My first diabetes support group meeting : at Gartnavel Hospital in the west of Glasgow.

I think I was the youngest there, and there was a hypnotherapist to give us a talk on it's benefits in controlling our diet and food urges. and that's about it, met some nice, helpfull people, and next month there's a cooking demonstration at a nearby hotel.

The new blood glucose meter is working out great !  I can take a tiny sample from my thigh and I can hardly feel it !  so now I dont always have a finger which is hurting or bruised.
Some recent readings have been around the 5.7 mark, so i guess i've hit the zone.
At the moment, I'm taking a reading as soon as I wake up and a second reading 1.5 to 2 hours after breakfast (and the two drugs).
I've noticed that when I excercise or ride the bike somewhere between the first and second reading, that it's at it's lowest on the second.
There are more occasions recently, as my levels are consistantly lower, when I've left it too long between meals or snacks and I start getting jittery and shakey.

Diabetes - my experience.

I was diagnosed with type 2 about 3 weeks ago (January 2008) and in a way it was a relief to find out why i had lost 5 kilos in weight and had a tremendous thirst all the time. I had also been alot more tired than usual.

Having worked with a close friend who is a nurse, I knew about the large number of new cases of diabetes every day in Australia, but I guess I had associated diabetes with being overweight or very poor diet, and I was eating pretty well and only weighed 64 kilos. So I never thought it was something I had to worry about.

In the last 3 weeks, I've had to change my diet in a big way, get used to pricking my fingers for blood and having sore fingers and putting up with my eyesight going blurry for periods of time.

Now, if i'm going to be brutaly honest about how my partner and I (pretty much) confirmed that it was diabetes, i'll tell you - my partner, being a medical scientist thought, if I have high blood sugar, it will be present in my urine, so I tasted a little drop when I next had a pee, and yes ! not salty at all ... in fact ... more like lemonade !! The test at the doctors surgery was a mere formality.

GETTING STARTED
The first thing I did was get onto the net and find the official websites for diabetes in the U.K. and Australia.

I started finding lots of sites with lists of food and it's glycemic index (GI) with somewhat differing guidelines as to which are low GI and which are high. So i'm still trying to find a definative list, but one - ( http://www.glycemicindex.com/ ) seems to be the best.
The aim is to have small , regular meals of low GI food to avoid any peaks of glucose in my system - a nice steady supply of sugars from complex carbohydrates. It's amazing how quickly i've learnt about all this , now that i have a very personal interest. All I knew before was that diabetics have to inject themselves, . . . and i hate needles !

My first trip to the doctor, and I got Metformin tablets (500mg three times a day) to bring my blood sugar down (from a fairly high 24.8) by getting the excess glucose in my blood into a form which can be used up by muscles and stuff. I immediately had more energy and lost my thirst. Another annoying complaint i had over the last 2 or 3 months was cramps in my calf muscles several times a day , even when walking and also in bed at nite. They were gone too !
And , i get my script for my first blood glucose monitor . . . and the finger puncturing begins !

WHAT i think i know , so far . . . So, it's about The trouble appears to be that you cant say 'all white bread has a certain GI' - it varies with different manufacturers, just as alot of processed food varies according to the recipe, and with fruit & vege - it can depend on which particular type of melon you choose too. I've tended to try to get a bit of the really low GI foods in with most meals, like peanuts - so if I have white bread, combining it with peanut butter brings down the GI of the bread. I think i've hit upon a way of still having chocolate - and in a nice small ration size too - chocolate covered peanuts ! I have 2 or 3 every few hours and it satisfies my never-ending chocolate affair.

Now I haven't worked this out yet, but i'm supposed to avoid animal fats and saturated fats too - but I want to get back up to my normal (slim) size and replace the muscle that wasted away while my body wasn't getting the glucose it needed. I guess i'll have to wait for the referal to the dietician to sort that one out - boy , i have a million questions for the dietician !

My first blood glucose meter

2 weeks later, my glucose results are still around 14 to 20, and I go to see the doctor again and he changes my Metformin tablets to 850mg ones and says to take 2 a day. Also, another one - little 80mg Gliclazade tablets - half a tablet twice a day - which (as i understand it) helps the pancreas to produce insulin.

So, i'm trying to get used to harpooning my fingertips every day and having sore or bruised fingers ... and then I notice on the back of the diabetes magazine that Diabetes UK sent me - an ad ! A blood glucose meter which only requires one third of the blood that my first meter needs ! Hurray ! "Virtualy painless testing" it says ... hmmmm, well, we'll see !

My new blood glucose meter - Freestyle Lite

Well ... yes, it's much easier to get a .3ul sample and I can use other sites on the body like my thigh. One warning I can give . . . dont come in from a very cold day (as it's been 3 or 4 degrees here lately) and immediately prick your finger ! As your finger warms up properly it will bleed like the proverbial stuck pig !