What the nurse said

Had the first appointment with the diabetic nurse.

Altogether a much more postive experience than the one with the GP.
It still took a while to convince her I did not need a shoulder to cry on, and was really just interested in getting good information and advice about how to manage and treat my diabetes.

But... we went through the diet (which is basically what I have been eating these last few days: healthy cooked from scratch meals, lots of veggies, some fruit, some meat, as little added fat and salt as possible).

And exercise: for now, given how sendentary I am normally, we've agreed that I need to aim to do a 40-60 min walk at least 3 times a week, and work up from that.

She's given me a BG monitor, which means I get to stab my finger tips at least twice a day, and squeeze a drop of blood (omg... it's not green!) onto a test strip which a small Tamagotchi-like machine analyses and beeps my BG level at me.

Normal readings are between 4 and 8. Mine is currently 18. OK, so I've not been taking the full dose of Metformin the GP prescribed. Simply because it made me feel so ill I decided to try to ramp up to the full dose, rather than spend several days with some self-inflicted version of Delhi Belly.

Next appointment with the nurse is in a week's time.