Diabetes Type 2 Support Group

Hi there Christel, I know, at first it seems so intimidating but this is where you and your family come in. One thing that will help is to go to a diabetic education course, your doctor should be able to help you with that! First of all, take a good hard look in the mirror and tell yourself that you can do this, for yourself and for your family!

The diabetic education class will help you by letting you discuss things with dieticians, and nutritionists! You will also learn about food labels and how to read them which is a great help. The simple rule of thumb is avoid white foods, sugar, white potatoes, white rice, white bread, pasta except for Greenfields which is specially made to reduce the carbs. Come up with substitutes like sweet potatoes for potatoe, cauliflower rice for rice or brown rice, whole grain bread instead of white bread. Also, avoid fried food and go to baking or broiling instead for your meats.

Watch your portion control and make it a point to exercise for about 150 minutes a week! For your exercise go to the park with your kids and have some fun with them, they will enjoy having a special time with mom and use it as a chance to bond with them. Use your diabetes as a reasxon to get the whole family eating healthier! Remember, while they are young, they will remember more about nutrition and this will help them avoid the diabetes.

Do you have a blood glucose meter? If so, how many times do you test every day? Your monitoring will help you to get control over your blood sugar and to understand it better! I have a website that is free for diabetics and it allows you to keep track of blood glucose, weight, blood pressure, a food log, an exercise log, a sleep log and other stuff and puts it all on a graph for you! The site is FREE and you would be most welcome there! it is at http://pcmdr.ca If you are looking for recipes then your best bet is dlife.com where they have a bunch of recipes for you!

This is a great site, ask your questions and people here are really great! We are all in this together!

BIG HUGS!

lary

No meter, my doctor says that I am not to that level yet and I really don't want to get to that level yet. I just became type 2, was pre diabetic for a while and we just found out that it moved on. I just take my meds at lunch and dinner, so no blood testing yet.
I do like to do walking, but I just started a part time job at the school in the mornings and I need to learn how to add exercise to my routine.

I am lucky, my kids eat really well without much help, they are fruit and veggie freaks and don't like many bad foods. We normally eat whole wheat breads and pasta's, brown rice and drink skim milk. Not much of a potato person, but I do love sweet potatoes.

I do take the kids to the parks, but school is back in session (week 3 starts tomorrow) and the time is not there anymore for park play for us. I have to do it more on the weekends.

Thanks for the info. this is all so new and confusing and there is so much info out there that makes it worse!!

Let me make sure I have this right - you were diagnosed with type 2 and put on medication for type 2 and not instructed to monitor your blood glucose levels? Not even a fasting reading in the morning? I have never heard anyone actually put on meds and not told to monitor levels.

Once you get used to monitoring it's a quick process and lets you know how what you've eaten the day before or the meal before impacts you - we're all different. it may be worth a follow up call to the doc's office to make sure they didn't just forget to send you home with a meter and instructions for at least daily monitoring.

Yes, I did ask my doctor when she gave me the prescription. She said no, did not need to monitor it at all. I still wondered about that one. I have an appointment in a couple of weeks for followup, so I will find out then if I need a meter. I have no idea is this medicine is working except now I actually get hunger pangs, true stomach growling every few hours and I have not had that in years and I really did not realize that I had not had them. Even my kids heard it and they laughed that they had not heard that out of me before.

I don't want to be mean etc but that doctor needs an education in diabetes. Go to Walmarts and pick up a ReliOn brand and their test strips, they are cheap and affordable and pretty accurate, any meter that is made must past government requirements.

Monitoring is very important since it shows you how the carbs in the food is being processed, how you are responding to the meds. You need to take this control dear. And if you were not even close to passing the glucose tolerance test, you need to monitor your numbers.

It is dangerous not to know this, you could be experiencing lows which are not a good thing, and not know it until too late, you need to know how to monitor and see how food/meds are handling this..testing should be done first thing in morning and 2 hours after a meal...many of us test at least 3 times a day during various times. Push back at this doctor, you don't need a prescription to get the meter and strips, even if you bought expensive but under a doctor's prescription if you have insurance you can save.

Diabetes can affect the cholesterol and so much more in your body.

stay with us and let us know how things are going, we are here to help and guide you thru this and one thing we do stress at times is to take control and push back at the doctor or find one who will listen to you and take this serious

hugs

Hi. I too am new to this group. I was diagnosed yesterday with Type 2 diabetes. I am also Canadian but live in the States. I was sort of diagnosed a few years ago but nothing was done at that time. This time its serious as I am now on 2 different meds. I too did not get a glucose meter. My Dr. said you could poke yourself 6 times a day or just eat right, excercise, take my pills and we will retest in 6 wks to see if things have changed any. I also get pain in one of my feet. It is plantar faciatis but now I wonder if its not something to do with the diabetes. I have a lot of trouble with one of my hands, thumb mainly. I was told it is arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. I had surgery on both my hands for this in 2005 and the pain in my thumb this time is nothing like the pain I had with carpal tunnel.

