I have a friend. Here is her info.

48 year old, 120 lb female. Diagnosed type 2 about 8 years ago, when she weighted 170 lbs. She had some kind of tumor in her ear, she was hospitalized, they did blood work, her sugar was 600 and they immediately put her on meds.

They told her she was type 2. This is what she is now on.

In the a.m. Amaryl 4 mgs, Janumet 500

In the afternoon, she takes Actos, 30 mgs at noon.

At night she takes 1000 of Janumet, along with 9 units of Lantus.

Her doctor has previously told her he wants her on short acting insulin, she has always said "NO".

And she loses weight very easily.

Up until she went on vacation to Jamaica, her fasting numbers were 120 or so. Sometimes even 95. She NEVER takes her sugar after that (even thought I explained that she needs to and it's a post prandial reading), she said her doctor told her not to take her sugar after the fasting reading because she was driving herself crazy. So the fasting number is the only number we have.
Oh, we have a1c. She is 6.2 (down from 6.5) and that was two weeks ago. She gets an a1c every 3 months.

So her eating habits are as follows.

4 small meals a day plus two snacks. And she'll eat a piece of fruit before bedtime. Her breakfast is one bowl of oatmeal. And she drinks Fenugreek tea all day long. So up until 10 days ago, her fasting reading was no more than 120, and sometimes even less.

So her son takes her on vacation to Jamaica (oh, I asked her if she drank, because who goes on vacation and doesn't drink?)

Let's say she arrived in Jamaica 10 days ago on a Sunday. Sunday night she had exactly one drink. A glass of wiskey and soda. The next morning her sugar was 95.

She had NO MORE ALCOHOL for the next 7 days.

HOWEVER, after that one reading of 95 on a Monday morning, every single morning when she got up and took her blood sugar, it was 250 to 285.

Every single morning.

Of course I asked her "What the heck changed from New York to Jamaica, I mean, you HAD to be doing SOMETHING different to get that big of a reading. From a reading of 95 to jump to 250 or so, I said "what did you do different?" She said "Well, instead of 4 small meals, I ate 3 huge meals."

I said 'what do you mean by huge?" She said 'oh my god, you know that I eat a bowl of oatmeal every morning, right?" I said 'yeah, one bowl of oatmeal"

She then said "Well, there was no oatmeal, so I ate whatever they served and they served these huge breakfasts, these huge lunches and big dinners.

So I said "Oh, you dramatically changed the way you were eating while you were on vacation??" She said "well, only the size of the meals".

I said 'well the size of the meals means a great thing, but the big clue is what happened when you returned home and ate like you did previously"

She said: "Oh, when I came back, it is now going down. The first morning she came back it was 135, and the second morning it was 130.

So now that she is back home, her sugar is going down. She also said "This same thing happened when I was on vacation in the Dominican Republic for one week, my sugar went UP"

So I said "Well, now that you know what happens, stop eating these big meals" She said "but how can I do this?"


I also said "if you knew you were going to be eating big meals, why didn't you up your Lantus by a few units? That med is supposed to prevent spikes in your blood sugar" She didn't think of it.

I just sighed. See, I know me. I haven't had a vacation in 20 years, but if I were to go on a cruise, I would know AHEAD of time, what they served and what I would be eating, and there wouldn't be any big meals for me. I know what I eat. But that's me.

So did I give the correct information?

Thanks much