I'm scared!

[imagood1]

Re: I'm scared!

take a deep breath and relax - you should get ahold of your gp and tell him/her what your blood sugar numbers are - you may need an adjustment of what you're taking. It sounds like you are pretty much taking the same thing I am -- I take glyb/metformin 5/500 in the morning and 1000mg metformin at bedtime.

It's too bad you don't have a real starting point with your A1C but I guess 12.6 is as good a place to start as any. You said you take metformin twice a day - what dosage? And the glyb that was added -- is that a seperate pill or a combo pill?

The diabetes meds will prevent you from loosing weight quickly -- but you can still loose weight - there are plenty of us who take it and are loosing. My average is about 2 pounds a week - not bad I don't think for being 4 months into the plan. At least I'm still loosing and now I've figured out I need to eat more on a daily basis to keep the pounds coming off.

Write down your blood sugar numbers so you can show the doctor how they have changed since the glyb was added -- you might just need a smaller dosage of that. I take 5mg at a time but my mother & husband only take 2.5mg -- my mother has a seperate pill and she only takes it when her numbers are up above a certain number. If I don't get off the meds this time with the endo I would at least like to have the mg reduced. That would be another step forward.

Good luck

[fluffy51]

Re: I'm scared!

So I just don't know what to say anymore. I am frustrated beyond belief. I called my doctor to let her know my glucose readings. She asked if I was following the American Diabetes Assoc. diet. I told her no, that I was doing Atkins. She practically blew up, saying I am not to do Atkins, that I NEED to eat carbs, etc. So I sort of conducted my own little experiment this weekend by adding some carbs to my diet...bread mostly. My readings went up. So, do I disobey my doctor and do what I think is best for me? I'm not a doctor after all. I'm beginning to think she's only seeing dollar signs and wants to keep me on medication forever. I'm hoping that somday I will be able to get off medication altogether by following Atkins.

I'm stressed, I'm a little depressed, and a whole lot confused. I have absolutely no appetite and can't really even taste anything....I think because I've been sick. I'm nauseous most of the time. Probably due to the medication and just have to get used to it.

Needed to vent......

[blondegypsy]

Re: I'm scared!

Hey there fluffy51,

The Atkins diet is one of the best things you can do if you are getting to the diabetic level or are in it.

I'm hypoglycemic and have been since I was 27 (found out), I'm 49 and Dr. Atkins Diet has been with me the whole way. Grab a piece of meat when you get a headache or feel weak. Cut the clock in 4 ways: 12,3,6,9, eat a small something just before those times (10-15 min before hour), even just a little protien and it will pull you through. Those are the main times blood sugar drops on the average
person and you feel shakey, dizzy, not quite all there. Forget math problems or anything else at that point!

I have had some really rough spells where I was eating small amounts every couple of hours and it brought me back to feeling human in afew days! Thanks Dr. Atkins for all you did! Hope this helps you Fluffy51

[blondegypsy]

Re: I'm scared!

Fluffy51, You want the meat and green veggies, stay away from white, yellow ,orange ones.

[Wintersnow]

Re: I'm scared!

Iesous Fluffy you should be scared and I hope the doctor gets your numbers down for you. Time to hit the Atkins and get serious. Diabetes is nothing to mess with. I'll fart around with my medical care but when it comes to diabetes I'm serious as heck and you should be too. The long term consequences of out-of-control diabetes are blindness and loss of limbs. We do not want to go there! Crap there are only a few ways that I don't want to die and being eaten is right up there with diabetes!

Three weeks on Atkins and you'll have lost weight and will no longer have those sugar cravings. You go girl. You try hard. You can do it. You prove to your doctor that Atkins works!

[imagood1]

Re: I'm scared!

[QUOTE=fluffy51;1075976]So I just don't know what to say anymore. I am frustrated beyond belief. I called my doctor to let her know my glucose readings. She asked if I was following the American Diabetes Assoc. diet. I told her no, that I was doing Atkins. She practically blew up, saying I am not to do Atkins, that I NEED to eat carbs, etc. So I sort of conducted my own little experiment this weekend by adding some carbs to my diet...bread mostly. My readings went up. So, do I disobey my doctor and do what I think is best for me? I'm not a doctor after all. I'm beginning to think she's only seeing dollar signs and wants to keep me on medication forever. I'm hoping that somday I will be able to get off medication altogether by following Atkins.
QUOTE]


One doctor told me to follow the ADA diet -- another told me to do the SALT diet -- my Internist sent me to a nutritionist -- none of these things did anything for me. By the way, you are eating carbs daily and unfortunately it doesn't sound like your doctor knows the facts about the Atkins plan but is going by heresay from the medical community. Sherri is the person you need to be talking to - she reversed her diabetes very shortly after starting Atkins and it hasn't reared it's ugly head in 5 years with her.

