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

But no starch is a challenge.

Reply to
Karen in CO
Loading thread data ...

My DH had a physical the other day, with mixed results. He's been taking Lipitor for several years now, and the lab results show that he has very low cholesterol -- too low, in fact, so he's now off that until another blood test in October. Cholesterol is essential, too much may be bad, but too little is deadly. Curious that there is now a push to put people with "normal" cholesterol on statins - could the drug companies be behind this?

However, his sugar is high. Diabetes runs in his family, so this is a concern. The doctor has told him that for the next three months (that October test again) he is to eat NO sugar and NO starch. Easy for him to say. I am not much of a cook. My DH is from South Dakota and was raised on meat-and-potatoes. I have managed to get him to eat poultry, fish, rice, and pasta over the years. But no starch is a challenge. Bear in mind that I never cook breakfast or lunch. I do cook dinner about five times a week. My DH does not cook at all - beyond putting soup in the microwave or bread in the toaster.

I sent him off to the store to look for things without sugar or starch that he is willing to eat. He came home with some fruit and some nuts. I think I need to go prowl around in search of more. I'm thinking that maybe dried banana chips will help him when he wants some corn chips, potato chips or Cheetos. I think I've heard of yams done the same way, and must explore that. Would spaghetti squash be a substitute for pasta for spaghetti sauce? We can do meats and eggs, etc., for dinners. Yesterday I gave him a stuffed bell pepper, filled with tuna salad, and that went over well. But so far, he's had a banana for breakfast, canned chili for lunch. I must find more possibilities.

I am willing to acknowledge that our doc has my DH's best interests in mind, but if I ran into him in a dark alley.........

Reply to
Pogonip

YIKES! You have my deepest sympathies. I couldn't eat tomatoes or citrus anything for a decade or two, because I would break into hive-y kinda things that were awful.

Reply to
Samatha Hill -- take out TRASH

Joanne, that's a murderous diet to follow and sounds extremely harsh. I'm inclined to think that your husband needs to work with a nutritionist. Can he get recommendation for one from his doctor.My DH would go on diets like that for a week before he ran a marathon and we were both lucky to survive. Me, because he was a crank and he, because he was always cranky.It's almost impossible to keep eating that way. I would really push for time with a nutritionist to get something that is doable for him.

Reply to
Juno B

The American Diabetes Association agrees with you on the "no starch" bit. My inclination would be to give him small amounts of whole grain foods. For one thing, I think carbohydrates are still necessary, and secondly, this is a man who is the same weight he was in high school (50 years ago) when he was playing varsity basketball. He isn't overweight at all, and a significant weight loss would put him in the Nicole Richey-Keira Knightly class. Except for gender, of course.

I agree with you on more frequent, small meals - that's my style. I never like to eat a big meal because it doesn't leave me feeling very well. I'd rather have four small meals than 3 sizeable ones or even two small and one large. He's trying to copy that now.

As I understand our doc's thinking, he wants to try this for three months to see what changes show up in the next blood test. I sure hope he doesn't have any notions of a life-long program like this. I'd have to pack DH's bags before I shove him out the door. ;-)

Reply to
Pogonip

OMG, that would be horrendous!!! He would be reduced to gnawing on cardboard, almost.

Reply to
Pogonip

I feel for you and your DH, Joanne. I hope he abides by the doctor. Many doctors I know put the patient on no sugar, no starch diet, at least, until the patient's blood sugar is more or less down to a controllable number, with medication, of course.

Most of my DM's family are diabetic, including me. My sister, just younger than me passed away a few years ago with diabetes; and I am concerned that may be a contributing factor in the fall this one had earlier this week. Personally, the diet I have to follow severely limits the sugar & starch, but doesn't eliminate them as long as I take my medication. I am also on a low-fat, low-cloresterol diet. My oldest DD's diet says no starch as well as sugar, on the other hand. Her doctor says it's because her blood sugar tends to run higher; she's been on insulin from the first day and I am proud to say, she's learned to inject herself. She mentioned last week, she could not have any pineapple, although it is a fruit.

