Diabetes "out of control" in most parts of England !!

Check out these links from The Telegraph and The Mail. Scary reading but doesn't have to and shouldn't happen to anyone here.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/11196241/Diabetes-out-of-control-in-most-parts-of-England.html


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2813452/Poor-care-diabetic-leads-120-amputations-325-strokes-268-heart-attacks-week-GPs-accused-failing-monitor-patients-vital-advice.html

mo1905 wrote:Check out these links from The Telegraph and The Mail. Scary reading but doesn't have to and shouldn't happen to anyone here.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/11196241/Diabetes-out-of-control-in-most-parts-of-England.html


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2813452/Poor-care-diabetic-leads-120-amputations-325-strokes-268-heart-attacks-week-GPs-accused-failing-monitor-patients-vital-advice.html

So stop taking away free meters and strips and telling people not to test, just to eat the eat well plate which as we all know DOES NOT WORK.

Totally agree ! The best tool for ANY diabetic is a blood glucose meter. T2's shouldn't have to beg for them, a short term investment will surely pay dividends down the line and will ultimately save the NHS money.

Quoting from one of the articles above,
"Ninety per cent of the cases are type 2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity, poor diet and sedentary lifestyles." (my bold)
The "poor diet" bit always makes me cross. For the best part of a quarter of a century I fed my family the government's idea of a healthy diet. Muesli (no added salt/sugar) with skimmed milk, a pile of fresh fruit and fruit juice for breakfast. Wholemeal or granary sandwiches at lunch time, plus more fruit. Wholemeal pasta, baked potatoes, brown rice as the basis of evening meals. We limited meat, removed fat, never even had butter in the house and very rarely an egg. You get the picture. We were the perfect "Eat Well" family. And now I find that, in reality we were eating a "poor diet", on government instructions. My husband became obese and diabetic, I was overweight. Going to the gym three times a week didn't make any difference.
So now we do low carb and we are slim and diabetes is largely history. Oh, to be able to put this on big posters all over the country and as ads on prime time TV.
Sally

Totally agree Sally. We've been brainwashed for years ! Eat low fat, plenty of cereal etc. When I was a kid there were a series of TV commercials challenging people with the line "bet you can't eat 3 Shredded Wheat" ! This is just one example. Butter was the food of the devil and bread and potatoes were a staple.
I do believe we lead a more sedentary lifestyle nowadays which doesn't help but low carbing is a no-brainer ! It's so frustrating that we can't reach out to more people.

It's YOUR fault you got diabetes. YOU ate a poor diet and YOU got fat. YOU were a prime candidate for it.

They don't get that obesity is just another symptom of poor diet and ill health.

Obesity is as much a symptom as diabetes, PCOS, arthritis, heart disease, etc., of nutritional deficiency. Most people who are able to reverse their obesity with good, nutritious food, find that most, if not all of their myriad other health problems also improve or resolve.....

Obesity usually comes first simply because it is an early indicator. The body is awesome at compensating. But its not until it can compensate no longer that diseases start to manifest.

The media is largely to blame for the stereotype of the typical "lazy, fat diabetic" ! It sells papers and in my opinion is part of a longer term Gov't plan to get the message out to Joe Public that this condition is self inflicted and is capable of bankrupting The NHS. I've thought for a while now that long term, free prescriptions for diabetics will come to an end. I sincerely hope I'm proved wrong !

Sally wrote:Quoting from one of the articles above,
"Ninety per cent of the cases are type 2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity, poor diet and sedentary lifestyles."  (my bold)
The "poor diet" bit always makes me cross.  For the best part of a quarter of a century I fed my family the government's idea of a healthy diet.  Muesli (no added salt/sugar) with skimmed milk, a pile of fresh fruit and fruit juice for breakfast.  Wholemeal or granary sandwiches at lunch time, plus more fruit.  Wholemeal pasta, baked potatoes, brown rice as the basis of evening meals.  We limited meat, removed fat, never even had butter in the house and very rarely an egg.  You get the picture.  We were the perfect "Eat Well" family.  And now I find that, in reality we were eating a "poor diet", on government instructions.  My husband became obese and diabetic, I was overweight.  Going to the gym three times a week didn't make any difference.
So now we do low carb and we are slim and diabetes is largely history.  Oh, to be able to put this on big posters all over the country and as ads on prime time TV.
Sally

