OT: Doctors may be hazardous to your (mental) health

A misnomer and inaccurate. It *usually* develops when the subject is in their early teens, but every dinosaur curve has a far end... Himself was 42, and there is no known history of diabetes of either sort in his family.

Yes! I'm always getting the names mixed up! Doh!

James and I were both taught to do this by the paramedics. I have needed to do it once this past year.

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But you'll be keeping a close eye on the GMNT, right?

It's lasted over 31 years so far, which is pretty good for a match that bets were on six months.

Not particularly... He's only 10% more likely to develop Type 1 diabetes than someone who doesn't have a parent or sibling with it. Being aware of the symptoms will help us spot it sooner should he do so.

For sandwiches like burgers, you can use leaf lettuce instead of bread. See if you can get a hold of one of the Suzanne Somers cookbooks. You want to look at the level one recipes, and you only want the protein ones. The meals are all either carb meals or protein meals. (on her system you never, ever mix carbs and proteins in the same meal, but veggies go with everything.)

I know many moons ago when my mother was told she was borderline for diabetes, she dropped all processed (there's an important word) sugars from her diet, really restricted her fruit sugars, stopped eating most really bad for you carbs (white bread is evil) and started exercising more. She's now 79, and doing very very well. She was first told this 20 years ago. And it's only been about 6 months ago that her doctor said he wanted her to get a meter and start testing once a day. She almost never shows spikes in her test results. He just thought, from some of her annual blood tests, that it would be a good idea to monitor a little more closely.

I'm assuming what the doctor wants your DH to avoid is things like potatoes, white bread, (well probably all breads for right now) pasta, rice, cereal, etc. So things like the zucchini spaghetti that I told you about would work. You can use squashes like that for any kind of pasta. Just depends on how you cut them up.......and if you need some zucchini, you are one fed ex box away from all the zucchini you can eat. LOL!!

(for those that would also like to know.....you can make "spaghetti" or other noodles out of a zucchini or summer squash very easily. Just use your vegetable peeler to cut up the whole thing. Start out like you are peeling it, but just keep going till you "peel" the whole squash. Then saute the noodles in a tiny bit of olive oil just long enough to cook off some of the water in the squash. Then top with whatever pasta sauce you like. Cooked zucchini and summer squash both have a mild enough taste, and they are sliced so thinly, that you don't really taste them any more than you would pasta.)

As far as the canned soups go, I know and completely understand how much easier those are, but you Must read the labels very carefully. You will be ASTOUNDED at where extra sugar (and/or high fructose corn syrup) are added. I just pulled a can of vegetarian vegetable soup from my pantry. Really good for you soup right? High fructose corn syrup. And sugars are not listed on the chart on soups usually. You have to break out the magnifying lense and read the ingredients. Obviously, you will avoid anything with noodles in it, but you will still have to read those labels really closely. (or far-away-ly depending on where you need to hold things to read really little letters. lol)

Really, for a veggie soup, all you need to do is get some canned broth (read the labels, and I strongly suggest the low sodium/low fat type) and whatever veggies you want. You can even usually get frozen mixed veggies. Those work great. Pour the broth in a saucepan. Set heat to med/high. Toss in veggies. Simmer till the veggies are thawed and hot through, stir when you think about it. Viola it's soup. You can pick chicken, beef or vegetable broth. And this way you can toss in whatever veggies he likes.

Also, if you want even more chicken recipes...

There is a searchable recipe function there. The thing I like the best about that one is you can tell it you want stuff that takes 15 minutes to fix, all the way up to "I'd like to be in the kitchen over the stove all day long." lol Pretty cool.

Sharon

"Sharon Hays" never, ever mix carbs and proteins in the same meal, but

"veggies" are carbs! ;-)

In a true diabetic diet, EVERYTHING counts. About the only "unlimited" thing DH could eat was raw celery.

I carry cereal bars with me, but my sisters carry Peanut Butter on Ritz Crackers. None of us are on insulin, although the youngest takes a Byetta injection daily in addition to her regular tablets. She was told that was not insulin.

Emily

My dh developed his Type 11 when he was close to retirement!! There was none on either side of his family, and after much research and questioning, it turned out that it was almost certainly brought on by the ACE inhibitor he had been prescribed for hypertension some years before, and which he was no longer taking. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Apparently it only happens with a few people, but there is a definite risk.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans

I too was in your husbands position not long ago. Cholesterol 278 Sugar 116.

90 days of sensible portioning, Whole grained breads, brown rice, whole grain pasta where acceptable, Cheerios every morning for breakfast and 40-60 minutes of Vigorous walking per day. I was over weight. 90 days later Cholesterol 168, sugar (glucose) 91 Diet and exercise was key, also considerable reduction in alcohol intake.

I just did not do I want to take their meds. I think it is a plot to get all humans on their drugs as early as they can. Huge profits there. Just my $.02

Thanks, Ron. Congratulations, too, on avoiding the medication merry-go-round! DH has the cholesterol down now, and he's already thin, so I hope the diet knocks the blood sugar level down without making him a wraith. He doesn't drink at all, hasn't for some years now, which I'm sure is a help.

The man doesn't smoke, drink, avoids sugar, exercises like a fiend, follows doctor's orders, and gets all these problems. I, on the other hand, smoke (nearly 3 packs a week), drink (as much as a liter in merely a month), eat what I want, don't exercise, question everything the doctor says and ignore half of it, and don't have any problems. It's injustice, isn't it?

Celery is the one that requires more calories to chew than it has in it, isn't that how it goes?

Yes, and if all fails, I'll certainly consult them. But with limits. There's really no point in putting a new engine in a 1938 Chevy. Ooops, it's Hot August Nights here now, and I'll bet someone has done just that very thing. A bad analogy, perhaps.

The folk that do that sort of thing are similar to those of us who put a new belt on a treadle after spending weeks freeing it from rust and polishing the pitman rod...

There's a character in b% that expresses this well: I don't have the words exactly right, but it's along the lines of:

I used to think the world was grossly unfair, and things would be so much better if we all got what we deserved... Then I wondered if we really WERE getting what we deserved! And now I revel in the thought that it isn't so: the univers does what it does, and this isn't personal.

Oh, dear. *looking around at all the treadles*

Life comes with no guarantees, does it? You get what you get. Sort of like marriage, come to think of it.

That's B5; Marcus Cole (Jason Carter) from "A Late Delivery From Avalon"

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."