Emily

Reply to
Emily Bengston

Joanne, that doctor is talking absolute balderdash.

I know.

My dh was diagnosed with diabetes nine years ago. My first move was to rush off to the public library and look at everything on the shelves relating to diabetes, then take half a dozen volumes home.

Only after that did I make an appointment with the diabetes educator (the insurance generally only covers one session) so that I could ask questions and absorb information.

I had already moved us towards low-fat high-fiber when he got the pacemaker, so I was used to counting fat grams in food.

Please, get some decent books on the subject. Our dietician told me to keep dh on: not more than 60 or less than 40 fat grams per day, evenly distributed throughout the day. Not more than 2000 calories a day. No more than 1200 mg of sodium.

We do not eat peculiar foods. He is doing the dinner dishes for me right now, and we had: boneless pork chop (one each) less than 4 oz., all fat trimmed away, frying pan deglazed with two cubes of homemade frozen chicken stock, plus boiled redskin potatoes (skin on) and broccoli - with lemon juice. Dessert was sliced local peaches from the farmers market, plus blueberries, topped with fat-free yogurt, and a 1" x 2" brownie on the side. All followed by a nice cup of tea (two cups. actually).

He is his endocrinologist's "poster boy". At every checkup, his A1c level is exactly where the doctor wants it.

We eat mostly whole grains, they are good for fiber AND they keep you full up longer.

It took me a while. At first, it seems really daunting, a life sentence, and for the first six months I spent all my time between my kitchen and my computer, recastng all his favorite dishes, taking out some ingredients and adding others until they still tasted the same but were ok for him to eat. BTW, I did not find the Diabetes Association website particularly helpful back then, but I did find another one on nutrition analysis to be a godsend. Now, it has all come together and I feed us without a second thought. Also, we eat out regularly, making prudent choices from the menu most of the time. After dh had been diagnosed three months, his glucose went down to the point where the doc cut his medication in half!! Now, he has assured me that it is ok to "feast" every so often, as long as it is not too often.

If you want to e-mail me privately, I'll be glad to help out with more info, or if you want to call me, I'll give you my phone no.

It is NOT the end of the world. You do have a major task ahead of you, but it is eminently doable.

Courage, mon ami!

Hugs.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

Reply to
Olwyn.Mary

If the blood sugar isn't down in October, then that's definitely a plan. I'm viewing this as an experiment. I'm sure what the doc wants to do is avoid putting him on medications if at all possible.

Reply to
Pogonip

When I did a web search, I found most of the information about a no sugar-no starch diet was from the 1800s and early 1900s, but perhaps it's coming back now. Starches will convert to sugar, just takes more time in the digestive process. But it seems a bit extreme to me to eliminate all starches such as whole wheat, corn, etc.

There is no medication at this point. He's "pre-diabetic" based on his blood sugar in a blood panel, not even a fasting glucose what-have-you test. If the blood sugar comes down and he doesn't waste away to nothing in the effort, then we'll have to make a plan. We won't know until October if it's working or not.

Reply to
Pogonip

Ask him/her to define "starch"

formatting link
"Starch is produced by all green plants as an energy store and is a major food source for humans." and "sugar"
formatting link
"Sugar as a basic food carbohydrate primarily comes from sugar cane and from sugar beet, but also appears in fruit, honey, sorghum, sugar maple (in maple syrup), and in many other sources.

And lookie here, even meat contains some carbohydrates:

formatting link
"Adult mammalian muscle flesh consists of roughly 75 percent of water, 19 percent of protein, 2.5 percent of intramuscular fat, 1.2 percent of carbohydrates and 2.3 percent of other soluble non-protein substances."Eliminating those two categories of food leaves very little else for your DH to eat. :-( It's all about balance, and moderation.