Brilliant post Sally, because i was in fact that stereotypical unhealthy eater, i dont mean a "healthy plate" unhaelthy eater or government endorsed obese victim, my obesity was all my own work, i basically ate the perfect bad diet my whole life..... i never thought of it like that, so they are blaming you/us for diabetes because we are obese, but their advice is making us obese lol very interesting point..... ill sponser a poster

My area fares best... really!!!! how come my DN said l am the only one on her books who has the figures l have and she wishes the others were willing to change.
l am as far as l know the only T2 monthly given a tub of strips.
In the yr the desmond had run in this area l was the only patient to go on it from that practice up to then. Added to that l sat through a desmond course that was a total DISGRACE run by so called human diabetic nurses from the local hospital (given the hospital is a disgrace their incompetence doesn't surprise me) someone some where is falsifying figures or they have the weirdest way of counting.
When l updated her my dn said she wasnt going to push it if it was so bad in that case and even she was shocked at some of the things they said.

MUD, what came first, the strips or the results ? Do you owe your success to testing or did your doc prescribe them BECAUSE you proved you were serious about your condition ?

I was fortunate when diagnosed my DSN provided me with a meter and didn't put a limit on test strips, the thing that was lacking was proper info on interpreting the BG readings it was only after joining the other place that I got to grips with that.

I should add I'm now limited to one pot of strips a month which is ample for me now.

Mo l had a pot of strips because Andy had been having suspect hypos.
l am a vet nurse and have set ideas about testing...do it and write the times down. And l knew diet needed sorting.

dr gave me no advice or help we were to angry with each other over statins.

l found duk next day read up on human parameters and confirmed times to take it and diet....was confused at first on that

From the start l was under tight control but not lchf that took few days reading however l was excercising so that pulled numbers down. l was more low glycaemic and lc without the fat

Saw dn 3 weeks after dx and she looked at my food and excercise and bloods and my diarys and put me from 3 metf. to 2/day.
At this point she and l discusssed sticks she tried to put me off, realised it wasnt working and agreed the pot a month...l was shocked and thought it may stop.

It didnt and by June check up put me down to 1 metf./day l think l can stop if l want but l keep on them to help the liver and get free scripts.
Strips to continue if bg goes up for any reason unknown....ie not monthlies or illness contact her otherwise go away for a year.

l started to lchf as l understood it more and my nubers came down. At xmas hit it properly as l do now. l dont keep a food diary now or for anything but excercise and medical. My bloods are on the meter l download those.

To be honest now l am back to working all over the country l am to tired to bother weighing and writing each thing l eat and do but as l say l am so strict l have a good grasp of my food so relaxing on writing not on bg or excercise.

Mud Island Dweller wrote:Mo l had a pot of strips because Andy had been having suspect hypos.
l am a vet nurse and have set ideas about testing...do it and write the times down. And l knew diet needed sorting.

dr gave me no advice or help we were to angry with each other over statins.

l found duk next day read up on human parameters and confirmed times to take it and diet....was confused at first on that

From the start l was under tight control but not lchf that took few days reading however l was excercising so that pulled numbers down.  l was more low glycaemic and lc without the fat

Saw dn 3 weeks after dx and she looked at my food and excercise and bloods and my  diarys and put me from 3 metf. to 2/day.
At this point she and l discusssed sticks she tried to put me off, realised it wasnt working and agreed the pot a month...l was shocked and thought it may stop.

It didnt and by June check up put me down to 1 metf./day l think l can stop if l want but l keep on them to help the liver and get free scripts.
Strips to continue if bg goes up for any reason unknown....ie not monthlies or illness contact her otherwise go away for a year.

l started to lchf as l understood it more and my nubers came down. At xmas hit it properly as l do now. l dont keep a food diary now or for anything but excercise and medical. My bloods are on the meter l download those.

To be honest now l am back to working all over the country l am to tired to bother weighing  and writing each thing l eat and do but as l say l am so strict l have a good grasp of my food so relaxing on writing not on bg or excercise.

