lukesydaisy wrote: »

Hello all, I am new to this forum and very new to trying such an extremely low-carb diet. I'm not even sure exactly what my version would be called, but if you've ever seen the website Butter Makes Your Pants Fall Off, that is what my husband and I are trying out. We have friends who have been following this protocol, and one has lost 75 pounds in 6 months, and the other, after just a few weeks, is able to totally go off diabetes meds and has normal blood sugars. I have had type 2 diabetes for about 14 years now, as well as PCOS. I've been taking insulin since 2013, and even though I'm only 33, I have some scary diabetes symptoms like really bad neuropathy. I'm hoping this will really help with my diabetes and maybe even allow us to have another child, because the first one is pretty awesome.

So, I've been doing this for....over 2 whole days now!!!! I have chosen not to take my insulin these days, since I'm worried it will drop my sugar low and I'll end up having to take in lots of carbs to stabilize. I figured I'd just gradually get it down quickly through the lack of carbs. The weird thing is that when I've tested it's been about 300 every single time, no matter if I test before or after a meal. I read somewhere that the body's supposed to release glucagon from my liver after I cut off carbs, but that that store should be used up in about 24 hours. My sugar is still high. Does anyone have experience or insight into what might be happening? Does it sometimes take several days? Is it because my body is soooo insulin resistant, or maybe, since I'm far gone enough to be on insulin, I'm not actually making any/much, and I do need to inject a small amount?

I'm not diabetic but quite familiar with all things diabetes and IR just due to having a T1D daughter. You end up reading about all forms when your kid is Type 1 just to feel comfortable about, keeping them alive and stuff.
Anyway, I don't think you should just stop taking the insulin. You may not ever be able to stop no matter how well you work the low carb diet. That's a possibility that you need to keep in mind.
How were your blood sugars before starting LC two days ago? What was your morning bg and a couple hours after meals typically like?
Did you ever experience hypos at all? Do you also take metformin? And is your insulin long acting only? Lantus? Levemir?

You definitely need to be taking some of your insulin. I have Type II and on the long acting insulin too. Even doing low carb and taking the insulin, my levels were still high. You need to talk to your endo about a sliding scale for taking your insulin. So if your pre level readings are a certain amount, you need to take a certain amount of insulin. I feel your pain. I'd also be getting up a little earlier in the morning to check your fasting levels.

So you need insulin to counter that. That is the glycogenesis (sp) coming into action. Unfortunately not all our bodies will work the way they are "supposed" to. Mine doesn't.

lukesydaisy wrote: »

Hello all, I am new to this forum and very new to trying such an extremely low-carb diet. I'm not even sure exactly what my version would be called, but if you've ever seen the website Butter Makes Your Pants Fall Off, that is what my husband and I are trying out. We have friends who have been following this protocol, and one has lost 75 pounds in 6 months, and the other, after just a few weeks, is able to totally go off diabetes meds and has normal blood sugars. I have had type 2 diabetes for about 14 years now, as well as PCOS. I've been taking insulin since 2013, and even though I'm only 33, I have some scary diabetes symptoms like really bad neuropathy. I'm hoping this will really help with my diabetes and maybe even allow us to have another child, because the first one is pretty awesome.

So, I've been doing this for....over 2 whole days now!!!! I have chosen not to take my insulin these days, since I'm worried it will drop my sugar low and I'll end up having to take in lots of carbs to stabilize. I figured I'd just gradually get it down quickly through the lack of carbs. The weird thing is that when I've tested it's been about 300 every single time, no matter if I test before or after a meal. I read somewhere that the body's supposed to release glucagon from my liver after I cut off carbs, but that that store should be used up in about 24 hours. My sugar is still high. Does anyone have experience or insight into what might be happening? Does it sometimes take several days? Is it because my body is soooo insulin resistant, or maybe, since I'm far gone enough to be on insulin, I'm not actually making any/much, and I do need to inject a small amount?

First - as others have suggested - make sure you are working with your doctor.

Type 2 diabetes can have (at least) two components: insulin resistance and insulin insufficiency.

Most people start out with insulin resistance (your body produces the normal amount of insulin - but it isn't working well to move the glucose out of the bloodstream to where it needs to go.

Chronically elevated blood glucose levels (and perhaps other aspects of diabetes) damage the beta cells that produce insulin and then you become insulin deficient.

Metformin addresses the first issue, insulin and drugs that make your pancreas produce more insulin address the second.

The risk for dangerous hypoglycemic episodes come with the drugs that make your pancreas produce more insulin (whether you need it) and the basal insulin (again, whether you need it or not). If you are creating insulin - or adding it - at a steady level and you don't feed your bloodstream enough glucose via carbs, there is more insulin than is needed to handle the glucose and it handles it too well (dropping your blood glucose too low).

