot to learn at first, but you will get through it.
--------------------
VBH
T2/UK/Dx Oct-03/A1c 5.5/Metformin 1500mg/Simvastatin/Enalopril
.

Relevant Pages

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