I won't tell you to disobey your doctor because that isn't what we should be doing here. You have to do what is best for you. If you feel you need more carbs daily then by all means, for your health, eat more carbs. None of us would want you to disobey your doctors orders. There is 1 man who's cardiologist hit the roof when he found out he was (successfully) doing Atkins so he added more carbs daily ... he doesn't post much anymore so I have no idea how he's doing but I hope he is doing well.

My doctor knows I'm loosing weight but has never ask how. I know how he feels about Atkins (he also has no facts only heresay) so I just don't bother to get into it with him. My endocrinologist never ask how I was eating so I just don't bother to say anything to her either. I do know my blood sugar numbers are down significantly since I started Atkins - my A1C is down more than half of where I began and that's because of following Atkins and I feel much better overall. The decision to be on the Atkins WOE was mine alone. I take full responsibility for my health and for what I put into my body daily. Tomorrow I go see both of them, we'll see how well my numbers really are!

I hope you can work this out and do whatever is best for you.

[Wintersnow]

Re: I'm scared!

Hey Fluffy, I see now that the quick comment I posted when you only had two comments on page one has suddenly appeared on page 3! So it's off topic and not applicable to the current discussion. Sorry about that chief.

Getting the medical intervention with the drugs wasn't all that bad of an idea. If you were on Atkins before you discovered your 335 number then it may have been much higher before that! I'd be interested to know what your fasting number was... the one you take first thing in the morning before eating or drinking anything - and what is was before you started taking the drugs.

The Atkins diet will lower your numbers to normal but you're going to need to manage the drugs and to stop taking the drugs eventually and to do that, while under a doctors care, you need a doctor that understands the low-carb lifestyle. Whatever you do don't call it Atkins in front of your doctor - call it a low carb/low glycemic index lifestyle. It is what is recommended by the current counsel on diabetes. Doctors that do not understand what it can do will freak out at the mention of Atkins so don't call it that in front of the doctors.

The drugs think you are eating like an American.... hamburgers, fries, white bread, and all that other garbage. That is why your doctor freaked out. Because she obviously KNOWS that. Goodness me you can eat sugar jelly on white bread while taking those pills - but your gonna get fat. Real fat.

Trying to heal your problem by lowering your intake of bad carbs is going to make your doctor have to work much harder. Most doctors will obey the AMA and their recommendations irregardless. They know that if they don't they risk loosing their license. Your doctor probably doesn't want to have to defend the Atkins diet before a committee of peers - another reason she may have freaked out.

When I faced what you are facing with your doctor, I knew I was going to loose my medical insurance very shortly so I HAD to fix myself. I couldn't afford the drugs. Atkins did it for me. It will do it for you.

If you tell your doctor that you do not want to take the drugs she will write in your medical records that you are uncooperative and argumentative. So try saying instead that you want to try to control it with your lifestyle and with her help.

After all she is a woman. Woman want to nurture. Let's hope she became a doctor because she wanted to help people... not because she wanted to buy a mercedes.

Good luck.

[sweeten09]

Re: I'm scared!

Fluffy, my blood sugar was historically over 200-250and sometimes over 300. Doctor put me on insulin and I take Metformin and glyburide. As of yesterday and after 5 months on Atkins, my blood sugar is 97-112 daily and my meds are drastically reduced. I guess the diet really works. My weight loss is slow but having the low sugar is my reward. Good luck, this is my second time around and really taking it more seriously.

[fluffy51]

Re: I'm scared!

Okay, so can anyone tell me how to go about searching for a doctor who understands us wanting to do low carb? I was at the doctors office this morning, showed her my numbers, which are doing really well.....almost always within normal, once in a while just a little high, once in a while in the low range. And she wanted to increase my medication!! But since she prescribed more antibiotics for my infection and added lisinopril and a cholesterol drug (my cholesterol is only a very little high) she said she will wait another month to increase it. Why in the world does she want to increase it when my readings are doing so well??? I am totally confused. At my next visit in July if she tells me she wants to increase it, believe me I will question that!

I'm also disappointed that I've only lost 14 pounds since April 22, my first doctors visit (I wasn't officially diagnosed with diabetes until April 29). I didn't get totally serious with Atkins until the second week in May after our vacation to Las Vegas. Thinking it's partly due to the medication, don't really know. But, as Sweet Strudel tells me, I should be happy with that!

At the advice of Sherri I am going to start taking Olive Leaf extract, pro-biotics, and Liopic Acid (I ALWAYS spell that wrong!) I haven't told my doctor about all the supplements I'm taking because I know she would tell me not to take them. I'm convinced she wants to keep me on meds forever when my goal is to kick them to the curb sometime in the future.

Sherri should be an inspiration to us all and I thank her so much for all the information you've given me so far!

My daughter in law, along with about 9 other girls are forming their own little club called F.A.C. (fat *** club) which I'm going to join. We each weigh ourselves at her salon once a week--no one knows our numbers, there is just a chart and we have to record if we've lost, gained or stayed the same. $1 if we haven't lost or if we miss a weigh in. Whoever has lost the largest percent of weight come Labor Day wins the pot! It'll be even more incentive for me and should be fun to see how we're all doing.