So - once you are taking drugs for the latter you need to be very careful about balancing carbs and the background level of insulin.

Many insulin dependent diabetics are able to decrease or eliminate the insulin - but not all. In the meantime, chronically elevated blood glucose can damage your organs so you want to keep it under control.

If your doctor is not friendly to a very low carb diet, you may need to manage it on your own - in which case proceed slowly (do lots of research, lots of testing so you know how your body is reacting, and gradually lower the insulin or drugs which make your pancreas produce insulin). Make sure you have glucose tablets around and are around people who know what to look for. And - again - the safest route is to work closely with your doctor.

As the others said, please keep taking your insulin, you don't ever want to be anywhere near 300 as that will cause irreversible damage to your body.

I'm a type 2 diabetic, on insulin for 8 years, ever since Actos was black-boxed and I discovered that metformin in makes me violently ill. I was taking 80-100 units of long lasting insulin and 45-60 units of fast-acting insulin at mealtimes.

It definitely takes time for your body to adjust. You won't find that cutting carbs automatically eliminates your need for insulin. Your body can even turn protein into insulin, especially if you're eating a lot of it.

Not that I'm recommending a low cal LCHF diet at all, everyone needs to find the right fit for them, but it wasn't until this latest attempt where I cut my overall food consumption as well as maintaining a diet low in carbs and high in fats that I've finally had a significant reduction in my insulin. And it didn't happen overnight. It was a steady progression. Right now I'm standing at 30 units of long lasting and if I have a meal over 400 calories, I often need 3-5 units of short acting. I'm 40 days in this time around.

When I was at 1,800 calories, 20 net carbs and eating too much protein, I was taking 135 units of long lasting insulin and 10 units of fast acting insulin. So as you can see, it takes some effort to get to know how your body is going to respond.

I'm fortunate that my doctor encouraged me to adjust my insulin levels years ago. I definitely recommend working with your healthcare provider.

But congrats on making some really positive changes. It's so worth it. Weight loss is so tough on insulin, so if you can reduce your use, you should see the scale start to move, but be patient. It's a long game, but we're all in it with you.

Welcome and congrats on taking your health into your own hands!

First of all, please go back to your meds, while carefully controlling your blood glucose. Ideally you should make this transition with a knowledgeable doctor but we all know they're a rare breed. ::sigh::

I arrived here on September 2014, T2 diabetic, 315lb, with first signs of neuropathy, a family history of severe diabetic complications and on the fast track to gastric surgery. People on this forum, plus the advice I found online and a couple of books likely saved my life.

I never needed insulin so my transition was easier than yours, in the sense that the risk of hypos was much smaller. And yet, even though A1C values, triglycerides etc, all improved fairly quickly (in 3 months I had better lab results than 10 years ago) it took me 6 months to halve metformin and I still take it before bed (do NOT do this until you're confident you understand your body's reactions) and my fasting glucose is still the highest value of the day (but that is now between 90-115, according to what I ate the previous days).

I did everything my (at the time) doctor told me not to, I ate everything she told me not to. All I wanted was to be regularly tested to be sure I wasn't killing myself with this "crazy" diet. According to my last lab results I am no longer a diabetic. Of course, I know I am no longer diabetic in the sense that a sober alcoholic is no longer an alcoholic: as long as I keep eating LCHF I can control my blood sugars and avoid further damage to my organs. I can not go back to eat as before, as several doctors have wanted me to ("carefully", of course).

It took me more than a year to find a paleo minded doctor that approves of my diet and finally asked for hormonal tests besides the usual. What he found is that, even with my diabetes cured/reversed/under control/whatever, my body is far from being as it should. I now take supplements made specifically for my needs and finally trust a doctor.

Until you find a doctor you can trust, the best advice I can give you regarding medication is to follow Dr Bernstein's: small changes can only make small damage.

Which leads me to recommending you to get Dr Bernstein's Diabetes Solution. He's very famous among the control-diabetes-with-food crowd and being a T1 that has now survived all the doctors that predicted his death 50 years ago, he knows what he says. His way works, no doubt about it. It may be stricter than you need but I know of no better book to explain all that there is to know about low carb and diabetes (both T1 and T2, either insulin dependent or not).

The other book I would recommend is Davis's Wheat Belly Total Health. It has a wealth of information about reversing T2 and about lots of common problems disregarded by most doctors, together with easy to follow suggestions to improve your health without the secondary effects of prescription drugs. Be aware however that his #1 rule is no-grains-whatesoever. And, at least for us that are IR, the science behind his arguments makes a lot of sense.

Finally, there are lots of resources for diabetics going this way (hey, it works!) and you'll find them easily with a google search or on facebook if you use it. Personally I like diabetes.co.uk but it can be a bit overwhelming because there's all the currents there. But it is a huge community and many are taking the LCHF route.

