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

That...does not seem wise. Luckily metfo doesnt do that to me. And I mean I need to drink way less anyways. But I'd like to be able to go ham at least one day on the weekend with 5 or 6 drinks yeesh.

I basically quite drinking at 30, when I got into teachers college, so happily that hasn't been an issue for me.

Ugh, having what I assume is a pseudohypo episode today. Hands are shaking and feel irrationally crabby and quite confused, and I'm used to this feeling - Ive had low blood sugar episodes all my life (without being diabetic before, how that works ive no idea).

Checked my glucose - 5.0 not low at all? lol. I guess maybe the ozempic is fully kicking in?

This is a story up here...not trying to be alarmist, just informational; I'm sure stories like this appear regularly. (The CBC is a good news source, for what that's worth.)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/health-canada-review-diabetes-weight-loss-1.6921759

I wonder how many of those are due to people who were using it for weight loss and not getting results or had other terrible issues with dysmorphia. I mean I'm not a doctor so who knows.

Don't know, and ditto. I've got the news on in the background, looked it up after that.

Have not yet doubled my metformin dose but started the new insulin last night and my morning number was significantly lower than the previous day, almost in worrisome territory. We'll see if this holds.

My numbers are staying down too, 3 tests in lst 24 hours all around 5! But I havent pushed it by eating anything bad yet so we'll see.

I finally went to the dr today to get the initial testing done. The driving force for finally going was a symptom that only trayce and veg will understand iykyk :/

I looked up my last tests from 2020
A1c 5.8
EAG 120
Fasting glucose 130

Those results are good - fingers crossed they still are! Though then that leaves you wondering what else it could be :(

I'm struggling a bit on the ozempic - it definitely helps the sugars but I'm having a lot of heartburn, have to really watch what I eat (its like having a mild stomach stapling!), and (and I dont know if this is due to the shot) I now have constant really bad aching joints. Like, I always did anyway but it feels worse lately.

And pain in my kidney/upper ab area flared up the other day and now I'm worried my kidney is still spacking out on me uugggh. I have an ultrasound next week, and I'm not "sick", just feel very old and creaky. This sucks.

ugh that sounds rough Trayce. it sucks to have to grapple with side effects on top of everything else. sending hugs

Got my results
A1c 11.5, good cholesterol too low, bad cholesterol too high, elevated liver enzymes

Dr said at that level, it’s really only ozempic or insulin. However, it’s $1000 a month unless I convince my insurer that ozempic is my only option.

The good news is that what I thought was depression the last few years is probably diabetes.

urg sorry justin3
hopefully you can work something out & get back into safer territory

i didn’t know that depression & diabetes shared symptoms? or maybe more likely i’m not up on everything t2 entails

Sorry about that, but I'm sure you'll find this thread helpful and encouraging.

I was 5.7 at home tonight. I was more nervous doing this one than I have been in many months. First one in 15 days, and it just feels like I've been slacking off a bit--meeting up with friends, eating out, barbecuing, etc. When I cheat, I always tell myself I'll make up for it tomorrow, but I don't always follow through. Anyway, still steady in the 5.0-6.0 range.

Dr said at that level, it’s really only ozempic or insulin.

When I was first diagnosed, my A1C was crazy high (13). I did insulin & metformin for a few months until it was back under control, and then my dr switched me to Jardiance & metformin.

If you go on insulin, it may only be temporary if you respond well to it.

Welp, last night my bf had a really bad hypo attack. Its weird - he's never had one before, often been cheeky with not eating/having booze, never any repercussions. His fingerprick test dropped from 3 to 2 despite chowing on lollies and sugar water, he was a shaky sweaty delirious mess. Anyway we couldnt get it to get better. Ambulance came, they couldnt either, so they have taken him to hospital. I couldnt go with cos the kids are here today, but fuckn yay. I am hoping he'll be ok I havent heard from him yet.

My dad (who was Type 1) used to chug orange juice when he had an attack like that.

yeah the irony is due to us both being beetusy, all the drinks in the house are sugar free lol. The ambos said thats a common thing when they attend hypos.

But I tried everything else my limited knowledge knew - cups of sugar water, a handful of glucose gummy bears, a bit of bread. It was weird it didnt budge the numbers one bit. Now I'm worried.

shit trayce - sending good thoughts, that’s so scary!

...I spoke too soon he just txted me, his bloods have bounced back now (too far the other way haha, stands to reason with what we did).

No more drinking sessions on empty tummies!

My sister deals with the same thing quite often - I really worry about her passing out while she’s alone. But she also has Graves’ disease which complicates things. Is your bf on insulin or something else?

I messaged my sis to tell her about my diagnosis and that I was getting on ozempic and she had never heard of it - odd, because she’s been diabetic since age 12 AND she’s a big fan of the kardashians. I explained what it was and that it was either that or insulin and she was like “avoid insulin at all costs”.

Anyway I spoke with my PA today and she went to bat for me and got ozempic approved with my insurer.

Thats good news J I hope it will work well for you!

B ended up being overnight in hospo but is better now aside from a cold it seems he picked up while in there.

can recommend this as a good pasta option if like me you fucking DESPISE all the chickpea/lentil/nonsense pastas

https://www.aldentepasta.com/shop/carba-nada.html

eats very close to normal pasta, if slightly firmer & you can eat a pretty decent helping of it
24g net carbs, 16g protein - semolina flour, egg yolks, wheat protein etc

readily available here in Sac at at least two large grocery chains

terrible name though lol ugh

I saw yr FB post about it hehe. I thought we were ok to eat pasta in modest quantities as long as balanced with aprotein? I thought rice was the no no.

Actually looking at its ingredients I think thats precisely why it works! It seems to have boosted protein :)

Lol veg, ignore my Instagram comment, now I’ve seen the answer!

Rice and beans/lentils form a complete protein iirc?

Yeah when I do have rice I make sure its basmati and i eat it with chickpeas, lentils, eggs, tofu or chicken anyway.

I used to eat PILES of rice though. I'm training myself to go "a couple of spoonfuls is ENOUGH dammit".

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