Medicaton and prediabetes

jeanie I'm interested in your post because my husband has just been warned that he is on the point of developing type 2 diabetes and is this month trying to follow a very strict diet so that he need not take medication. (He already has a very sensible diet and has always been slightly under his recommended weight, so it isn't a weight issue).

I don't quite understand your post - what has lactose in it? Antihistamine is prescribed for itching so I assume you mean the steroids. Steroids aren't treatment for pre-diabetes are they? I'm confused.

Has the itching subsided now?

jeannie, are you thinking that the lactose in your pills will bump up your blood sugar levels significantly? Why don't you ask your pharmacist? I have a feeling they will be able to reassure you that that is not the case. However, if you do ask and my surmise is wrong, please let me know.

The amount of lactose in a tablet must be very small and surely not enough to impact on your blood sugar levels?

I wonder if it's the steroids?

Just googled this and find that many hundreds of pills contain lactose as a filler or a coating. However it should not be sufficient to raise your blood sugar levels too much. Have you just started taking these pills recently? I'd agree you should check with your pharmacist, but suspect the answer lies elsewhere.

My DH was pre-diabetic on two occasions. His mother and a brother had type 2 diabetes. The first time a low carb diet brought his blood sugar levels way down, but after a couple of years he started to lapse diet-wise and levels crept up again. He's now back on a low carb diet and I'm keeping him company. Blood sugar levels are back to normal and this time he's accepted it's a lifestyle change that has to stay.

I agree if the pills are small lactose is unlikely to affect blood sugar. Have you given up milk? - because that contains lactose and a lot more than you could cram into a tiny pill.
I've noticed that indigestion pills contain sugar and if someone is taking several a day might be more significant (the chewable, over the counter ones).

Steroid-induced diabetes is a known condition.

Raised blood sugar levels are a side effect of lots of blood pressure tablets, too. It's not the amount of lactose that is the problem, but the actual active ingredient.

Hi everyone, I have not been on the site for some time but here goes.

Eloethan

I was diagnosed as prediabetic over two years ago a routine blood test. As I was not overweight and an active individual I was surprised.
Doc said I would probably become a type 2 diabetic. My result was 42 which is just in the scale for prediabetes 42 - 47 is pre.
I said I was going to have a go at making some changes to my diet and spoke to the hospital dietician but she said my diet was good and probably I wouldn't be able to change.
I have a friend with diabetes and he is not well at all and I was determined to at least try and stay within the pre range.
I found the this website have a look
www.diabetes.org.uk/
and received lots of help and encouragement and by buying a meter and testing I now have a good idea of what foods I should avoid.
My second blood test was normal the next one 41 and the most recent test result is 42. I knew it would be higher because we had been away and eating out so expected it.
But the thing is I know I can make a difference I just have to keep on top of it. It's ok to have the occasional splurg just don't do it every week.
My problem as been loosing weight one and half stone which I really don't want to loose and the doc said I should try and put half a stone on and I have done by eating nuts.
Get your husband to have a look at the website, there are lots of people who can offer advice and make suggestions it's a good community.

The lactose information is from a diabetic site and is as follows:

Lactose is like sucrose, a disaccharide, made up of 1 molecule of glucose and 1 molecule of galactose. The lactose is split in the intestine, with the glucose going into the blood stream and raising blood sugar. The galactose goes to the liver and is metabolised there. The carbohydrate in milk for example is lactose, and yes it will raise your blood sugar.

I just know while I was taking steroids and antihistamine my blood sugar levels were higher now I am not taking the medication it as dropped.
You have to remember whatever you take or eat can have different effects on different individuals. It's trial and error with food but worth the effort.
Best of luck

Jeanie Thank you so much for the very detailed and helpful information.

My husband is still persevering with his strict diet. He doesn't have a weight problem but is hoping that avoiding certain foods might help him avoid developing type 2 diabetes. It's a very limiting diet, especially as he's also a strict vegetarian. He's bought some of the Swedish breakfast cereal that is said to reduce cholesterol and blood sugar levels (he says it tastes like cardboard!). I hope he can tackle this with diet as he's very averse to taking any sort of medication. From what I've read, I'm quite convinced that significant increases in exercise levels have helped a lot of people - but I haven't been able to convince him.

What is the meter that you mentioned? I looked briefly at the website you recommended but couldn't at first glance see a reference to it.

Thanks for your good wishes - and all the best to you too.

Eloethan at the risk of being obvious is your DH amenable to brisk walking, rather than the gym, for exercise?