Best of luck to you, be certain that this works. Whether you can get off all your meds or just substantially reduce them, there's nothing you can do that will control/reverse diabetes and improve your health like LCHF. Stay in touch!

::flowerforyou::

lukesydaisy wrote: »

I do know from the past that my fastings were often higher than when I went to bed...dawn syndrome, or something?

Dawn phenomenon. It will take months. Stay the course until you start seeing normal blood sugar levels, and THEN cut your meds. With a BS of 300 you are not going to have any bad effects from eating low carb (sugar wise). I'm repeating myself, I know. Sorry.

And BTW, congrats on taking this step for health! It's a marathon, not a sprint, so months vs days are what to focus on. You can do it. I'm a type 2 diabetic off meds entirely and off PCOS meds and high blood pressure meds, too. But I've been at it over a year. Baby steps, to quote a Bill Murray movie. Insulin resistance is a tough nut to crack.

I have pcos and type 2 diabetes. When I first started eating a ketogenic diet, I really had to watch the protein too. Protein caused my sugar to spike quite a bit. I would eat very small protein portions but eat more frequently. I was able to stop my insulin and oral meds right away, but I was already eating pretty low carb before. I think I was close to ketosis before I really lowered my carbohydrate intake to a keto level. I could not ovulate on metformin and clomid. I ovulated right away and continue to ovulate every month now. I was able to conceive but unfortunately the pregnancies were ectopic due to my scar tissue in my tubes from a tubal reversal surgery.

lukesydaisy wrote: »

So something is still making glucose even though I'm not taking in carbs.

Yes. And it always will. Your liver will create the minimum amount of glucose needed for your brain through gluconeogenesis. It's basically a demand / supply driven process.
But, T2D is a condition where the cells become resistant to insulin, therefore the pancreas produces MORE insulin, not less, to combat it and get the cells to open. Once they're open, and all the blood glucose is getting shuffled away as needed, there could still be insulin in the blood with nothing to do. This will signal a demand for glucose from the liver and it will get to work on gluconeogenesis once again to prevent a low blood sugar.
The condition of over producing the fat storing hormone insulin is what causes so much weight gain for people with IR and any of the metabolic conditions it develop into, like T2D and PCOS.
Eating a very low carb diet can teach the cells to become more sensitive over time. Lots of time.
T2D that have had uncontrolled high blood sugar for a long time can effectively "burn out" their insulin producing beta cells eventually and begin to produce too little insulin, but the fact that you didn't end up in a hospital the first 2 days suggests you're still producing decent insulin.
If your blood sugar was still running high before Keto, your first goal should be to keep taking meds as prescribed and use Keto to get blood sugar under control. Once that has been accomplished, your doctor will likely need to reduce it.
I would talk to them ASAP though about developing a sliding scale for the meal time fast acting so that you don't take more than needed. This is how T1D take fast acting insulin. They calculate only what is needed for that meal.

DittoDan wrote: »

lukesydaisy wrote: »

(...)I've been taking insulin since 2013, and even though I'm only 33, I have some scary diabetes symptoms like really bad neuropathy. (...)

So, I've been doing this for....over 2 whole days now!!!! I have chosen not to take my insulin these days, since I'm worried it will drop my sugar low and I'll end up having to take in lots of carbs to stabilize. I figured I'd just gradually get it down quickly through the lack of carbs. The weird thing is that when I've tested it's been about 300 every single time, no matter if I test before or after a meal. (...)

(...)My case is similar to yours. The only advice I would give is to drop the insulin altogether, because insulin is a fat producing hormone. I did this one month into Keto. I was faithful to the 40 grams or less carbs a day. I didn't want the insulin to fight my attempts to lose weight. My BG's were a little high, but after a year or so, it steadily came down.

(...)

@DittoDan is awesome and @lukesydaisy you should definitely follow his blog. I have never disagreed with him before, and I have referred to the resources on his blog and been inspired by his success many times.

But I feel I must ask for caution in this case. To drop insulin with bad neuropathy and BG on the 300s without medical supervision can be very dangerous. The OP says that she has been "doing this" for 2 days, she is not keto adapted or even totally sure about how LC works regarding diabetes.

If she cuts grains and sugar and controls carbs, she will start losing weight without effort or risk. When the BG numbers start going down (and I mean below 200 after meals) she can then cut the quantity of insulin, little by little and always checking BG numbers. High blood glucose is much more dangerous than a slight slower weight loss.

@lukesydaisy if you're not changing your woe/medication with medical supervision and regular lab tests please, please always err on the side of caution.

Nothing will contribute to your health at this point like normal BG. LCHF will normalise your BG and your weight without risk. THEN you can drop medications. How long did it take to reach the point you're at now? You will start to feel benefits very soon, but this is science, not magic. Give it a few weeks/months.

::flowerforyou::