I want to thank each and every one of you for your support, information, and words of encouragement!

[imagood1]

Re: I'm scared!

fluffy -- the meds you are on is what keeps your weight loss slow. We are all in the same boat here -- I see people who started a month or more after I have who are now posting 50 pounds lost and here I sit with 33 gone but believe me when I loose these pounds I don't have to worry about coming back and being a STAC member. It's so hard to loose the weight at this point in my life I can't imagine waiting another 5 years and trying to do it all over.

I would ask your doctor her reasoning for wanting to up your meds - I'd question her also about that. As far as finding a doctor who understands, well, if you know someone who is on Atkins and their doctor approves that would be one way. Neither of my doctors know the plan I'm on and I don't want to get into it because this is working for me and I don't need any negative responses to what I am doing. I saw my Endocrinologist yesterday and she ask "are you still on your diet"...I responded "yes" - I am on a diet and I am STILL on a diet so I answered truthfully. I am, however, not on the ADA diet she suggested or the SALT diet the Internist suggested or the HIGH CARB/low fat diet the nutritionist had me on. The nutritionist didn't call it HIGH CARB/low fat that's what I called it because as she described it to me for every 15 carbs in a food you count it as 1 carb....so 15 carbs = 1 .... and I was suppose to eat 15 "carbs" each day .... so my total of carbs was what we on Atkins would count as 225 carbs daily. So I called it HIGH CARB because it was!

Stay on course and loose as your body lets you. Keep up your water intake and exercise plus watch the veggies - pick ones lower or lowest on the glycemic index - that will help alot also.

Good luck.

[fluffy51]

Re: I'm scared!

Okay, I must really be losing it. I've decided to stay on induction for at least a minimum of two more weeks. I am just sure I read somewhere that if you stay on induction more than two weeks you should add nuts. Kind of seems to me it was in Dr. Atkins Diabetes Revolution book but not sure......unless it was in my dreams!!! Sweet Strudel tells me I can't have them yet but geeze, she can't be right about EVERYTHING!!

[imagood1]

Re: I'm scared!

nuts are rung 3 -- not before.

[Dorrie]

Re: I'm scared!

Hi Fluffy! I hope you are doing OK.
I started Atkins a month or so ago. I have had diabetes type2 for 2 1/2 years. I was on glyberide and meformin....my numbers were starting to creep up...especially if I was sick. If I followed the diet that the clinic set out for me I would be in a battle with my numbers EVERY day. To keep them down....and then came Atkins...I was worried about what the plan would do to my numbers...fats mostly worried me...BUT..
I am not on any meds now....I do not need them...my sugars are wonderful!! If I eat bread they aren't but when I eat the Atkins way....no issues.
I know that this will not necessarily happen for all diabetics but it has for me. I am so pleased! Never did I think I could go off my meds...especially this early into it!!
Hang in there Fluffy. Stay with us...see how it impacts you numbers and go from there.....I have a feeling you will be pleasantly suprised!! Of course it is all up to you and I am not a doc but I really wanted to share my personal experience with you...whatever you end up doing I wish you health and happiness! Hugs Dorrie

[fluffy51]

Re: I'm scared!

Wellll.......where do I begin.....I've been missing in action, there's so much going on in this thing I call a life. Long story short, I asked my husband to move out of the house on Father's Day. I'm just not able to tolerate the stress of this relationship any longer. I won't bore anyone with details. But, I'm seeing a lawyer today to start divorce proceedings. I'm sure this will get real ugly before it's all over. Which of course doesn't help with the diet or blood sugar.

The day after he moved out my gramma died. She was 97 years old but she was a special lady to me, I spent so much time at my grandparents farm growing up. But she's in a better place now and we don't have to see her suffer.

The diet hasn't been going great either I have to say.....although.....the wonderful news is that since the end of April I have lost 27 pounds! I'm ecstatic about that. Now I just need to get back on track eating correctly and my glucose numbers should reflect that. I have my fingers crossed that my A1C will be much closer to normal in a month when I have it tested again....although I have been on antibiotics three times in the past 6 weeks, just can't seem to get over this crud I have.

Anyway, just wanted to check in. Hopefully things in my life will begin to straighten themselves out and I will check in more often.

Hope everyone else is doing well!

[Dorrie]

Re: I'm scared!

Hi there Fluffy!! I am sorry to hear about your Gramma. I still have both of my Gramas..they are both 90 and I do love them so. Hugs to you.
I hope you are doing Ok with the lawyer thing. It must very difficult for you dealing with your Grammas passing AND starting divorce proceedings....BUT...it is good to see you back around here!!!!! We have been camping for the last week and are heading out again on Mon - Fri again.
I need to catch back up here..I miss it when I am away!!
Good to see you back Fluffy!!