How does Dr. Fung go about transitioning a type2 patient from traditional insulin-based treatment to his low carb/fasting protocol?
It was easy for me because I wasn’t taking much insulin. About 2 months of low carb and OMAD and I’m down to metformin only.
But I know folks who are older than me and taking a ton of insulin. I wonder what kinds of practical challenges there are with such a large transition.
I found this in the FAQs on the Diet Doctor:
“Dr Fung. I have really recently discovered you and you’ve been an absolute revelation. My life was full of clouds and you’ve made the sun shine. Thank you so much for what you do.I’m waiting for an appointment with my doctor (UK – 2 weeks wait) to enquire about any bad effects on my varied medications for heart and kidney problems but I’ve already done one 39 hour fast last Tuesday and am currently on another as I felt so good. I took my “normal” 32u of Lantus but obviously not my usual Humalog. I also, in the absence of any advice, took my other meds. My blood sugar following the fast was 3.6 so did I use too much insulin? What would your advice be? And thank you again in advance.I cannot legally give you advice for your personal situation, but in our clinic, we try to keep blood sugars in to 8-10 range. This is higher than normal because it is far more dangerous to become hypoglycemic during fasting.
For this reason, we carefully monitor sugars during fasting and we always advise that it is better to take less insulin than more. If you take too little, you can always take more.
If you take too much, you will need to take sugar to reverse the hypoglycemia, which defeats the whole point of fasting in the first place.”
https://www.dietdoctor.com/intermittent-fasting/questions-and-answers
I’m just starting too. Four weeks in.
I’ve been pondering the puzzle this morning. I had to take insulin when pregnant and it can be pretty dramatic when you have too much. How aware is your mum with blood sugar/insulin? There is a a school of thought that higher blood sugar temporarily is ok. But I’m not a doctor.
If you haven’t checked out www.dietdoctor.com you should. Dr Fung has a ton of great material discussing a lot of this. She could also join his IDF program too but all the info is available for free. It’s more the support you pay for.