CatHerder's Journal, 02 Mar 16

Diabetes is an extreme balancing act. Watching my mom deal with it has been a large part of my weight loss decision. My doctor telling me I couldn't do it was another. When I initially lost the weight, he looked at me like I'd just picked his pocket. I probably had. :) 

He can't make as much money off of you now :) 

I was just told that my blood work shows that technically im diabetic.. I said, well dont write that down just yet... Im on a LC diet and I DO NOT want anymore pills (heart issues).. .so that's why Im here.. I wish the weight would come off faster though...  

Penster. It'll come off. You've made the right decision. You are being proactive and that's great. You should also know that what is considered 'prediabetic' or 'technically diabetic' keeps creeping lower and lower in the blood sugar ranges. After all, they have meds to sell. As far as I'm concerned everyone could be classified as pre-diabetic and oddly, the drug companies share that view. There was a push recently to try to get everyone on the pill as a preventative measure. Read the labels. Do your research. Take meds only if you're convinced they're what's best. 

Penster12 - I was also pre-diabetic and I have 5 stents in my heart so that's something I did not want to complicate things. I've lost about 85lbs from my heaviest, blood sugar levels are excellent and I'm even reversing my heart disease. So there is great reason to hope and to work hard to get to where you want to be. Keep at it, slow and steady is a good recipe for lasting success. 

I think they may need to make a couple of subclasses for type 2 diabetics. Both my parents have it but neither were ever fat. They also ate healthy. There is another thing that's going on that explains the explosion in overweight in young people, and that is if a pregnant woman has an impaired pancreas it alters the fetus' pancreas size. This increases the likelihood that the child will have trouble processing carbohydrates, be overweight and develop type 2 diabetes early in life. Then there's the weird thing that happens with people who have lap band or other gastro surgeries to lose weight - type 2 diabetes goes away before hardly any weight is lost. Nobody understands why. Some researchers believe it's an autoimmune disease. Ultimately though, it seems going low carb is the best shot at keeping blood sugars in a reasonable range. 

Hey CatHerder, I was pre-diabetic mid last year...what a shock as I was fairly active and had really good cardio for my weight. However, poor eating habits and/or genetics trump exercise every time. Thankfully all good now, month by month working towards a stabilized new normal. 

That makes sense. And another reason to eat better and get the weight off. Thanks for the motivation.  

What is interesting and sad is that when your Dr. prescribes Metformin or other Diabetic drugs to stimulate greater insulin production, people assume it's their lack of insulin making them diabetic. The greater insulin production now leads to greater fat storage and greater pancreatic fat stores and your diabetes gets worse not better....then you go from pills to direct insulin shots in your arm and now you are very efficient at storing fat. Not one of these is intended to rid you of Type II Diabetes.. 

frightening thought.. never intended to rid you of Type II - SCARY! 

Thanks for pointing that out MJ...I had firsthand experience with my father on how that plan didn't work, once you're on the diabetic "rails" it's a nightmare. 

For anyone that has Type II Diabetes...i'm sure we would all be interested to know an answer to this question: "Dr, how many patients with Type II Diabetes have you cured, meaning they now have normal blood glucose levels without the using of medication or insulin?". Ask that and watch them squirm :-) 

Mahjohn, the whole metformin thing drives me nuts. Would we ever say something like "Your heart function is having trouble keeping up with demand, no need to exercise, we'll just give you a pill to make your heart pump harder"? Physicians also decide what your insulin dose should be and then tell you how you should eat to match the meds. Not one word ever about reducing carbs and increasing their quality which has been shown to reduce or 'cure' diabetes. 

They used to make sure you were consuming a certain (large) number of carbs before they did the blood tests - for "accuracy." Well, if you aren't eating that way, how is the test accurate? 

I gree Trackin. Here (in Canada) they take a pre sample, then give you a dose of essentially pure sugar water which you have to choke down in front of them then they measure your bs a half hour later to see you you responded. How did I respond this time? "I'm not doing that. Take the blood for this historical responses, and watch out the the sweetart binges." 

It's glaring how little some Dr's actually know and that once they leave medical school they stop learning and rely on drug sales reps to tell them what's the latest drug to boost income and retain patients. 

Also NM, although there is LOTS of great information regarding avoiding or "fixing" T2D available for us non-Doctor folks, some of us don't want to hear it (my dad), or just ignore it (my dad) until it's too late. I can't count how many times in the last ten years of his life he said he'd have liked a do over...his words "if I'd known I was going to live this long I'd have treated myself better". Finally, the more a person knows, the more scared you should be about ignoring available information and trusting that medications are the answer to an unhealthy lifestyle.. 

Agree! 

Thnx again MJ! 

@Steven, I have a co-worker...same as as me, in fact he's two days older than me. Sleep Apnea, Type II Diabetes, Gout, High Cholesterol, Smoking. His response.."i quit". He asks for any help...all he says is "so you're not eating breakfast"...next thing you know, he's quit breakfast for a week....then quit again. Some people you can't help, because the truth is that they don't want it...they're quite happy with their junk food and their Diabetes, so long as they can get their meds.