It's So Noisy at the Fair: The Diabetic Thread

Xp to veg, re depression symptoms:

So for about the 3.5yrs I’ve been feeling like I have what I call “benign depression” - like, emotionally I feel fine but my body is just so tired and mentally I’ve felt sort of shut down, like I can’t engage with anything too thoughtful or deep. Until I moved to chicago, I spent literally all my time in bed, unless I had to go to work. Sitting on the couch was too taxing. Things improved after moving (I move from bed to couch at night, I go grocery shopping, I go out on the weekends) but the fatigue is still there, I just feel a bit more motivated to push through it. But dr thinks it might be diabetes causing it. I hope that’s the case because I’ve been putting off having to mess with my psych meds again (a super slooooow and frustrating process).

oh ok that’s interesting!

Trayce;

I saw a thing online yesterday that might make you happy - when you cook and then cool rice, it creates resistant starch, which lowers its glycemic index quite significantly. So if you want to keep enjoying rice, just cook it the day before you want to eat it! (You can reheat it, it doesn’t reverse the process). Apparently this also goes for potatoes and some other starches I can’t remember.

I started ozempic a week ago. No side effects at this dose. It really does switch off the food noise in your head. I have a terrible addiction to sweet drinks and I was really stressed about the process of quitting but I was immediately able to cut down to half a can of coke a day (that’s mostly for the headache I get every day from quitting the caffeine in coke).

Look for some sugar-free iced tea if you can:

https://assets.shop.loblaws.ca/products/20324399/b1/en/side/20324399_side_a06.png

That's Canadian, but you might be able to get something similar. No sugar, no carbohydrates, no calories.

That's great about the rice--will try that.

(Oops--the photo is of the regular, not the sugar-free.)

x-post

The cooling / reheating rice thing also works for dried pasta, fwiw. For both, you'll obvs get the best effects the more you rinse and drain the excess starches.

Usually stick to ILM and didn't realize there was a Diabetes thread on here.

Tried Ozempic not long after it hit the market-- I have a cousin who's pretty high-up at Novo Nordisk. Attempted to titrate up to the minimum therapeutic dose, but I ended up doing only 50% of that dose every other week-- so, essentially, 1/4 of what was the established clinical minimum effective dose-- and it made me so violently ill and nauseous that I contacted my Endo to discontinue after 8 weeks. Dropped 14 lbs, and my blood sugar was never over 110.

So, it *worked*, but the cost to quality of life and overall health did not make it worth it for me. Godspeed to folks who can tolerate it well, though.

I drink SO MUCH unsweetened iced tea. Pure Leaf is my favorite but Gold Peak is pretty good too.

I’m not American so the cold tea thing is unpalatable to me. I love sweet and milky English breakfast in winter but I use Lakanto for that because it tastes exactly like real sugar - I absolutely hate the taste of artificial sweeteners and stevia.

many x-posts

I didn't really like brown rice either, but I found that cooking it in an instapot pressure cooker (rather than my regular rice cooker) significantly improved the taste. YMMV obv.

B-b-but what about cauliflower rice?

it’s good but i think i’d rather just eat chunks of cauliflower

Justine I'm so glad the ozempic's been ok for you so far!
I'm still on the 0.25 dose and my guts seem to be settling down. Wether that's because I'm intentionally cautious with portion control now I'm not sure. My sugars arent quite as under control as I'd like but I'm speaking to the diabetes clinic again on tuesday and they might just tell me to up the metformin (I'm only taking 1000mg)

Yes I'd read about the cooled carbs/resistant starch thing too! As it happens I often eat rice after its been cooked and fridged anyway, so thats good. I guess I could try Doongara rice too but I do like basmati the most.

B is fine now after his weird hypo incident and we really dont know why that happened. I mean the cause was there (booze after no food all day) but hes done that before to no ill effect? OH well. Bodies , hey.

glad he’s ok Trayce - scary thing to happen!

Oh! BTW after your pasta find upthread Veg I went looking and found we have one here too:

https://cdn0.woolworths.media/content/wowproductimages/medium/117547.jpg

oh good!

Diabetes humor!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsMqZFvvIxQ

I bought some Chapman's no-sugar-added ice cream:

https://voila.ca/images-v3/2d92d19c-0354-49c0-8a91-5260ed0bf531/6bb107e2-bd28-4504-9777-4bcf884302c5/500x500.jpg

Does that seem reasonable for someone with Type II (and levels that seem to be stable in the 5.5-6.0 range)?

seems like it would be ok! caveat: as long as sugar alcohol doesn’t have an adverse effect on your digestion

i generally avoid myself as they reliably give me anything from bloating/cramps to full on diarrhea

My problem with all the sugarfree/low fat snacks is they all use gross shit like sorbitol or stevia and idc what anyone says I can TELL. I dont like the taste :(

Even monkfruit sugar has a bit of a funny aftertaste.

yeah same

the only one i can handle (in small amounts) is erythritol

Yeah I think thats the monkfruit one. I can do a flat spoonful in a cuppa thats about it. A good thing anyway, that shiz is pricey!

I think maybe I have PTSD from my highschool best friend whose family all guzzled old-school diet coke and ate nothing but nugs.

