diabetic question

Sounds like you may have not be totally well briefed on what having diabetes means. Just to help here's a super easy primer:

1) If your blood sugar drops too low, you might feel cranky, drunk, nauseous, dizzy, headachy, slur your speech or even pass out. Let your friends and family know to watch out for these symptoms because you may not be able to tell when you are having them yourself. Keep glucose pills, full sugar orange juice or a candy bar around at all times in case this happens.

2) If your blood sugar goes too high you might feel tired, dry-mouthed and pee a lot. If this happens to you (as a metformin controlled patient) then all you can do is drink a bunch of water and get up and moving, try to burn some of that sugar out of your system.

3) It's the high sugars you want to avoid if you can. Even though it doesn't feel as nasty as the low sugars, highs are what damage your body. If your sugar is too high for too long all sorts of bad things can happen. This is why it's best for diabetics to eat low(ish) carb.

Hope that helps.

I'm T1 and always snack before I work out, test as well.... Right before I hit the showers afterward, I always test. When at the gym in public eye, this is crucial......

I am a Type 1, but likely, if your sugars had been running high for a while and you are getting them back to normal, a normalish sugar (like 78) can make you feel woozy. Your body should adjust eventually. Also, keeping some glucose tabs with you (the Target brand, CVS brand, and Dex4 brands are by far the best) may be a good idea in case of emergency. I test all the time- but if you are feeling this way, you definitely ought to test your sugar before driving or working out!

Type 2 is normally the result of a long sedentary life. The earlier you take control of it the more chances are there to reverse part of the issue. I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes some months back. That kick started my interest in human physiology and so far I have been able to reverse the problem considerably. I positively hope in another 6-12 months I should have reversed it fully. A few facts that you should know to avoid the viscious diabetic cycle :

1. Type 2 starts as insulin resistance (pre). Typical tell tale signs are the symptoms you mentioned (hypoglycemic) when you are hungry and a general craving for sugars/carbs.
2. Insulin reistance is typically the result of dumping excess calories into your body for a prolonged period (about a decade of sedentry life in my case).
3. Sedentary lifestyle leads to two issues - loss of muscles & accumulation of fat. Both are bad for diabetics.
4. The brain & nervous system can consume only sugar/Glucose as the energy source. Hypoglycemic symptoms are due to the fact that the brain and nervous system does not get enough energy to function normally.
5. The body converts excess glucose into glycogen (a complex form) and stores them in muscles and liver. (Note: 'Excess' is the keyword). This glycogen is easily broken down into simple glucose by the body and used for energy if the blood sugar goes low.

Now it is easy to deduce why diabetes leads to a viscious cycle.

- To start with we are already losing muscles due to a sedentary life i.e. the total glycogen storable by the body reduces.
- When diagnosed with diabetes, Doctors immediately ask us to reduce weight and reduce the amount of sugar intake. Both are in principle good habits if we had done it regularly. But for diabetics it adds to the problem because:
- We normally do cardio exercises to lose weight. When you lose weight, you lose both fat and muscles. This further reduction in muscles further reduces the storable glycogen in the body.
- Further more, when we reduce sugar we also create a sugar deficit in the body. This not only reduces the available excess sugar that can be converted into glycogen, but it also slowly depletes the already available glycogen levels in the body.
- The tablets we take for diabetes works in one of the following ways. They either
* Sitimulate more insulin production.
* Inhibit glucose absorbtion by the digestive system.
* Reduce glycogen processing by the liver
* Makes the cells more sensitive to insulin
As you can see none of them improve the natural ability of the body to process sugar. Most only adds to the low glycogen problems. They help to manage things but does not improve things.

This depletion cycle makes us more and more prone for hypoglycemic states and often can get easily out of hand if we are not careful.

There are some useful lifestyle changes that most of us (except the ones who are really aged and severely ill) can do to improve the situation dramatically.
1. First - build muscles - as much as your age, health & gender allows you to. Resistance training 2-4 times a week is the best way for this. This improves the storable glycogen levels in your body greately.
2. In parallel, do cardio (jogging, running, walking, cross trainers - whatever) 2-3 times a week. Cardio helps in two ways a) Burns down the fat in your body and b) Increases the glycogen storing capacity of your muscles and liver. The body responds to natural stimuli. Bringing down body fat within the healthy range is quite important for diabetics.
3. Change your diet composition - moderate on carbs / sugar and increate protein & healthy fats. Fats and proteins improves the satisfaction factor of each meal & the body needs to work harder to break them down (= more calories spent). They naturally also reduce your carb intake due to the higher satiety factor. Of course you need to get into a 'sense' of how much carbs your body needs. The more you build muscles, the more carbs you can afford to build the excess glycogen.

This will slowly improve the sugar metabolism within the body. And normally noticiable improvement is seen within 3-6 months. I have seen this first hand. A sure shot sign of improvement is when you no longer feel hypoglycemic as soon as you are hungry. And believe me you'll love the sense of relief & freedom that comes with it.

Note: I am not a doctor. So I have no recommendation on which medication is good for you or when you should take/stop them. Since my diabetes was diagnosed quite early, me and my physician agreed that I try the natural way first and then start medication later if necessary. In the stage I am in currently I don't intend to go on medication in the near future.

Sounds like we were diagnosed at the same time. Everyone has given great advice. I always keep a tube of glucose tablets in my purse and have needed them a couple of times when my numbers were in the 70's. The medic-alert bracelet or dog tags are a good idea when working out or travelling If you don't feel it is necessary to wear them all of the time, keep them in your wallet or get a card for your wallet.

Some things I learned:

• Take advantage of all educational resources available, including diabetic education classes which are frequently covered by insurance.
• Don't rely on your medication to lower your blood sugar. Eat well and exercise to lose weight and balance out the blood sugars
• Monitoring sugar intake by itself doesn't help much. You need to monitor total carbs. Your doctor or dietician should give you an upper limit (mine gave me 180 g as a daily max)