HTH,

Reply to
BEI Design

That's my take on it. But when the doc tells DH something, he questions him and then does what he's told. I, on the other hand, never stop arguing. ;-) And since we've been seeing this particular doc for 30 years now, he doesn't tell me much anymore. He wants me to go get the blood test, and I haven't because I don't want to get on this medication merry-go-round. He does give me Dyazide, which I like because my ankles don't get fat. But I distrust medications because they all have side effects, often worse than what they are to treat. Chances are, too, that a blood test wouldn't give him anything to jump on, but they're only as good as the day they're done anyway.

Left up to me, DH would be given sensible food to eat, including whole grains, and probably less fruit since it is the source of fructose, after all. I don't like artificial sweeteners, either, but I do buy some things with them for him. I won't eat them myself, though. I prefer food from farms, not duPont.

But I will try to accommodate this craziness. But if DH starts to resemble a skeleton, I'm sending him back in for a consult.

Reply to
Pogonip

I had friends whose mom managed her diabetes (not sure if it was type 1 or type 2) totally with diet and exercise. She had a (non-electric) treadmill at home and when her BS's were high, she had some formula to walk on it for so long in order to get them to drop. It was a lot of work for her because she had a full-time job, but it was worth it.

Reply to
Samatha Hill -- take out TRASH

I think that not all diabetics do well on the same eating plan. Some do well with a whole-grain approach; others do well on a very-low-carb approach.

Reply to
Samatha Hill -- take out TRASH

Diabetics have to be very careful not to push their blood glucose too low. My DH went into convulsions, and ended up in the ER, after a normal dose of insulin, followed by not quite enough food, and then more exercise than he was accustomed to. The doctors told us that he could have died, it (hypoglycemia) was actually much more acutely dangerous than moderately high glucose.

I'm not advocating against exercise, but I AM advocating Joanne and her DH get some really expert advice, preferably from an endocrinologist and dietitian.

Reply to
BEI Design

Quite. Himself has need the care of the lovely paramedics and their bags of magic several times. We've had blood sugar readings off the bottom of the scale... Never QUITE need the hospital, but it's been close.

On the other hand, he hasn't suffered any of the long-tem effects of HIGH blood sugar, such as the circulatory problems, blindness and gangrene that afflicted my father's stepmother. It's a tightrope that you need to learn to manage, but with the supervision of experts. And that means experts in the management of diabetes, not your general practitioner.

Reply to
Kate XXXXXX

That's the hope, I'm sure. DH already walks or jogs regularly, depending on how well his knees are on any given day. But he walks for a couple of hours almost every day now. So now we're addressing diet, in a big way.

Reply to
Pogonip

At this point, the notion is to prevent diabetes. DH's blood sugar is high, but not so high as to be diabetic....yet. If he can ward it off, that's all to the good. It's in his family, his great-grandfather had it. Just as glaucoma is in his family. There was "blind granny" and one of his sisters has it. He really should have been more selective about his parents, shouldn't he?

Reply to
Pogonip

Which is one reason why I ALWAYS carry "starlight mints". They are individually wrapped, and just about pure sugar. If dh is running behind shcedule for a meal and starting to feel a little lightheaded, one of those gets to his bloodsream in 30 seconds, and will hold him until I get him to some food.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

Reply to
Olwyn.Mary

Your dh has been seeing this doc for 30 years. Therefore, the guy is more than 30 years out of Med school. Therefore he never had any nutrition training (it certainly wasn't given back then). Also, this doc is apparently giving your dh Lipitor without ever referring him to either a cardiologist or an endocrinologist for a consultation. Danger signals all.

My dh mostly uses the endo as a gp, (but we have another one we use for things like flu or sprained ankles), and he has a cardio who installed and takes care of his pacemaker and Coumadin.

The endo does not even touch on nutrition. He sends all of his patients off to the nutritionist/diabetes educator, because all this is "not my field".

All I can suggest is that you triple whatever life insurance you have on your dh - and tell him you are doing so. That might wake him up.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

Reply to
Olwyn.Mary

InspirePoint website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.