What is his job? Mine is in charge of pre-owned inventory for three car dealerships and does the work of a sales manager w/o the official title.

Insurance Agency that never stops. Just when you solve five tasks ten more pop up...all day long non-stop.

I just posted this in my journal. Thought it would be good food for thought for both you and your H.

Here's how you get off of it:

Low Carb. I mean, really low carb. Get the Atkins '72 book and follow induction the the letter. Climb the ladder, to the letter. That is all you need to do.

I have been thinking I would ask my doctor to check it. I am mystified about tonight as well. I took my reading right before dinner and it was 102, I think. I caved and had about 10g worth of carbs in a glass of V8 juice. Then I had two eggs with one slice of cheese, and 1 oz. of greek yogurt stirred in with one or two carbs worth of spray cream. That would have been about 12 grams. My reading at 3 hours pp was 121. I was very surprised. I meant to check it at 2 hrs. but got distracted. Here lately, I have been higher right before a meal than pp, if I eat at the 4- 6 gram level. I don't understand that. That 12 g. meal doesn't follow that pattern but I won't have anymore V8 anytime soon, you can bet. It just makes no sense to me for my sugar to go down after eating.

Looks like we posted at the same time!

Good to hear you have a grip on carb counting.

He gets symptoms like low sugar when he doesn't eat. He did even when he was far from diabetic. We've been married for 35 years and he was that way when he was a 160 lb. body builder in his twenties. And yet, I don't think he ever actually reads below 200. When he was coming off of his seven day fast in his hospital treatment for pancreatitis, he still had high bg. They prescribed insulin but it gave him roller coaster nos. and his internist took him off of it. I did see him at 150-something the first day or two home from the hospital when he was too scared to eat anything, nearly, and I was choosing his food. That's the lowest I've seen him. He may have still been on the insulin then, too. I can't really remember.

Hey, I just remembered, the 121 seemed so weird I tested again and got 112. how do I know which is right? It's still too high.

[QUOTE=gonwtwindo]Looks like we posted at the same time!

Good to hear you have a grip on carb counting.[/QUOTE

I should. I've been on and off lc so many times, it's stupid. I lost 70 pounds in '99, in six months, with Protein Power. It's harder now and has been ever since I regained that first loss. I'm hoping IF will help me more, now.

Well, then he might need to eat more frequently. If he hardly ever reads below 200 his kidneys are taking a beating. Take a good honest look at his carbs - weigh his foods and record.

I'm sure he would agree to eating more often. Thanks for the input. going to bed now.

As for the symptoms like low blood sugar, I have had these a lot, and even though my blood sugar was not low or high, it felt like it. It had a lot to do with what I had eaten, previously. Usually it was a higher sugar breakfast in those days, like pancakes and syrup (not sugar free). I can still do it to myself these days if I eat a higher than normal sugary meal, then don't eat for awhile. Add coffee, and there is enough to make me free really jittery, sweaty, and weak. The only thing that solved these episodes was to never really spike my sugars at all. If I keep them level, I never get this.

His situation sounds scary. I know you had roller coaster levels on insulin but he needs greater medical and dietary intervention to get him leveled out. Soon you won't be talking about tingling in toes, you will be talking about amputations, loss of eyesight, and other issues.

To have that high of BG, after that meal, and after that time passed, is frightening. I recall the day that I was diagnosed with diabetes, I cried in the doctor's office. I was scared. And I've never had these kinds of numbers except in rare high sugar meal situations. I hope the gradual approach works for him, but I'm doubtful that most of us make the kinds of changes he's going to need to make without a serious reversal in lifestyle. I think Dr Fung's protocol of Intermittent fasting and a low carb diet could be a great solution because I think his BGs would level out nicely.

Ann I'm going to be straight with you, if your husband's bg numbers are always over 200, and even worse, if they are regularly over 300 (and if he did eat nothing after dinner and had a reading of 350 that many hours after, then his one and two hour post meal may well have been above 400.

At this level he is doing damage to many body systems, not just his kidneys and is at risk of leg and foot ulcers, gangrene, amputation, blindness, kidney failure and circulatory disorders such as heart disease and stroke.

When was his last A1C taken?

The reality is that he needs to take action to reduce his bg. Until he can (or is willing to) make lifestyle changes, he needs to seek medical help and medication to put a stop to the current damage being done. This may well include insulin.

Get him to a doctor, get an A1C done.

In the meantime, do trials at the weekend to show him how what he thinks are healthy meals impact his bg. Maybe this will shock him into total lifestyle change.

If he's not willing to make the required lifestyle changes to get his bg below 160 post meal then he needs medication to control this. Lifestyle change is the best way to handle diabetes, way better than medication, but it's not something that can be done half heartedly with someone with bg that high. The aim is to prevent the damaging high bg, and if it can't be done with diet then it needs meds.

Just to reiterate, he needs to get his bg below 160, preferably below 140 to prevent long term damage to his body.

+1

I did when I was a teenager. I think it is kind of typical when your insulin levels race up and down with carbs.

Eventually your body gets used to being at a certain level and lowering it gives you symptoms. It is sometimes call "false hypoglycemia". The way to work around it is to slowly lower carbs and let your body get used to lower levels.

If it is happening when he misses meals, he should have low carb snacks throughout the day. Maybe he could carry some nuts in a bag and stick it in a pocket.

He is under a doctor's care but I don't ever remember seeing an A1C number. He is on Metformin, 2000 mg./day. His fbg this morning was 311.

I wrote in detail about the challenges he faces with his meals. I made him a breakfast of about 12g/c this morning. Eggs/cheese/a couple of bites of sausage and a small amount of refried beans. No milk, which would have been his go-to. He had a sf energy drink instead. He will pick up either almonds and/or some pork rinds for snacking. He likes cream cheese, too, so I will send some of that for him. He just eats it off the spoon.
As for his lunch choices, I asked him what he had yesterday. It was chicken w/a sweet sauce and rice. This will take some doing. My new solution is for him to decide ahead of time where he will go and what he will order for lunch. It's making a decision while under work stress that will undermine any determination he tries to muster. I know it's my weakness, as well. I try not to make food decisions when stressed.
He also needs to unlearn the concept that nourishment in food offsets sugar damage. He thinks that vitamins and minerals mitigate bad aspects of food by being some kind of buffer.
Since starting this thread, I have moved both of us from what seemed like an insurmountable challenge to one with some strategies that we can use to get him turned around. The comments and suggestions I've gotten from y'all have helped an awful lot. I appreciate it tremendously.
I'm actually the one stressing over whether he will be aggravated by making these choices. I commented this morning that while examining his choices so critically, it might seem like yet another stressor but that getting his sugar under control will make it easier to deal with the other stress in his life. He said it wasn't stressful, it was just a decision to be made. I was glad to hear that. It was better than his previous comments.
I also pointed out that since he left off the sugary treats, the side dishes he goes for are pretty much eating the modern ADA diet and it is not helping him at all. I wanted to head off the misinformation he will get when we go to his mom's house for meals. She thinks she has good bg control but she is on insulin. She has been told and believes the myth about how it will get worse over time no matter what you do. She says her grandfather was very strict with his foods, eating the old diabetes diet and his diabetes progressed as he got older. For that reason, it's useless to cite studies at her. I simply don't believe he was as strict as she remembers it. I will simply point out that for about three weeks now, he has eaten the way she does and he isn't improving.