Cooking for diabetic (help!)

mardatha

I would like him to take a wee drink at night, if it would help him sleep and relax more. He's very uptight and ratty. Would anybody know of a site that lets you look up sugar content of foods & drinks ? We hate wine, but he likes sherry or port.

misspenny

oh is a type 1 diabetic has been for long time he drinks gin and tonic as it has lowest carbs, hes very naughty with his diet, im very pregnant and my brain has gone to piceces but basmati rice is the best for diabetics lowest g.i - thats about all i can remember right now.

bunny999

mardatha wrote: »

I would like him to take a wee drink at night, if it would help him sleep and relax more. He's very uptight and ratty. Would anybody know of a site that lets you look up sugar content of foods & drinks ? We hate wine, but he likes sherry or port.

Dry sherry would be better than sweet sherry or port. The sweeter the drink the more carbs / sugar. Vodka has zero carbs and zero fat (somebody up there must like me).
Try the carb counter on www.feelingok.co.uk . Basically no/low carbs good, high carbs bad.

mardatha

:T thanks very much ! xxx

zzzLazyDaisy

bunny999 wrote: »

Vodka has zero carbs and zero fat (somebody up there must like me)..

Vodka and diet tonic. Practically a health-food for diabetics

(seriously, vodka has no sugar at all!)

bunny999

I'll drink to that.

zzzLazyDaisy

Re what to drink - there are lots of flavoured waters that are 'safe'. But do be careful to check the bottle for calorie content (read sugar). Lots of flavoured waters have zero calories - those are the ones you are looking for.

Some flavoured waters have as much sugar volume for volume as a glass of wine. Now call me old-fashioned, but if I'm gonna cheat, it ain't gonna be with a glass of water!!

jimmo

My wife is type 1 and has been for more than 50 years. She had to learn to do her own injections at the age of 8. She now uses an insulin pump, courtesy of the NHS. For this country it is state of the art stuff. She does test her blood glucose levels several times a day and her glucose monitor and the insulin pump talk to each other, wirelessly, each time she does a test. We are pretty careful with her diet but the basic principle is that if she fancies an occasional treat she can have it but increase her insulin to compensate.
We had custard slices last week. No problem.
　
　
My mother was diagnosed type 2 at the age of 86. Basically the practise nurse tests her glucose levels occasionally and she has been advised to eat healthily but nothing else.
The best advice I have seen on here is that you really shouldn’t panic. You are not seeing the doctor until Thursday. Whilst lots of people knock the NHS our experience is that if its really serious they pull all the stops out and if your GP was worried she would have fitted you in somehow on the day you were diagnosed. As it happens, my wife has recently been diagnosed with colitis and the tablets she has just started taking for that have played havoc with her blood glucose levels. She phoned the diabetic clinic yesterday morning for advice. A consultant phoned her back in the afternoon and gave her some advice. The consultant is going to phone her again tomorrow to review the situation but she also gave my wife a direct line number, just in case.
Having said that, there is never a bad time to start eating more healthily, nothing special for diabetics, just a healthy diet. but, apart from that, just wait and see what the GP has to say on Thursday.
As regards him drinking 4 litres of fruit juice a day, a raging thirst is one of the classic symptoms of diabetes. Tap water would be so much better than anything else for the time being and you can expect any treatment he gets for his diabetes will reduce his thirst.
I know it’s easier said than done, but you and he should try to relax at least until Thursday when you will hear what the GP has to say.
If your GP feels that your husband needs to test his glucose levels regularly I think you still have to buy the machine yourself but my wife certainly gets the testing strips on prescription. In my wife’s case we got the machine which talks to her insulin pump free from the manufacturers, but that’s another story.
Hopefully your husband’s type 2 diabetes will be no more than a minor inconvenience that you can easily handle and the worries you have now will melt away when you see your GP on Thursday.
Good luck! I hope this helps and I will watch out for any news you care to post after you have seen the GP.

mardatha

thank you very much. I just read this out to him ! x

morag1202

Your husband should, at some point, see a Dietitian and be given printed advice on diet specifically for him. PLEASE follow their advice in prefereance to any other. They are the experts!

One of the symptoms of diabetes is drinking excessively, this is not the cause, so don't worry about his orange juice.

Depending on his readings, the doctor will either say it can be controlled by diet alone or by a combination of diet and pills or by diet and injecting insulin. Either way there will be a lot of help for you both - especially if you ask for it.

He will be taught how to monitor his blood sugar and will need to do it regularly, you will be told how often and what range it should be in so don't worry!

The dietician or nurse will answer all your questions and will tell you if you need to change anything you eat or drink now - you may well find that very little needs to change so please don't stress too much.

Good luck.