Diabetes Type 2 Support Group
Type 2 Diabetes is a condition in which the body either does not produce enough insulin or does not make efficient use of it. Insulin is a hormone needed to convert food into glucose, a sugar that the body uses for energy. Without enough insulin, glucose can accumulate in the blood, and can cause serious health problems such as heart disease and strokes and organ damage...
Don't know if technically I'm Diabetic 2. Here's my story. I'm in final weeks of 12-week clinical drug trial for hepatitis c, and biweekly fasting blood sugar tests increasingly rising. (Possibly it's the protease inhibitors causing the glucose intolerance.)
So I bought a glucometer and yesterday and this morning's readings (home) are as follows :
8 hr fasting 143 ml
1 hour after lunch 123 ml
1 hour before supper 135
1 hour after supper 119
Making app't with gen'l practitioner Friday. App't with hepatologist, July 29.
As it feels to me like a coin toss on a couple points, I'm leaving them to more specific tests, and the general practitioner and the hepatologist, to decide; this chemo brain is too maxxed out. For the record, the topic of my anxiety is reversibility / irreversibility.
In favor of reversibility -- the fact the hyperglycemia is sudden, not gradual, and the result of the chemo,
So cease chemo, the symptoms will go away.
In favor of irreversibility -- that I've "crossed the line," (lost too many beta cells, for instance, for reversibility) -- & that (due to hyepatitis-c, no doubt) I'd already developed hypoglycemia 10-15 years ago, so am already predisposed to glucose issues...... + am also already careful about my diet and weight and
exercise (altho' I may have to be even more so on an on-going basis).
Maybe no one else here has any similar context, but it's healing for me to be able to articulate and be heard. Healing is a dialogue.
(Am in a state of shock doubly, 'cos the clinic didn't report the elevating blood sugar until 4 weeks after the fact)
So that's my story -- and I'm sticking to it.
In Health.
So I bought a glucometer and yesterday and this morning's readings (home) are as follows :
8 hr fasting 143 ml
1 hour after lunch 123 ml
1 hour before supper 135
1 hour after supper 119
Making app't with gen'l practitioner Friday. App't with hepatologist, July 29.
As it feels to me like a coin toss on a couple points, I'm leaving them to more specific tests, and the general practitioner and the hepatologist, to decide; this chemo brain is too maxxed out. For the record, the topic of my anxiety is reversibility / irreversibility.
In favor of reversibility -- the fact the hyperglycemia is sudden, not gradual, and the result of the chemo,
So cease chemo, the symptoms will go away.
In favor of irreversibility -- that I've "crossed the line," (lost too many beta cells, for instance, for reversibility) -- & that (due to hyepatitis-c, no doubt) I'd already developed hypoglycemia 10-15 years ago, so am already predisposed to glucose issues...... + am also already careful about my diet and weight and
exercise (altho' I may have to be even more so on an on-going basis).
Maybe no one else here has any similar context, but it's healing for me to be able to articulate and be heard. Healing is a dialogue.
(Am in a state of shock doubly, 'cos the clinic didn't report the elevating blood sugar until 4 weeks after the fact)
So that's my story -- and I'm sticking to it.
In Health.
Yes there are many drugs etc that can raise the blood glucose levels, so it is better to have the doctors make this decision. No sense getting upset until you know for sure. But don't be too upset, after all this can be controlled.
Basically a healthy diet, not a special so called diabetes diet, stay away from the white breads, pasta, rice and potatoes, watch your carb content since just stopping sugar doesn't get it, since carbs are sugars and you would be surprised how many carbs are in sugar free items. Exercise in any form also is good for you. Come back, ask questions and do let us know what the doctors say.
I'd echo Mzizgayle. An A1C and other tests can help pin down the diabetes. Many of us who are diagnosed would envy those 1 hour after meal tests---we work hard to do that after 2 hours post meal.
So a fasting jump---and 143 is high but nowhere as high as many of us when first diagnosed (I was around 300)...so that could well be to some temporary factor.
Good wishes with your medical evaluations.
Ron
My only experience of chemo was when my mum had it for breast cancer. She is still debilitated by some of the side effects such as joint pain, so I can only sympathise.
I think you owe it to yourself to be informed and try to make a decision on this. It is hard but it is your health at the end of the day, the doctors don't have to live with it, you do. If you truly cannot manage it, do you have a close relative/friend who can act as your carer?