Crisis...anyone?

Thanks Jeane. I knew a lot of that already because of my diabetic relatives but it never hurts to be reminded again.

I wrote to the ADA and am waiting for a reply from them. Been doing a lot of online research (thank God the library's been kinda quiet lately because of all the rain!). Joined an online diabetic forum for more info and they've been so nice and helpful. Trying to save up for test strips since they wanted me to test and see if the dietary changes I'm doing is helping with the numbers at all. So far I'm limiting myself to around 30mg of carbs a meal and next to no sugar at all (I read that somewhere online) until I can get those strips. 5-6 tiny minimeals too to keep the sugar from spiking too much. It's amazing how much less you can eat if you're never really hungry to start with.
That high reading at the health fair was the 'first thing in the morning' number and I read that those tend to be higher than the rest of the days'. And some people can tolerate lots of carbs but no candy, others are the opposite. "Eat to your meter" is what I've been told so far.
So far I've had nothing but chicken, water, green beans, celery, lettuce, turkey hormel dinner since the label says its' below the number I'm shooting for per meal, tuna, and a tiny bit of milk. It's killing me that I can't have any chocolate until I get strips to test and see if I can have it or not.

My mom thinks I'm going overboard about this but I am taking it very seriously and told her that. I'd rather switch to a diabetic diet and not get the disease than chance not making enough changes and getting it fullblown and die for lack of health coverage. Her diabetic neighbor told me a diabetic diet will help me lose a lot of weight, which I figure will be good for my heart considering all the heart attacks and strokes on both sides of my family. I don't want to have one of those either.

Found an interesting recipe for cranberry sauce and another for pumpkin pie. Easy enough and looks like it would be good tasting too.

Glad you were able to start researching this. If you can get under control now with diet and
exercise then you might able to avoid the other complications down the line.

Fiffur, you may want to find out if the library has any diabetic cookbooks or anything of that nature you could check out. I have seen diabetic cookbooks out there. My dad says he is a diabetic, but he doesn't take it seriously. He doesn't read labels, so he is clueless to how many carbs he is taking in. I don't have diabetes and I have made some effort to limit processed food due to the high sodium. I am guilty eating processed food on occasion.

If I can nip this in the bud now I won't have any complications and I won't have diabetes at all. Been needing to improve my diet anyway.....

I've been told on a diabetic forum that you can have some carbs, but they should be highfiber, less processed carbs. Sugar should be simple, not 'high fructose corn syrup' or 'corn sugar' or 'fructose'. Look at the labels: high fructose corn syrup is in nearly everything in a box or can, even bologna! This is not going to be easy.....

I'm glad I have some support here: mom is not giving me any at all. And forget about my sis, she's the one who wants me dead so she can inherit everything.

Library has no diabetic cookbooks (we are a small library after all), what I've seen we can borrow are all checked out at the moment.

In the diabetic forum, is there a way for you to find resources that could access, like a website, that you can get recipes from?

Most of the sites and forums will give recipes. By the Fif, if I can find it I've got a cooking
light cook book you can have. While it's not a diabetic cookbook, it does give a nutrition guide
with the recipes and you can work from that.

Thanks Sue, any help I can get is appreciated. The diabetic forum I joined does have a recipe section, but it isn't organized. My downstairs neighbor happens to have the same meter so she gave me a sample box of strips to use (they're over $1.50 each!). So experiment #1, rice, 2/3 cup: started out with premeal BGL of 102 (should've been below 90) which shot up to 164 an hour later (shocked the h*ll out of me to see that), then dropped to 124 an hour after that. Not in the normal range for nondiabetics...... So what do I do with 40# of uncooked rice that's sitting in my pantry?
Mom is still not giving me any support in this, and in fact has several of her diabetic neighbors asking where I'm getting my information from. Seems the American Diabetic Association isn't good enough to convince her.

I may have to go on an extreme-low carb diet to get this under control before it does any internal damage.

Don't sweat your Mom, just go ahead and do what you need to do.
If the rice was all you had, then yeah it's going to go off the charts. Donate
the rice to a food pantry.

