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Permalink Reply by Libby on March 29, 2008 at 10:18am

You can sprout any whole grain. I do a multi-grain mixture of oat, barley, rye, amaranth, quinoa, millet and buckwheat. I buy the whole grains (also called groats) at the health food store. Pulses are peas, lentils and beans. I am sure you are familiar with bean sprouts which are made from mung beans. Sprouted greens and mungs take about 5 days and develop small leaves but grains, peas and lentils just take 36-48 hours and sprout a tiny root. Don't let them go longer as they get bitter. I soak the grains for 20 minutes and then rinse well. (If you don't do buckwheat, you can soak longer, but buckwheat starts to ferment with a long soak.) peas and lentils soak overnight or about 8 hours. Drain and leave in a sieve or on a plate. They don't need light. Rinse 3 times a day until you see a small sprout and then enjoy! You can sprout any type of whole peas and lentils but I prefer whole green peas and black beluga lentils. Ordinary green/brown lentils work fine, I just like the crunchiness of the black ones. I can eat a cup of peas and lentils and not see any spike at all. Not true of the cooked variety. There is less of a spike with the grains than raw rolled oats which I used to eat as a muesli cereal, and much less than cooked rice or whole grain bread. I read an article that said barley was particularly good for Type 2s and can help control BG all day, probably because it has a low glycemic index. But as I said, I'm Type 1 and the live foods seem to work really well for me.

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Permalink Reply by Judith on March 29, 2008 at 8:45am

E.D.....My favorite botanical source has gymnema leaf and powder. They are right here in Oregon's lush Willamette Valley. I've been ordering from them for many years and never had a problem:

Mountain Rose Herbs.....I don't know how to insert a link. It's mountainroseherbs.com

And thanks to all for notes on bitter melon......

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Permalink Reply by lulu on May 8, 2008 at 10:14pm

Wow I was just looking up gymnema and was really happy to read everything everyone shared.

My mom has had diabetes for several years. she was just diagnosed with high bp as well and the doctors are driving her nuts and well as the medications. Our whole family has had such a huge wake up call in the health area! We are eating extremely healthy, organic foods, grape oil, low salt and exercising(walking 5-7 miles everyday). Being such a huge family and doing it together is great, its like our own support group. My mom is doing better with the change but the pills are making her feel horrible like she can't even function normally. The diabetes seem to really be the only problem now that everything else has dramatically changed. she has a healthy heart and ekgs, ecocardiograms are great. So I asked the doctor why should she still take bp pills with insulin or diabetes pills. The doctors have no answers and are irritated with us asking questions. Its like they want her to not find any alternative ways to her illnesses! They say she should be on it without actually saying what the problem is. Its very frustrating.

Do you know if anyone has had any harsh side effects from gymnema. She really wants to try it but is scared. She took it for a day and her numbers were great and she felt great. I want to encourage her to keep taking it and so i am trying to do as much research on it as possible. She also wants to get off of bp meds as well before the doctors actually make her into a heart patient.

Any suggestions?

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Permalink Reply by elaine peterson on May 9, 2008 at 6:34am

Hi Lulu....good for your family that you are all taking your health seriously.

Hopefully someone on the site with more knowledge than I will answer, but I believe they give diabetics blood pressure meds, even if their bp is Ok to help maintain healthy kidneys......it has been shown to lower the incidence of kidney problems. My endo does not have me on it. I have low pb and no signs of complications. It would be interesting to see how many people have been put on bp meds even with normal pb.

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Permalink Reply by Libby on May 9, 2008 at 7:08am

High BP was how I ended up getting diagnosed with D. I started on 10mg Lisinopril and had bad side effects- very dizzy and unable to exercise. We split the dose and then lowered it so now I'm on 2.5mg once a day and have no side effects and mostly very good BP. I don't think it's a good idea to stop taking medication unless you are montioring yourself carefully. I use a BP machine to make sure my BP is under sontrol, but with that information, my doctor was happy to adjust the dose. Same with blood sugar. If you can show your doctor that you are doing well without as much insulin or oral medication, the doctor should be willing to make the adjustments. If not, I would find another doctor.

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Permalink Reply by lulu on May 9, 2008 at 11:04am

thanks for the reply i agree. I just recently made an appointment with a new doctor who specializes in natural medicine and helps with type 2 diabetes. I hope he can help her to stabilize the situation. She also started with lisinopril 10mg in the morning and metoprolol in the evening. It was driving her crazy. She was extremely dizzy with no energy, couldn't function clearly and just couldn't get out of bed in the morning. Plus her bp was going way too low. She was ending up in the emergency room constantly. The doctor wasn't listening and wanted her to stay on the med. We are thinking the change in eating habits and exercise has helped out a lot. She took herself off of lisinopril (and after the doctor admits yeah it probably wasn't needed) and is doing much better and now wants to get off of metoprolol 25 mg with a doctors supervision. We check her bp and glucose very closely. hopefully we will see what happens with the new doctor.

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Permalink Reply by Libby on May 9, 2008 at 11:57am

I don'y know how old your mom is but with elderly folks it is really important to see how they are doing on medication and to check for drug interactions. My dad is 92 and was on BP medication and a statin to lower his cholesterol. The statin was causing confusion and memory loss and when he was hospitalized at Christmas for an infection, his BP was 90 over 60. No wonder he was weak and dizzy. He stopped taking the statin and reduced his BP meds and is feeling much better.

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Permalink Reply by lulu on May 9, 2008 at 1:34pm

thanks libby my mom is actually only 46

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Permalink Reply by lulu on May 9, 2008 at 10:51am

I never knew that they give bp pill to help maintain kidneys. Thanks for the info. She was having very hard heartbeats and so they gave her metoprolol. But they never explained anything about them. Or if it interacts with insulin. We noticed that insulin also causes her to have rapid heartbeats.Which is why we are trying to look into gymnema pills.

Does anyone else have anything like that? My mom is on humalog and lantus.

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Permalink Reply by elaine peterson on May 9, 2008 at 11:00am

I am also on Humalog and Lantus and do notice slightly more rapid heartbeats very occasionally after dosing my Humalog. I want to say that it is after a correction dose of a few units.....it is not often or strong enough for me to have payed a lot of attention.

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