Anyway, wanted to say hi, am enjoying reading the responses from people who have been there and done that.

Oh I should mention I have had two heart attacks and 1 AFib. I have three stents in my heart. I quit smoking 6 months ago so figure if I can do that I can do anything. After my second heart attack my blood sugar went way bad and I was given insulin twice daily while in hospital but when I got out 2 weeks later I left with no pills, no insulin, no direction. Don't know if I was a diabetic after or not. Another time diagnosed but after in hospital and them testing my blood I was told I wasn't a diabetic. Very confusing.

Hi there TrishP! You know, there does come a time when doctors need to be educated. As a fellow Canadian, I want to welcome you and to say hi but when I read your post, I thought it is important to just touch bases with you.I find it astonishing that some doctors are not recommending blood monitoring for you, The three biggest weapons that you have to fight diabetes are diet, exercise and monitoring! You are already on medications for your diabetes and, as with everything else, a blood test (A1C tests) every three months does not give you a chance to take actions immediately when your sugars are going out of control!

He is right when he says that eating right and exercise are important, but how can you tell if it is helping or not? Here are a few pointers. Avoid white foods like white bread, potatoes, white rice, pasta (except for Greenfields brand which has a way of keeping carbs low). Find substitutes and learn to read food labels. Try to find good substitutes for these foods. Things like whole grain breads, sweet potato, brown rice and things like that are quite good for you. Watch your portion sizes and learn to read food labels! Avoid fried foods and try baking or broiling foods. There is an excellent site for recipes at dlife.com.

Blood monitoring is so important because it lets you know how your diet and exercise is helping your diabetes or if it is making it worse. You and I may react differently to different foods and there is no cookie cutter method to predict this. Myself, I check my blood glucose 4 times daily, when I wake up, and before lunch, before dinner and before bedtime. To see the effect of foods on your diabetes start by keeping a food log and test 2 hours after that first bite touches your lips. That will allow for spiking to be taken care of after your meal and you will see the real effect the food had on your blood glucose!

I have a FREE site for diabetics at http://pcmdr.ca that lets you keep your log books for blood glucose, weight, blood pressure, a food log, an exercise log, a sleep log and we are adding more information to log. For food, you need to keep an eye on your carbs in the food you eat. Try to keep the number of carbs per meal between 30-40 grams and 15-20 grams for 2 snacks per day! If you are not used to exercising then start it slowly by walking!

You took a really great step by signing on to this website, people here are incredibly friendly and we are all going through what you are going through! Ask questions, it is so important!

BTW, in the USA, you can get a decent meter at Walmart and the testing strips are reasonably priced. I believe the brand of meter is the Relion. You may also want to ask your doctor about going to see a nutritionist and dietician at a diabetic education center. These courses are really good and will help you understand the diabetes a lot better!

Take care and we will help you everyone here is really great for that!

HUGS,

lary

I could not have said it any better nosty, sometimes you need to push back at the doctors, monitoring is extremely important as I mentioned above....go get yourself a meter at walmarts and keep track so you can see how you are doing

Yes you really need to monitor yourself when i first found out i was a diabetic about 14 yrs ago mine was about 800 kept passing out was taken to the hospital where they left me sit for hours til they took me back well dr said i could have died...Im like well duh i know this. My father passed out once his went to low ems had a hard time getting him awake..Don't want to scare anyone but taking meds with out moinitoring yourself is not a good thing.... Again not to scare anyone but i will tell you a little story my doctor that i was seeing was not monitoring my sugar like he should i was checking it at home but BP was always high when i went to see him he would say its not that high well it was running 190 over 110 in that range well im not supid i knew it was high he was not changing any of my meds now my kidney is inlaarged and the kidney DR now is talking about putting me on dialysis he said it might not happen right away he said but its going to happen so be preparted... As i said im not trying to scare anyone but just becareful pls with your sugars he said the reason my kidney was inlarged was because my sugar and BP was so out of control for so long well i dont see this dr anylonger im now on inslulin and off meds and sugar is better but it came a bit to late for me......

Hi, I'm really new here, and these last posts were really interesting, they answered my questions. In a week I will be seeing a diabetologist for the first time - a friend (not my family doctor) pointed out that I seem to be pre-diabetic - I have had fasting blood sugar levels of about 115 for three years now, I need to lose weight (cannot succeed with normal diets) and my blood pressure has been high - just like scladybbw's 190 over 110, undetected for years because at night. Also my feet hurt A LOT and are numb, and I am tired during the day. So all this info here in this thread is very interesting, did not know the low-carb no white food rule, and also 150 minutes excercise /week seems to be a good rule of thumb. --- I wonder about fruit, but I will probably learn that soon. Thank you for your generous posts. They were very helpful.