How Lisa Dropped Her Blood Sugar By 100 Points With LADA While Eating Carbs
If you live with LADA, latent autoimmune diabetes in adults, and feel stuck on a blood sugar rollercoaster, you are not alone.
Lisa came to us with LADA and blood sugar spikes that regularly shot into the 300s. She had lost about 20 pounds unintentionally, felt like it aged her, and was constantly guessing her insulin doses. When she took enough insulin to cover the spike, her blood sugar crashed. When she tried to avoid lows, her numbers stayed high.
In this LADA blood sugar case study you will see how Lisa dropped her average blood sugar by more than 100 points, brought her fasting and post meal numbers into a healthy range, and reintroduced fruit without cutting carbs or going on more medication.
Lisa’s Starting Point With LADA, Blood Sugar Spikes, And Weight Loss
After her LADA diagnosis, Lisa did what most people are told to do. She worked with local dietitians and conventional doctors. She saw endocrinologists. She tried medications and supplements, including:
• Metformin, insulin, and Januvia
• Vitamin A, B, C, D
• Thiamine, collagen, iron, magnesium
She stayed active with walking and even jumping on a trampoline at home.
Despite her effort, her blood sugar was still:
• Shooting up into the 300s with very small amounts of carbs
• Crashing after large corrective doses of insulin
• Leaving her exhausted, underweight, and frustrated
To make things worse, she was told to cut out fruit, which made her feel even more deprived and disconnected from her body.
That is when she found The Pohlman Method and decided to try a different, root cause approach to LADA and blood sugar control.
Who We Are And Our Root Cause Blood Sugar Approach For LADA
I’m Isaac Pohlman, a registered dietitian, fellow person with type one diabetes, and the CEO of The Pohlman Institute. Our team helps clients all over the world:
• Balance blood sugar
• Lower A1C
• Calm blood sugar spikes and crashes
• Restore their health
Without cutting out carbs or relying only on medication.
Our framework has three main phases.
Finding your sweet spots for carbs, stress, and lifestyle so you can see fast improvements without feeling restricted.
Reviving your metabolism with personalized nutrition and lifestyle so you feel better while numbers improve.
Carb freedom by addressing deeper mineral imbalances and nervous system stress, often using tools like HTMA hair tissue mineral analysis.
Lisa’s story is a great example of how this works in real life for someone with LADA.
If you are ready to stabilize your blood sugar for good while eating carbs, and you want support, guidance, and accountability from a team that’s been in your shoes before, you can apply to work with me and my team here!
Step One: Calming An Overactive Stress Response That Drove Her Blood Sugar Up
Nearly every client with blood sugar problems also has a sensitive stress response. For Lisa this was very clear. Her body was:
• Releasing stress hormones easily
• Pushing blood sugar higher even with small amounts of carbs
• Reacting strongly to drops in blood sugar because her “normal” had become so high
On her nutrient test, Lisa had some of the highest sodium and potassium levels we had seen on an HTMA hair tissue mineral analysis. This was not because she was taking huge doses of salt or potassium supplements. It was because her body was burning through these minerals at a rapid pace due to chronic stress, fluctuating blood sugars, and a history of DKA, diabetic ketoacidosis.
When your stress system is this amped up, your body interprets any drop in blood sugar as a crisis. If someone without diabetes usually sits around 80 or 90 and drops 40 points, they end up in the 40s, which is a true low.
If someone like Lisa is hovering around 250 or 300, dropping 40 or 50 points does not put her into a medical low, but her body still reacts as if it is. She gets:
• Shakiness
• Dizziness
• Lightheadedness
• Anxiety
So she feels terrible at the very numbers she is trying to reach. We worked on:
• Calming her stress response with realistic changes to her routines
• Supporting her nervous system so her body did not constantly signal “emergency”
• Helping her gradually lower blood sugar targets in a way that felt safe
This allowed her body to accept more stable, lower numbers without triggering a flood of stress symptoms.
Step Two: Using Biofeedback To Improve Blood Sugar And How She Felt At The Same Time
Many LADA blood sugar plans focus only on the numbers. Our goal with Lisa was to improve her numbers and how she felt at those numbers. We used biofeedback, the signals her body was giving her, to guide every change. We tracked:
• Energy
• Sleep
• Mood
• Stress level
• Symptoms that felt like lows
At the same time, we adjusted:
• Meal combinations so that carbs, protein, and fats worked better together
• Timing of meals and snacks to keep her more stable
• Types of movement that helped her use blood sugar without leaving her drained
Instead of forcing her blood sugar down quickly and ignoring how she felt, we helped her land on combinations of food and daily activities that:
• Gently brought her numbers down
• Made her feel calmer, clearer, and more energized
• Were realistic to maintain long term
Balanced blood sugar is both a good reading and a good feeling. For Lisa, this was the only way the changes would last after our work together ended.
Step Three: Balancing Minerals With HTMA Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis
The third key piece was understanding Lisa’s mineral status with HTMA.
The HTMA, or hair tissue mineral analysis, measures mineral levels at the cellular level. While traditional blood work showed normal sodium and potassium, her HTMA revealed:
• Severe depletion at the cell level
• Extremely high turnover of sodium and potassium
• Deficiencies in calcium and copper
This pattern made sense given her:
• History of DKA, where the body uses enormous amounts of sodium, potassium, and magnesium
• Blood sugar swings between very high and low
• Sensitive stress response
We focused on two things, in this order.
Helping her body hold on to minerals more effectively
This involved both nutrition and lifestyle. Stress management, better sleep, and more stable blood sugar meant she was not burning through minerals as fast.
Replenishing the specific minerals she was low in
• Supporting copper so her body could raise calcium naturally
• Supporting calcium to help slow her system down so it was not constantly overactive
• Supporting overall mineral balance to improve insulin sensitivity and energy
Many people focus only on supplementing minerals. Lisa’s case showed how important it is to also help the body keep what it is already getting. When you combine both, you get a much bigger impact on blood sugar and how you feel.
Lisa’s Results Average Blood Sugar Down 100 Points And Fruit Back On The Menu
As Lisa worked through these three areas:
• Calming the stress response
• Using biofeedback to guide food and lifestyle
• Balancing minerals with HTMA and targeted support
Her numbers and symptoms changed significantly. She:
• Dropped her average blood sugar by more than 100 points
• Saw fasting readings in the low 70s
• Had post meal readings in the low 100s
• Felt comfortable and stable with blood sugar under 100
• Reintroduced fruit that she had been told to avoid, without spikes
• Gained back healthy weight and felt younger again
• Stopped having nighttime leg cramps that woke her up
• Felt healthy and confident with her LADA management
Most importantly, she no longer felt trapped on the blood sugar rollercoaster or afraid of what every small change might do.
Ready To Balance Your Blood Sugar With LADA Without Cutting Carbs
If you have LADA or type one diabetes and you are tired of:
• Blood sugar spikes and crashes
• Chasing numbers while feeling worse
• Being told to cut out carbs and fruit
• Feeling like your body is working against you
Lisa’s story is proof that a root cause approach can change things.
At The Pohlman Institute we help clients with LADA, and other blood sugar issues:
• Understand why their blood sugar is unstable
• Calm a sensitive stress response
• Balance minerals and metabolism with tools like HTMA
• Create a way of eating that works in real life, not just on paper
If you are ready to stabilize your blood sugar for good while eating carbs, and you want support, guidance, and accountability from a team that’s been in your shoes before, you can apply to work with me and my team here!
