I was diagnosed in my (type 2 ) 40’s had gestational diabetes in my late 20’s. At first I dropped 35 lbs and got my A1c from 9.3 to 6.3. A few yrs later I hit a denial phase gained back a few lbs but never went over 7 and my Dr never complained said I was doing well. But got back on the straight and narrow after a few yrs and kept my A1c around 6. Last 10yrs A1c has been in the 5.5 range currently 5.2. I do have some mild neuropathy in my feet and scalp. But not much of a problem yet and I am 74 yrs young. So I am hoping it will stay as is. Tempted at times to pretend I am normal. But this group keeps me going!

This is why Diabetes needs to be "managed" with a plan from the beginning

If you are in your 40's or 50's when diagnosed with Type 2 (or younger) you NEED to get control quickly (first couple of years) and maintain "non-diabetic" numbers for as long as possible while you are young, cumulative damage hasn't set in yet, and you need to maintain it until you have "kicked the can" far enough down the road that the Beast won't get you before you die of (old age)

The problem with the overwhelming majority of Type 2's is they either outright ignore the problem (70% of Type 2's currently have an A1C over 7.0%) and cause a lot of damage in the early years OR they mistakenly believe that an A1C of 7.0% is "good enough"

If you are in your mid-60's or younger and your A1C has been a "what they call controlled" 7.0% for the past few years, it is "unlikely" that you will live to see Life Expectancy (early 80's)

7.0% will buy you 10 years before the worst complications start setting in and reach the point of inevitability and then take another 10 years to take you out

Maybe not a concern if you are older than 70, but if you are just in your 50's maybe don't make too many plans for your "golden years"

But the Medical Establishment at least in most of the Western World won't tell you that because the perceived negative effects on the mental health from "knowing you are killing yourself" is considered worse then drastically reducing your life expectancy

We have morphed into a society where "how we feel about things" has been elevated to the point that we are living unhealthy, and shaving years and years of function off our lives in order not to hurt anyone's feelings

Unfortunately for Us, Diabetes doesn't care how we feel about it, how hard it is to control, how many cravings we have or how depressing and life altering it may be

Control = long life, good function and die of old age (or something else)

No Control = A1C above 6.5% WILL result in micro and macro vascular damage 100% of the time and on average will shave 15 to 20 years of function and life from the uncontrolled Type 2

And the longer you go uncontrolled in the early years, the less ability you have to control it later - too much cumulative damage gets done and can not be reversed

@A DiabetesTeam Member
I feel that the Newcastle diet is a little too drastic and too rapid a change although to be fair their target group consists mainly of newly diagnosed diabetics or what is called pre diabetics.

It would be interesting to see how those on the Newcastle diet that “reversed” their diabetes are faring.

My diabetes journey has been long with bruises from many a fall off the wagon.

When I exercise be it in the gym or on a 15+ mile walk then my BGs are either <6.0 (108) or 6.0 - 8.0 (144). That looks impressive but it only occurs after a fair amount of physical exertion and without that exertion my glucose numbers start to creep up to >8.6 (154.8) irrespective of my very low carb consumption.

And of course I’m reliant on my daily dose of 40mg Gliclazide (a sulfonylurea) and 500mg Metformin.

For me the trick is to use the meds as an aid not a crutch. If eventually I can come off the meds then that’s the icing on the cake but I’m not making it into a big goal or some sort of macho thing.

I agree that the body gets used to high glucose and treats anything below that as a sort of hypo like emergency and often the liver dumps glucose in response which can be frustrating. Metformin can help here.

The interesting thing for me that when my BGs start to go down I get a return of complications albeit temporary and in a mild form.

I’m 73 years old and it’s 28 years since I’ve been diagnosed.

People call T2 diabetes the beast. I call it my guardian as without I would have died an unnecessary death due to my booze swilling, high calorie, high carb couch potato lifestyle.

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A Diabete...

@A DiabetesTeam Member totally agree - whatever the ultimate cause was it was apparently triggered (probably) by the "drastic change"

And certainly even in our group here you will hear somebody say they "felt weird or funny or light headed etc" because their blood sugar had dropped to say 120 and normally it was up around 200

The body gets "used to" the high sugar even though its causing damage and will "react" when you take it away - they are having "high sugar" withdrawals and who knows what physiological, neurological and a few more "ical" effects on the body

For most of us it took a couple decades to "mess up" our metabolism, sure, try and fix it over a couple of years - maybe a few weeks is Not a good idea 😁

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A Diabete...

@A DiabetesTeam Member I agree completely, blanket statements or methods or treatment plans work for "nobody" very efficiently

We all have to weigh the pro's/con's ourselves

Personally I believe in vaccines, I take the prophylactic meds because I believe "for me" the potential benefits outweigh the potential side effects

But that is a decision I made, for myself, given my (whole) health picture, family history etc and that is the right choice for me

Maybe not for anyone else

The issue I have is the total lack of education for "patient" to really make an informed decision

Most see their Doctor as some all knowing Oracle even though all the Doc is doing is plugging the symptoms and labs into a computer and it's spitting out a treatment guideline designed by someone they don't know and can't even hope to understand the science involved

And the guidelines says if patients A1C is X do this, if their Cholesterol is this, prescribe that - still high next time, up this, add that

They are following a play book

For "most" it's not a terrible way to do it, it works "ok" for 80 or 85%

A good Doc might fine tune your (plan) particularly if you are well informed and engage in your decisions

Unfortunately not many are like that so it falls to the patient to educate themselves and most wouldn't know where to start and many wouldn't even see the need - their attitude is "The Doc will take care of it"

When I see a comment - "My Doctor will be happy" I just don't understand that

Who cares if the Doctor is happy - are you happy - the Doc's threshold is pretty low compared what mine is - they will be golfing in Maui long after I'm gone 😁

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A Diabete...