I guess, specifically, I’m wondering if anyone here became aware they were potentially LADA well before symptoms? I’m just wondering if it is possible for people to have very long honeymoon phases, because the actual beginning wasn’t identified?
Maybe I’m not articulating myself properly. See, my situation is that, although I’ve been aware of having FBGs in the 90’s for 20 years, low 90’s way back, gradually increasing to mid to high 90’s in recent years, I was never tested beyond that because GP’s always considered that normal. So, the first A1C I ever had was a year ago, included in a very thorough health survey unrelated to symptoms of diabetes. So, had this insulin resistance/diabetes panel not been included, I would never have known that something was brewing.
My A1C was 5.7 and the only other abnormal value was an Anti-GAD Ab of 15!
There is no diabetes in my family history. My older brother (62 yo) tells me he has been diagnosed as pre-diabetic, but neither of my parents (Dad 91 and Mom 87) has been identified as pre-diabetic to the best of my knowledge. Maybe they’ve always had “normal” FBGs on labs so haven’t been looked at further.
I ran a home OGTT on myself with a glucose meter and was 193 at 1 hr and 143 at 2 hr. I used 75 g of dextrose (I’m a bit of a lab geek) to replicate the official OGTT. I should probably do an official to confirm.
A year ago, my PCP didn’t make a big deal of my labs, just said I was pre-diabetic and to eat fewer carbs, avoid processed and sugar. She didn’t talk about LADA at all.
After my home OGTT I began to look at that Ab again and got completely freaked out, found a new PCP (we moved) and had some labs repeated. I’d been LCHF for a good 6 weeks before these labs, didn’t know I should eat more carbs beforehand. The results were A1C 5.5%, insulin 3.5, C-peptide 0.8 and FBG 97 (US units). GAD65 and IA-2 Ab both 0. My PCP declared me no longer pre-diabetic! She doesn’t seem to know about LADA.
Without knowing what my insulin is doing under challenge, though, I don’t feel like this has been resolved (was hoping I’m pre type-2, that the antibody thing was a fluke). Testing PP, my values will go into pre-D range when challenged with “bad” carbs but they stay normal eating HFLC and even adding a little bad carbs, such as a slice of sprouted grain toast with my scrambled eggs, or 6 or 7 dark chocolate covered almonds. A little bit of potato in curry or even whole wheat pasta are tolerated and I stay in the normal range. My peak tends to be 1 hr and if I stay under 130 I feel I’m doing ok.
So, I’m wondering how long I might have been going on with this “pre-diabetic” situation without knowing it. And therein lies my question: Has anyone here stumbled into knowing they were headed towards LADA well before ever having awareness that there might be a problem?