Hi OP, I hope you're still around to see this.
I was diagnosed with diabetes 22 months ago. My A1C was 10, my fasting blood glucose was 380.
I had been sort of halfheartedly thinking about the keto diet because I'd heard it was good for weight loss. I immediately went on keto because it made sense to me that reducing carbohydrates drastically would help control my diabetes.
A couple of weeks later I went to see the endocrinologist for the first time. She told me I could not stop all carbohydrates, that I had to go on three drugs plus insulin, and that because of one of the drugs, I would have to constantly eat carbohydrates or else the drug would put me into a coma from sudden plunges in blood glucose (the drug was "spiky" in its action).
I said fuck that, stayed on keto, went on two of the three drugs, frequently monitored my blood glucose level, saw that I was keeping my blood glucose in control with just the two drugs, soon saw that I didn't need one of the drugs any more, discontinued that, went a few more months and found that my blood glucose was stable enough that I could discontinue the third drug. In all that time, I never once went on insulin.
When I went back in at the seven month mark, my fasting and postprandial glucose were both in the 90s and my A1C had dropped to 5.7. Without drugs, without insulin.
As of about a month ago, I am no longer diagnosable as diabetic by any medical criteria. My A1C is 5.4, my fasting blood glucose is 80-85. If I eat a bunch of chocolate, i.e. sugar, my blood glucose spikes as high as 150-ish but is well below 140 by the two-hour mark. I can eat carbs now without any ill effect. I don't want to, because I don't want to risk becoming diabetic again.
This is what going hard-mode keto for not quite two years has accomplished.
If your diabetes is recent, you have a better chance of reversing it. If you've been diabetic for years and just didn't know it, it will still help control your blood sugar.
Beware that some of the medications they will try to put you on will absolutely force you to eat carbs, because if you don't, the medications can put you into a coma. If you are on one of those (glimepiride is one), then talk to your doc about getting off it and trying keto. If he refuses to help you, find another doctor. Mine wanted me on that and two other drugs plus insulin, and told me I'd have to eat 12 servings of carbohydrates per day to control the drug. It's insane. Following the standard medical advice will put you on a path for constantly increasing your insulin and medication dosages, and eventual amputations and an early death.
If you're not able to change your diet and insist on eating carbs all the time, then best of luck to you. Substitutes are a start but most are only a partial fix (not as good so you're always tempted to go back on the real full-carb thing).
Keto is there if you need it and want to fix the problem.
As far as sugar-free candies, you can make coconut clusters with some of the artificial sweeteners and they'll be pretty good. Maybe throw on some cocoa powder for that "chocolate" taste. Seriously dark chocolate (the 85% stuff) is fine to eat as long as you limit it.
>>15030
>>15037
True, it's an n=3 study, but it shows what can be done. The point of such studies is not "is this statistically significant", it's "here's what happens when these guys did this – spoiler: they didn't die, and in fact they got healthier".
I'm another example. I went from "you will absolutely be insulin dependent for life" to not needing or taking anything in five months. And I could have quit taking metformin at least a month earlier, probably even within the first month, but I was scared of what might happen because the docs were telling me "you must take these drugs". I've seen many more people post the same sort of story over on leddit's keto subleddit.
I mean, FFS, when I was diagnosed I had a 400-ish blood glucose level. By the time I bought my glucose meter, keto had dropped me to the 160s. By the time I made the rounds through all the doctors I was told to go to, keto had dropped me to the 110s with peaks in the 160s. By my six-month followup with the endocrinologist (seven months after dx) I was "normal" and the initial tests would have said I wasn't diabetic – only an insulin resistance test would have said, "holy fuckballs, this guy's insulin resistance is ridonkulous!" And now even my insulin resistance is down so far that I'm "normal" again.