Type 2 Diabetes

Ok, so the wife has gone back to Thailand, so I am spared the daily delicious Thai food. Its starts now.

The plan is to crash, to get the sugar down, then step up the exercise, and slightly increase carbs

The day started badly. 2 bits of left over cold pizza for breakfast.

Morning empty stomach blood glucose was 6.6mmol/l. There has been a small decline in morning glucose over the last week or so from 7.5… 2 hours after this breakfast of champions, it was 8.8.

I had ordered a month of food-in-bags from “Shake that Weight”, mainly because the menu sounded the most interesting. Its basically Astronaut food. I’m opting for the 1000kcal/day plan, which means, for breakfast, a 200kCal milkshake, porridge or some sort of bacon-and-omlette in a bag, for lunch, a 200kcal soup/noodle stuff and for dinner a 400kcal wet food MRE pouch, which I probably substitute, in the short term for something like a lonely kipper and a couple of cold new potatoes (relying on the resistant starch theory). Augment with green veg. That’s 800kcal. In the Shake-the-weight plan, they want you to get the other 200kcal from their mostly chocolatey energy bars. I’ve opted to sort my own snack out; maybe a packet of pork scratchings, if I fancy a savory, and a slice of wholemeal sourdough with jam, which should be less than 120-130kcal all told (sour dough has a higher RS content than other bread) if I want sweet. After the first 4 weeks, if I am bored of astronaut food I should have worked out some Thai soups; I’m a fan of Tom Yum and Moo Deng soups, and can forgo the noodles.

This kicked off with “Mexican Taco”. Looked like Cupasoup mix, but with all the vitamins etc. Cooked, it didn’t look all that, like brown slime. But it was tasty, and was basically taco filling without the taco. Next time, a cracker with it. Quite filling.

5 hours later, I did a blood glucose. I expected it to flatline from the post-Pizza number. But it was 5.7mmol/L, the lowest I’ve had since a freakish 2.5 a few days ago.

For dinner, I opted for a wet meal, chicken curry with brown rice. Again, it did’t look great in a bowl; the rice was all mixed in, but there were lumps of chicken. I had a poppadom with this. Quite tasty and filling.

I take my 500mg of metformin in the evening, with the evening meal, a minimal dosage with a half life of about 4-5 hours. From tomorrow, I am directed to increase this to 1000mg, though no instruction if this is 2x500 in the evening, or split between morning and evening. NHS advice is to take in the evening, to mitigate side effects. In 2 weeks, subject to side effects, I increase this to 1500mg and then 2000mg. Obviously I will pay close attention to my sugar levels.

My BP continues to average 125/80, so in the moderately elevated range, AM 121/78, PM 130/79. I expect this to fall with weight loss and exercise, without recourse to further medication.

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Hi BobL

Dunno if it helps but my late father had his prostrate removed after a diagnosis of cancer 15 years before he passed and it never returned. [He did experience a couple of UTI’s between 2007-2009 but he passed due to his massive heart attack experienced around the same time…his heart just got too tired in the end]

As for getting up a lot in the night to ‘pee’ …it’s not just a bloke thing. I mean I’ve been famous since my 20 ties for having a bladder the size of a ping pong ball

"If you want to know where the loos are whilst you are on patrol…ask WPC Dale…she knows them all :rofl:

But this year aged 66 yrs experienced my first UTI [diagnosed by Google/initially treated by Tesco until I got a GP appt and antibiotics]

I recall a male work colleague telling me he wouldn’t take any fluids after 4pm so he didn’t have to get up in the night to pee

Getting old …not for the faint hearted :wink: :hugs:

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NHS free sight tests (via Specsavers for me also)

“been diagnosed with diabetes or glaucoma”

Indeed…or ‘related to someone who has glaucoma’ . I’ve had free NHS sight tests since my late thirties because my father was diagnosed with glaucoma

What’s an OCT Test ??

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Had the prostate basically ‘de-cored’ using laser surgery - hopefully it will not give me any more issues. After the op and recovery, I could go back to having a cup of tea in the evenings without the hourly trip to the loo overnight!!!

Old age is indeed a drag!!!

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OCT test is Optical coherence tomography and takes a cross section of your eye rather than the normal tests which just look at the inside of your eye.
https://www.specsavers.co.uk/eye-test/oct-scan

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The difference between OCT and fundus photography are in their method and their capabilities. For example, where an OCT can take high-resolution three-dimensional images, fundus cameras are limited to two-dimensional images, which can limit its effectiveness in diagnosing eye conditions.

Will check I’ve had this done on next visit :handshake:

I’ve always been with Specsavers at various addresses over 40 years

Just find my current one a bit of a pain to get to [town center parking] then a ‘puff’

Plus they’ve crammed more and more tech machines into tiny, tiny rooms and you can be there for over an hour by the time you’ve been passed from one member of staff to another

Getting Old eh…

But I’m now ‘long sighted’ instead of ‘short sighted’ [Yay…no falling asleep in front of telly and breaking me specs because don’t need them for this task any more] :grinning:

But …err…where have I put me reading specs for doing that crossword/reading that recipe/ instruction leaflet

They say a key indicator of Intelligence is the Ability to Adapt to Changing Circumstances

Like one has a choice in the matter :crazy_face: :roll_eyes:

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Self testing blood glucose, and distinct call. Not sure I am taking it too far, with a combination of Metformin (which blocks production of glucose by the liver and increases insulin sensitivity) and 1000-1100kcal a day. BP continues to be ok.