I’m supposed to be testing my fasting blood sugar every morning but the first time I did it, it was 273dl/mg which didn’t seem right, but my monitor didn’t come with any control solution so I couldn’t be sure. The solution finally arrived, the monitor is apparently working correctly, so I tested today and it was 274 :/

Yeah thats quite high :( dont worry, it can go up cos of stress, cos of starchy food... and the meds will take a while, it took me like at least 3 weeks on the metformin.

yeah trayce otm - it’s scary at first bc the numbers feel like a judgement or some kind of failure etc but try to remember they’re only data points for a moment in tume, you’re starting to do the things that are needed to help get your #’s down but it can take time. chin up, keep at it

Yeah I guess I knew it would still be high but my diet has been so drastically different the last 3 weeks I thought it wouldn’t be *that* high.

When I googled the number the results were like “that is super bad” but lol I feel the same as I always feel, which is “normal” at this point.

I don't know what that 274 number means...the only one I understand is the finger-prick number.

I tried the ice cream last night--thought it was quite good. I just have to discipline myself to stop after seven or eight spoonfuls.

it's the same test, divide the reading in mg/dl by 18 to convert to mmol/L

Meaning 274 = 15.2 for a finger-prick?

for a blood sugar measurement, yeah

Best home-reading in a month, 5.3. I've cheated here and there...these things are very unpredictable.

Past couple days I've felt a little "off" at various points during the day (particularly the morning), and my natural assumption for these situations now is "huh I bet my sugar's low." But then I tested (finger-prick) and it was just fine, so maybe I'm just coming down with a bug.

The instinct to immediately assume every little thing is diabetes-related is something I'm still learning to navigate.

yeah same, the added complications of pms & perimenopause blood sugar spikes & hot flashes & shit is like, ok it could literally be ANYTHING

Danish pharma giant Novo Nordisk, who commercializes Wegovy / Ozempic in the US, has reached 300B on the stock exchange, relatively close to the national GDP (380B). The pharmaceutical sector contributes to a third of Denmark's GDP, pushing up the balance of payments and the value of the Danish Krone compared to the euro, thus forcing their central bank to a range of actions to avoid currency inflation. Some commentators are making comparisons to Finland's Nokia in terms of structural importance and impact of hypothetical downfall.

Ugh I increased my metformin to 1500 last night, and stupidly also decided I'd have a few drinks. This morning I am SO SO NAUSEOUS.

And in more rage enducing news, my Ozempic needs refilling and the local pharmacy has none and says the shortage means its been v low in stock. Worried I wont find any before I need it on monday. Thanks, instabitches.

Shit, all the weirdos looking for miracle cures are now saying Metformin might curb your chances of getting Long Covid if you get Covid, so I hope there's not a run on it making it harder to get.

jfc people wear a fuckin mask and wash your hands!

Oh, and get vaccinated duh

The TGA here wont approve off-script use of Ozempic at least (you cant get it for nything but diabeets) but its still hard to get :(

Feel like I'm really beating myself up/being too hard on myself with all this lately. Vexing over my glucose levels too often, fretting if I eat a spoon of rice or have that extra vodka. I know its not healthy and I am trying to let it stress me less but ugh.

I have been put into this pilot program being run out of Royal Melb Hospital where they are getting onto ppl newly diagnosed with T2, to give them loads of extra support (educators, regular checkups/bloods, dieticians, exercise support etc) with the aim of seeing if intense work + weight loss will put it in remission. I'm greatful for the program - it costs me nothing but the time for the apppointments! - but now I feel this pressure to constantly be Dudley Do-Right as a result :(

I’ve been really struggling the last couple weeks too. Food has been stressing me out so much, so I’ve been living off protein bars and protein shakes instead of thinking about it. I caught a respiratory virus of some kind and I think that just sapped all my energy. I haven’t had a cold in years and I haven’t had Covid yet (despite jordan bringing it home from Finland last year), so I’d forgotten how miserable it is.

Some good news: I’m down from 274 to 163.

HI DERE! My A1C this year crept up to the top end of prediabetic. Doctor told me to lose weight before she even saw the result. Been riding a bike every day and doing intermittent fasting and am indeed losing, hoping I can keep it up. Trying to watch what I eat, it’s kind of depressing to look at packaging and see what’s really in everything. Also learning about glycemic is index and glycemic load, there is one website at the University of Sydney started by the woman who wrote the book on this stuff I have been looking at: https://glycemicindex.com/

My friend who is in a similar boat wears an armband that measures his GMI.

Glucose Management Indicator

Dr. Jennie Brand-Miller. Also have her book, The Low GI Handbook.

Last night I went to see some jazz at a newish place called Canary Club way down on Broome near Essex and Delancey and stared daggers at the order of french fries at the next table while I drank my water. Music was great though.

Although actually the intermittent fasting seems to be suppressing my nighttime appetite. I read something about hormonal entrainment and the growth hormone with a funny name that starts with g for growth.

I guess most people just call the growth hormone the Growth Hormone or just GH.

I'm so impressed by the Rapid Remission program I'm in, even if its meant an endless parade of appointments right when I can least fit it in cos of work crazy. Saw a dietician today, and he was so nice and so helpful and encouraging. Now I have some cocrete goals for kj, protien and carb intake, when and how to get away with a cheeky food, and what to expect. I feel very blessed that our country does things like this at no cost to me.

can you share the stuff you found most helpful?

i was given a free consult w a dietitian through my doctor & they never returned my calls grr