Sounds like you've actively taken the right steps to manage your health which I would expect, given your profession. I read a lot about T2's denied test strips and it's wrong but when I do hear of someone getting them on prescription, it's usually because they've convinced their doc/DSN that it will benefit them and produce results. There is also a part of me that sort of understands the NHS thinking. Many diabetics are not too interested in testing or cutting carbs. Many test but don't make full use of the results, i.e., they'll test and not record it or investigate why a certain reading is high or low. I guess I'm trying to say for for many diabetics, both T1 & T2's, test strips are a waste of money. They either can't be bothered or won't change. Much of this is down to education and understanding of the condition.
I do think though that any diabetic who can show they are committed to test and use the results to adapt their diet/lifestyle should be given strips and meters on prescription.

mo1905 wrote: I guess I'm trying to say for for many diabetics, both T1 & T2's, test strips are a waste of money. They either can't be bothered or won't change. Much of this is down to education and understanding of the condition.

I do think though that any diabetic who can show they are committed to test and use the results to adapt their diet/lifestyle should be given strips and meters on prescription.

A problem with giving diabetics test strips is that once they start looking at the test strip information they essentially would have to abandon all the other dietary advice being given. You can't eat the prescribed diet and not see that your blood sugars are unacceptably high I would have thought. I bet that is scary and depressing and would tend to make one obsessive. So, in a way those DN are right.

Data is no good without knowledge on how to make sense of it.  The pitiful information given to the newly diagnosed (both Type 1 and Type 2) is another scandal on which is heaped this Luddite view that patients looking up things on the internet will just lead to trouble and lies.

Diabetes care is occasionally good but most of the time is laughable.

And even if you manage to navigate your way through all the idiocy and come out with half decent HbA1cs then your health care providers will, odds on, tell you that your blood sugars are too low; that's what mine did when I got an HbA1c of 5.8% and we've all heard stories about the ACCORD study being wheeled out for Type 2's who against all the odds get in target.

This is almost the system you would set up if your primary aim was to get the worst possible blood sugar control for diabetics.

Best

Dillinger

My husband was given a meter and strips on diagnosis, along with metformin and the instructions, in a rather sneering tone, to not go below 4, ha ha, or above 10, oh, and here's the NHS diet sheet.  His diagnosis level was 24 mmol/L.

Being scientifically trained, I opened a spreadsheet and everything was recorded and analysed in minute detail, but I soon became a bit concerned over timing of spikes, especially with porridge, which I was determined, at that stage, to keep in our diet.    So, as soon as an opportunity presented itself (12 days after diagnosis and also starting low carb), we ate a carefully measured amount of porridge and tested him every 20 minutes or so for the rest of the morning and then produced a graph.  The key features of which were:
Pre meal, 4.8
1 hour after start of meal, peaked at 8.7
then a very slow drop until,
5 hours after start of meal, return to pre-meal level of 4.8.

I wanted to discuss this with someone clever, knowledgeable and reliable (can you hear the sarcasm in my voice), so we made an appointment to see the diabetic nurse.  Her first reaction was something like, "oh, I've never seen anything like this before", until she realised she had let her professionalism slip and she pulled herself together, ……"you shouldn't be doing this,  you could get an infection in you finger ,  you must stop this at once, there's nothing you can do about the results, we're not going to alter your drugs based on your readings ……".  So, being a bit of a bolshy madam, I responded to each of her remarks and, I'm afraid, she ended up in tears.  This, of course, makes me sound a very unpleasant person, but it was my husband's health, life and eyesight we were talking about, not antibiotics for the common cold.  
Testing strips have always been made available, without question, every time we have asked for them.  Whether this is administrative incompetence on their part, or maybe there is a note on file, "what ever you do, keep that woman out of here".

All I know, is that my husband's current good health has very little to do with the NHS, which is very wrong, because it's all most people have.
Sally

Hi Sally a great post, unfortunately we read far too often of diabetics being treated like second class citizens, and diabetes information from medical professionals so far wrong, it borders on criminal neglect in my book.

The word is getting out, type two diabetes can be reversed and does not have to deteriorate to grim complications and shortened life expectancy. As we have seen, a type one diabetic can reduce injected insulin to a fraction on a low carb diet, and almost always gains far better control of BG numbers and predictability.

Keep spreading the word and thank you for your support.

Regards Eddie