That is a very good way of looking at the challenges of diabetes. I am at work today, btw but looking through the link that you gave me, it's pretty good, I have it in favs, in fact.

I do feel a little better today. We are really more fortunate than our parents were. Meds are getting better and longer acting insulins, more choices..

I hope you all who are giving me advice are doing well yourselves and having a good Thanksgiving. I'll have something when I go home but I am gonna watch it!

ShesGG, what does a typical daily menu look for you know (before low carbing)?
It may be that a change in menus is more what you need than a change in medications.

I'm sure I am eating too many carbs but my blood sugar has been ok until recently. I think my metabolism is really messed up. I work out 30 minutes a day, not everyday but I try.

Morning

If I have time, 2 eggs, 2 pieces of toast, butter, if scrambled eggs, I add cheese.

Or a packet of oatmeal, or leftovers from dinner. Could be anything.

Lunch

Usually a sandwich made with pump and rye swirl bread, butter, some kind of meat and mayo or mustard. Maybe tomatoes. Diet pop. The bread is 12 net grams.

Dinner

Meat, some kind of veggie, pasta or potato. Diet pop and water until bedtime. If I get hungry, I have a snack of cheese and those veggie crackers. 3 of them are 10 grams.

I would like to know what your diet is like. I've seen many of your posts here and you seem to have it all together.

ShesGG, I pretty much stick with Bernstein's 6-12-12 formula. Occasionally (like for a holiday), I'll go 12 higher but that's more the exception than the rule.
Breakfast usually is black unsweetened coffee and a couple of eggs or a mock danish or a serving of my homemade flax cereal (mixture of ground flax, wheat bran and unsweetened dried coconut mixed with heavy cream, Splenda and butter). Sometimes I'll have cereal and eggs (still less than 6 grams of carb for breakfast) but I'm not usually that hungry in the morning.
Lunch is usually some type of leftover meat and either a salad or a veggie.
Or I'll make a rollup with a low carb tortilla and lunchmeat, mayo, mustard and lettuce if there's no leftovers from the night before.
During the winter, I'll often have a pot of low carb soup in the refrigerator; (vegetable beef, broccoli cheese or chicken) and take a container of that for lunch.
Dinner is pretty much the same as lunch; some sort of meat, some sort of veggie (or two).

It's not all as plain and boring as it sounds. I like to cook with lots of herbs, spices, garlic and onions and there are some rockin' recipes in the Low Carb Recipes forum.

Looking at your menus, it looks reasonable from an ADA perspective, but your blood sugar readings are giving you a clear message that it's more than your body can handle, even with your current medication regime. Many people find that they do okay on that sort of regimen for a while (myself included), but then they need to add more medication or a different medication to keep their blood sugars in range and the whole cycle starts up again.
I got off that merry go round when my blood sugars got out of control the first time and I wound up on meds and my doctor's POV was that what was happening was invitable I could expect more meds as time went on and eventually insulin. That just wasn't a road I wanted to continue going down if I could avoid it.

Thanks, I have been looking at the recipes and some of them are outstanding. I will try them.

My doctor will be ok with low carbing as long as the labs are coming back ok. She has specifically mentioned caution about my kidneys which I mentioned that on another thread. She does lab work religiously and calls to go over the results so if anything is out of whack, it is addressed immediately. She is expecting Deterioration as well. It gets a little depressing talking to her about it actually.

I'm drinking a lot of water and my sugars have been real good today.

"Deterioration" of your kidney function? How have your tests come back, so far?

Please read the Bernstein book. He was testing posititve for serious amounts of protein in his urine until he began controlling his BG. Even then, it took around 5 to 6 years for the kidneys to heal, ever since, all of his kidney tests have come back perfectly normal.

There are no guarantees, except for perhaps this one: if you do NOT get your blood sugar to a normal/safe range, then yes, the bad stuff will happen.

I'll second what Daryl said about kidney function and low carbing. I've been doing this for several years now and my kidney function is fine.
What really damages the kidneys is high blood sugars, not the protein in your diet. I'm afraid that your doctor may be basing their opinion on outdated information in this regard. Studies have shown that for those with normal kidney function, a high protein diet does not harm the kidneys. That said, most low carb plans aren't really high protein; they are adequate protein and higher fat.

I know, I want to get an Endo but there isn't one within 50 miles of here. I try to learn everything I can about any drug they prescribe. I don't think they are purposely trying to hurt me, they are just doing what they know to do. I am taking responsibility and I do tell her what I know from researching different things like the statins they tried to put me on at one point.

They test my urine once a year for albumin, btw. The only problems they had were when I had bladder tumors and it showed that I was somewhat anemic. I had part of my bladder removed and no recurrance in two years of cancer. My urologist was having me suffer cystoscopes every 3 months the first year, then six months and now once a year. He tested for cancer cells in the urine every time and they are always negative now so the urine tests my primary does are always normal.

My urologist even scoped up into my kidneys in May and everything was good.

When I say I have been reading this site for awhile, I mean I soak up everything I can get my hands on that can shed light on my issues. You all have been so helpful to me even before this thread.

It's good here.

Wow ShesGG, you've had some real trials to overcome, huh? Glad the bladder cancer is behind you, that must have been scary.

The good news is, low carb is the best diet for avoiding cancer, too. (Despite the mainstream medical community screaming "low fat" - there's never been a study to prove that helps). Cancer cells feed on sugar.
Here's a quote from Dr Eades:
"Cancer cells can’t use ketones for energy and must turn to glucose to grow and reproduce. Which, in my opinion, makes it almost criminal to put patients with cancer on low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets."

I agree The people and information here are first rate, and I am grateful to have found this site.

Now that is interesting news. I corresponded for awhile with another gal who had bladder cancer and she did tell me that cancer cells like fat. Nice to know low carbing might address cancer as well as diabetes.

I'm happy that the tumors are gone. I've had some things happen but I am so grateful for my family. My daughter helped me through so much.

I'm grateful for that too!

And I have to go back to Jenny's site and see what she has on Januvia.

The only bad side effect that I had read previously was your fingers tend to bleed a bit more from the testing.

Not having that problem yet myself.

And you got the whole body to go get blood if necessary.

I haven't found much of a difference in my BG reading if I get blood from my finger or elsewhere.

Ralph

It's a little scarier than that.

http://diabetesupdate.blogspot.com/...ther-dpp-4.html

My fingers are getting a little sore now that I am testing more. Not sure if I can do it on my arm or not with the one touch ultra two. It has a longer pen with an adjustment that lets you change the needle puncture.

About researching meds:
www.rxlist.com is great.Probably others.
Eddie