There are so many fascinating walks in London and it's very easy to avoid traffic fumes!

Riverwalk He takes the dog for a walk every evening for about an hour (I do the same in the morning) but I'm not sure how "brisk" that walk is. He also does gardening fairly regularly.

However, in the past we went walking together, taking the dog on long walks through Epping Forest. But my husband developed a painful knee and had to have minor surgery. He had to cut down on the walks and has now got out of the habit of them.

Well an hour's walk every day, no matter how leisurely, is a good thing.

A pity about the knee - it's a bit of a bugger when one part of the body has such an effect on the rest!

You shouldn't need to buy a blood testing meter. If you need one it should be on the NHS.
I still have a Bayer Contour one which is very easy to use, as sold by the diabetic association.
If the diabetes nurse feels your husband needs one, then he should be given one. One of the problems was that type two diabetics used to complain about not being given enough testing strips and often had to buy those, but not the meter itself.

I think Eloethan's DH is pre-diabetic and as such would he qualify for an NHS funded kit?

Probably not, but if he's prediabetic he would not need one. Far too much testing goes on. If he knew what his bloodsugar was, it'd probably put up his blood pressure, and that would be just as bad.

You will not be encouraged by the GP to test most pre diabetes are told you shouldn't need to but to hell with that. I wanted to take control of my body and felt I was quite capable of making the choices about what foods were best for me and the only way to do this is test.

You will not be provided with a meter on the NHS so will need to buy it together with the strips and lancets.

I use Codefree blood glucose monitoring system the meter lancets and strips buying them from Amazon they seem to be the cheapest.
You buy the strips and lancets as you need them.

Leave a message on the Pre diabetic page and you'll get plenty of answers to any of the questions you might have.

Food wise for me these are the no no
Potatoes, sweet corn, parsnips,pineapple

I eat sweet potatoes small amounts,cauli, brocolli,cabbage etc
but you need to keep the carbs down to what you can get away with.

No white bread or white flour, or white rice, or white pasta
I eat soya and linsead bread and small amounts of brown rice and pasta

No pastries, cakes, pies, or foods with over 3 g sugar per 100g
I do have the occasional cake but not every week just use common sense.

Some people can eat larger amounts of fat but I can't as I have a farely high cholesterol.

I eat yogurt and have to read all the labels because most companies up the fat when reducing sugar so watch out for this.

These are just a few of the foods I have to consider, but these foods are the ones that effect me they may not raise your husbands blood sugar level.

I have managed to do this with the help of my meter so I think it is worth it, oh and I keeps records of my readings for future information for the GP and have managed to keep to a low level so far.

I do not understand your statement about yogurt.
Every food has 100%. If fat is reduced from 6% to 2%, for example, that 4% has to be either protein, fibre or carbohydrate. Just by taking fat out, the other values have to go up.
I have two pots of Alpro soya yogurt. One has almonds in, the other is plain. The sugar content is the same, but the almond one has a higher carbohydrate content. It has higher fat, and fibre just by adding 1.3% almonds. It all adds up to roughly 10% because the rest is water which is not measurable on nutrition labels.

Jeanie, you said you did a fasting prick test in your opening staement and it was 11.2. I always thought that was quite high.

That's why she was shocked...

But the last sentence of her last post said that she had managed to keep to a low level so far.

11.2 is very high and almost certainly due to the steroids - no amount of careful eating can counter the effect of steroids.

How often do you test yourself, Jeanie?

Do you use the glycaemic index to check on foods? It was developed for diabetes and is a useful system. I actually eat sweet potatoes rather than ordinary potatoes. The GI of potatoes depends on how you cook them, with mashed potatoes being the worst.

Eloethan, the book I have is The Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook by Dr Jennie Brand-Miller. It has recipes and menus for vegetarians and vegans.
I like doing recipes out of it when I have people over for a meal. Most of the time just for me it's a stir fry with various noodles or chickpeas.

The test the GP does looks at blood glucose levels over a three month period, the prick test I do is what my blood glucose is at that moment in time.

I know the foods now that are best for me so don't need to test regularly, I just test when I think it is necessary.
I do check out the GI index yes.

I have found there is no such thing as a Diabetes diet it's what works for you as an individual.

I never eat potatoes mashed or otherwise it takes my blood level up.

The 11.2 is very high it's diabetes level but it was high at the time I was taking Steroids and Antihistamines.

The initial statement I made was just to say you need to consider medication if you are pre diabetic or diabetic as this can alter your readings I was just saying this as a consideration.