Help with Husband and T2

[Jora]

When we found out my daughter was T1, we also found out that my husband was a T2. This didn't come as a shock. He is over weight and did show signs. But we never put two and two together.

Now here is the problem.

He is on the max Met and takes glip as well. His A1c numbers are not as low as his doc would like. She asks what are you eating and I run off the list.

Oatmeal (steal cut, scottish, rolled) in the morning with some butter and a little brown sugar (1tsp or less) and cinnamon.
Lunch is a sandwhich with turkey. sun chips, carrots or pear cup.

She stopped me there and said, cut out the bread. Don't give him the brown sugar and cut out the pears. Ok so what is left for my husband to eat?

His A1c number at this time was 7.1 (I think) and she wants him at 6.5 or lower. The last time he saw her is A1c number was over 8 and she doubled his meds to the max he can take. The 7.1 was after after 3 months of the new meds and a bunch of changes on my side. Cut out MSG, splenda, aspertame, high-fructose corn syrup, and all the family members to these. But she said his number wasn't low enough and I had to cut out more!

Since I have a T1 at home (who is 7) I make sure the high GI foods are not in the house, or the empty carbs. I fix healthy foods for both of them.

He does test and his numbers in the morning and at bed time have been 150 or less.

She doesn't tell me anything I can do for him or if I should be giving him X number of carbs per meal.

What else can I do? How many carbs should a T2 be taking per meal?

[deafmack]

Personally I think your husband is doing well. And you can't keep cutting out foods. You have to figure out how to work them into his program. One thing is he needs to learn carb counting just like you do for your daughter. The standard starting plan is usually 45 to 60 grams of carbs per meal and 15 to 30 grams of carbs per snack. It can be adjusted up or down as needed. What your husband needs to do is test, test, test. For example he can check his blood sugar before breakfast. (usually fasting and then he makes breakfast writes the number of carb grams he eats. Then after he needs to check his blood sugars at the one hour mark and then again at the 90 minute mark and the two hour mark. If he goes above 180 at the highest peak, he will want to change what he eats by eating less of that food or eating a different brand of that food. Also a lot of people have trouble with the morning numbers because of the liver spitting out glucose during that time. He would do this for each food especially to adjust the carb gram intake according to what his blood sugars are..based on what his peak numbers are. The other thing is for him to walk after each meal or do some other sort of exercise for 15 to 20 minutes after he eats to keep his blood sugars from peaking. If you keep cutting out foods then it becomes too restrictive and too difficult to follow. Also you can two good books are Type 2 Diabetes, The First Year by Gretchen Becker and Diabetes for Dummies Wishing you the best.

[Ellen]

Is your husband seeing a board certified endocrinologist and endocrine team (certified diabetes educator, nutritionist who specializes in type 2 diabetes)...?

Also, if the oral medications are not doing the job, insulin may be indicated.