Fiffur, I salute you for having the courage and resolve to take this bull by the horns and take control of it before it takes control of you. Well done! Ignore all naysayers (however gently you must in your mother's case) and continue to gather as much knowledge and practical advice as you can. Have you thought of asking the librarians at your library for info? Librarians are a remarkably helpful and non-judgmental lot, as a rule, and if there are useful books or magazines available (or even local support groups), they are likely to know (you ikely not being the first they've encountered to face this).

Now there's an idea. A few people on that diabetic forum said since the sugar dropped to only a 20pt spread from my premeal numbers I processed that rice well enough. I still think I'll cut back on the amount, add some fibery stuff like wild rice, veggies, maybe some chicken. Then the numbers won't spike so fast or so high since the fiber makes the digestion go slower. And don't go too long between meals or snacks, since the liver will dump glucose in the blood as a result of starvation mode. Didn't know that before my research started.

I still miss my hot chocolate on these cold mornings.......and I'm craving a peanut butter cup like nobody's business. But my cravings for other sugary stuff is starting to fade.

Fiffur, I don't know how helpful the following link will be for you.

http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitness/food/my-food-advisor/?loc=DropDownFF-mfa

Interesting site.

Oh yeah, the ADA has a lot of info. That's where I've been going for most of my information. Signed up for the menu and recipes email. Hope the suggestions get my premeal numbers down a bit more......I'm still a bit on the high side past normal.

I know we don't normally discuss politics here but something has popped up in
my world. As you know Wal Mart is having labor problems, we do the bulk of our
shopping at Sam's and to a certain extent Wal Mart. I have to make that run Friday and
I'm not comfortable doing it. I was born in coal country and am well aware of the wars
between the UMW and the owners. I'm loath to cross what amounts to a picket line. I may say
something to Joysanna, while she may not agree with me I think she will understand.

I don't like the fact so many stores are opening so early on Thursday, during the holiday, to start their sales. Talk about corporate greed.......and I'm boycotting that.

I don't like that either, fif. The workers have families too!

Every year, we boycott the whole weekend by staying home. To me, the people who take part of waiting in line for hours on end at a store and the people who open stores on Thanksgiving consider doing said actions more important than spending time with family.

I don't blame you. It's all too stupid for me.

I refuse to go....besides, I didn't see anything in the ads I could afford or do without. Why fight the crowds, the long lines, the cold weather, and add misery to retail workers already miserable holiday season.

There's always on line.

Some regulars at my current workplace are attempting to recruit me into their cult...it will never work, by the way! Most definitely, I will keep you posted!

What??? Sheesh! Details, please! I don't know whether to laugh or call the police!

What on earth? Details please!

I had served them two times when, after which they asked me if they could contact me outside work regarding a job with an internet company. After giving them my number, I asked, "Why me?". They then gave me loads of ambiguous answers that would apply to anyone. Funny thing is these were qualities no one in my recent memory told me I had! I then knew they were being deceptive but met with them at a neutral location; not in my home as requested! By the end of the meeting, the job at an internet company had turned into selling life coaching CD's via the internet! After telling the husband/wife tag team that this was not a job for me, they implored me to listen to the three CD's over the weekend and give them back to the lady at a McDonald's on my way to work. I didn't listen to the CD's...OF COURSE and told the woman I got caught up doing other things, which was almost not a lie. A favorite radio station finally came in clearly in my apartment! She then had me keep the CD's for another three weeks, because she could get them back when she saw me in the restaurant!! Well I've since listened to the CD's and I've definitely lost 3 hours of my life which I'll NEVER get back!! God was present, maybe on the first three minutes of each CD, but not at all on the rest of them...! The CD's go on to talk about how people could be worked and manipulated so that I could achieve "success in life", materially speaking...The whole theme of them reminded me of something from Faust or that story in The Bible about Jesus on the mountain top when he is being tempted by the devil...

You need not worry about me forming any alliance with these freaks! The evil CD's are in my car's glove box...mostly because I hope Michigan's cold weather snaps them into bits! I know where the woman works and will hopefully hand the CD's to her and if she and her people want to come and hang out in the restaurant after their Tuesday meetings, they can! Then I will tell her if her group wants to come in with the mindset of targeting another Denny's employee that they think is "unsatisfied with their life" they might want to go elsewhere to find their next convert!!

Good for you Arni.!!! Creeps and freaks sounds like they were selling the prosperty Gospel
or other such nasty nonsense.